Friends

I started writing this as a telepathic letter to my friends 5 weeks after our loss, one I never thought they would see. I am posting it here as an insight into how I felt. It is a bit all over the place as I was a bit of a mess. It has been 4 months now for me. 

If anyone reads this and can relate please say so in a comment below. If only one friend of someone who has lost a baby reads this, that’s one person who might have more of an idea of how to reach out to their friend in a way that is helpful to them…

If I can ask anything of my friends it is to be patient with me. When I say I am good or ok, I am lying but I am trying to be ok. It's odd that one little question that is so commonly asked, expected to be asked, is the reason for me that seeing people is so hard. How do you know when this is asked in vain, when a person doesn’t really want to know the answer, or if it is asked with the expectation that the answer will always be “good thanks”, as it is simply a social norm to ask and simply means “hello”. 

"How are you?" I have really struggled with this question the most. It is always the first thing that is said but doesn’t always mean HOW ARE YOU? I have witnessed hesitation in this question, as it is said without thought, it often means "hi". For me I can’t read if this hesitation means you just remembered I’m not ok and feel bad for asking, or you think I had forgotten my baby died and you just reminded me! Or your thinking “oh @#*! I didn’t mean to ask that, now she’s going to bang on about it again and probably cry!”. Because of this I have avoided people for a while. Who would understand that this question could be so hard? So you know I’m not ok or good. I really want to talk about it so please let me know if you REALLY mean how are you?

In the past I have been one of the people who don’t know what to say to even my closest friends in fear of making them upset if they don’t want to be upset. I assumed that when someone seems ok they possibly are and assumed they would just know they could talk to me at absolutely anytime, day or night, if they wanted to. I was so completely wrong about this. There is something about the topic of losing a baby that is taboo. People don’t know what to say, and sometimes people really can’t say the “right” thing. I know now though that checking if someone wants to talk to you and letting them know they can is the RIGHT thing to do. For me I’d really appreciate this and I can decide if you are the right person to talk to or if it’s the right time or not. Acknowledgment, understanding I’m grieving and knowing people haven’t forgotten is the best medicine on my road to healing. 

An example of the whirlwind going on inside my head:
“do they want to hear about it (again!) and how sad I am ALL the time....do they see it as a sad loss or something that was just meant to be and I need to move on.....do they want to deal with a friend who is a blubbering mess right now....will they feel uncomfortable....is it appropriate to keep talking about this, even more than once. Will they feel like I am a burden if I say I am sad (when they ask me how I am!) EVERY time I see them?”

Being that I have been the friend of someone that has lost, there are questions here I have also experienced:
“what if they aren’t thinking about it now and they don’t want to be, will asking them about it make them upset and they don’t want to be, will I know what to say if they do get upset?”
I can now say there isn’t a time when I am not thinking about our baby so asking me about it would be actually reassuring and acknowledging that I would be thinking about it. And if I don’t want to talk about it I will tell you. Even to know who would be ok with me talking when I need to, so I know I never have to pretend to forget.

It actually is not obvious who it is ok to talk about it with because there is always a lot of avoidance that I know is not to be cruel but because of uncertainty and kindness. I can say that if I get upset talking I am not upset with you, don’t feel guilty, If I'm upset I am still healing and sometimes its nice to have those moments with a friend who can give me a hug. In fact there are times I don’t want to feel ok. Pretending to be ok or the thought of ACTUALLY being ok to me says to me now I am happy to forget, and I’m not. And there is nothing you can say that will make me feel better about it so don’t worry about what to say. Knowing your just there is the only thing that makes this any easier.

Saying all this, there are definately some friends that are not the right people to talk to even though they are willing. In particular the ones who dont think I lost a "baby". They are unable to help and unintentionally make me feel more emotional and a disbelief for a thought process I will never understand! I'm starting to see why this subject is taboo now. But honestly, ask if I'm ok and I will talk if I want to. In most cases, even the "wrong" thing to say gives me some comfort as I know you care and are trying with me. And anyway, its not about a friend needing to say something, or anything. I dont need to be fixed. I just want someone who is happy to listen. I guess that is all I want at the end of this big longwinded letter.

Two very dear friends of mine did the best thing anyone could have done for me. We (probably they really) organised a catch up. They made it sound like it suited best for me to go see them. They told me later that day they decided I should get out of the house. I had a PANG of I cant believe you did that as I really didnt want to. It lasted 2 seconds before I realised how thoughtfully they did it and they really cared. They werent afraid to ask me how I felt, they didnt claim to know how I was feeling but didnt make me feel silly for it either. As I left one of them said (and I cant remember her words exactly) grieve but dont hide for to long...or something like that. This comment made me ball my eyes out the whole way home! Only because she was right. I can grieve but I have my kids to think of as well and staying in a slump indoors was no good for any of us.

Her comment stuck and after a much needed week away, I returned making an effort to get myself and the boys out.  The hardest thing I have ever done is take my boys out to see friends whilst balling my eyes out on the inside. To maintain composure was so so soooo hard. I could distract myself in a conversation, but in between I was exhausted by the constant fight with my emotions. But I did it. I stayed strong and it did get easier. This reminds me I really have to thank this friend of mine... There are other great friends to but this one really stuck with me.

I want to share bits of an email I sent a very special person who shares her own experience of this with me. I’m sharing because I want my friends to know what is happening for me. There is some sort of invisible wall of strange uneasiness and uncertainty that I don’t like having between me and my friends, whether they feel it to or it’s just me, at least on the first occasion.

"....At that stage where I feel when I catch up with people and they say a simple "how are you?" Inside I'm screaming no I'm not ok my insides are shredded how can I be ok, but I can only say no so many times before I have to "appear" to be moving on. So I say "ok" and cos most people are afraid of the topic and whether I'm going to turn into a puddle on the floor, they kinda breathe a sigh of relief and are so happy cos I'm "happy" now and then it's like it never happened. And then I realise I have to pretend that it didn't when I'm in company forever. Does that make sense? I find this so exhausting because there's not really a second that goes by when I don't think about it and I have waves of wanting to cry and I feel a sadness I've never felt before and a kind of alone that company won't fix and I have to be outwardly happy.

I've never understood for example with you of what this feels like or what to say so I am guilty of not knowing whether to ask if someone is REALLY ok incase I upset them. I kinda feel like I would like someone to reply to my "ok" with.."no seriously, I mean are you REALLY ok." So I can say sometimes "we'll actually I'm not really and thanks for acknowledging I did lose a baby and not some tissue or cells but a baby so I'm not just over it because I can smile and SAY I'm ok....All I can say is its probably getting easier to pretend I'm ok. I think cos it feels like a dream now. I think cos there's nothing to show for our loss it doesn't seem real"

From here I am writing this now...I did warn you my head was all over the place!

I find sometimes the person you think will really understand, and you feel like they are the one you want to talk about it with, because they will know the right things to say, really isn’t the right person at all. 

A very dear friend said to me upon me telling her how sad our loss had made me, "so, you feel like you lost a baby like this?" and nodded towards my son. Her look was one of disbelief, I didn’t get a chance to answer and she asked me no more about how I was going. In my head I said “of course I do, what the hell else did I lose a donkey!?! I thought about this after at least a night of my own disbelief and hurt as I thought she was the friend to talk to, and I have forgiven her for this. I realize that people just don’t understand what it is like to experience this kind of loss. Even though if I asked her when she started loving her two healthy children I know her answer would be right from the moment she found out she was pregnant. Some people who haven’t experienced this seem to think that love disappears because what was meant to be just was, so you get over it. If I asked her if she referred to her children in the first few weeks as babies or a bunch of cells I know the answer to this one too. 

A mother’s love bares no choice. A mother loves her baby as the baby they plan for, have dreams for, a sibling for their older children, a little bundle to dote over, the wonder of what the baby will look like, feel like, smell like, sound like. It is not just the physical baby a mummy loses, it is the hopes and dreams that go with it. We don’t even realize but we have a certain ‘expectation’ right from when we find out we are pregnant. Even if the only expectation was that a baby WILL be the end result of a pregnancy. 

These comments are not vindictive towards my friend in anyway. I love this girly to bits. She is great to talk with about things she knows about. I was wrong to assume that being a mother means you would know how you or anyone else might feel. As part of my dealing with this I need to understand all aspects. If I don’t I will only keep getting hurt in so many ways. But this has also inspired me to begin this blog, I would love to create an awareness and help ease this sense of taboo that comes with a miscarriage. If I can help my friends understand then that is a start to changing how people understand the sensitivity of this and therefore become less afraid of it.

I had another friend tell me to never write my baby's name on any Christmas cards that I send to her as she would throw them in the bin. When she explained her reasoning I understood what her reasons were, however perhaps asking me or telling me why it would make her feel uncomfortable would have been the way, then I could decide whether to send her a card at all, or leave my baby’s name off hers IF I was even going to add Willow's name.
I believe everyone deals with these situations in their own way, and it is their right to do what they need to feel connected with their angel. But I guess we need to know not to have an expectation as to how others will respond too, to save ourselves from hurt. The latter friend, in all OTHER aspects these comments are what I love about her as she is always to the point. She happens to be a very caring person who has experienced two of her own angel babies.

As I said in my first post here, I am guilty of being someone who has thought with the best intentions and the kindness of my heart...at least it was early, and heaven forbid I may have even said it to someone. I never could imagine what loosing a full term baby would feel like and I don’t ever want to. But it actually doesn’t ease the pain of loosing a baby at ANY stage. Once you have a positive test you have a baby, in your thoughts and plans it is definitely a baby, no matter what physical stage it is at. 

We saw our baby's heart beat at a mere 7 weeks, we saw a head, a spine and we even saw where our babies arms and legs were beginning to form. We heard the heart beat at 8 weeks and the feeling of a life growing inside me was very much alive and real. My weekly emails about my baby told me our baby was no longer an embryo but a fetus at our 8 week scan, and that the definition of fetus means "little one". Although not quite 2 centimeters that week, the embryonic tail was gone, and all organs, muscles, and nerves were beginning to function. The hands could bend at the wrist, and the feet began to lose their webbed appearance. Eyelids were beginning to cover the eyes. 

For those who didn’t understand how I could feel such sorrow, we lost a baby. Just because we didn’t get to physically hold her, we still lost a baby

I don't want to hear it was for the best, or they are in a better place now. I truly believe that our little angel would have brightened up our world and we would have loved our baby no matter what, we have a pretty damn good place here. It wasn't meant to be, we wanted our baby, she was meant to be with us.


Mummy cuddles to you my baby girl, you are with us in other ways

xxx