After Anabelle

Like the time we went the Harvester and I was big and pregnant with Anabelle. That day I learned something about her; she did not like Kickin' Garlic Sauce! I ordered a chicken breast with chips and the sauce, my usual,  and after about ten mouthfuls she became very active. She was kicking and squirming and making me feel so uncomfortable! Dinner was cut quite short that Harvester trip out. I still order Kickin' Garlic Sauce and every time it makes me think of her, and this memory. 

Like the time we found out she was a girl. So ecstatically excited we were going to have a girl that we opened a bottle of pink champagne that evening and celebrated her and who she was going to be with our family. I even snuck a few sips of pink bubbles. 

Like the time I washed baby clothes for the very first time ever. After threatening premature labour at 31 weeks and being discharged from hospital I thought I should get a hospital bag ready. How ridiculously excited I was about all the tiny white and pink clothes on the airer and how proud I was to have them drying outside. 

She died before those clothes came off those airers. 

Our home was so busy getting ready for her, it was already so full of her and she never came home. 

Like this photo. The last photo of her alive. Here I am 32+2 weeks pregnant. Belle died at 32+4. 

We were so excited to be expecting our first baby. I didn't want to miss a moment. So I booked Sarah Stone and her Pregnancy Milestones and Newborn package. From my 12 weeks scan she visited every few weeks, taking photographs of my growing Belle-Bump. 

This day she hadn't turned up for our appointment. I phoned her and she had forgotten.  Of course she was hugely apologetic, it was fine, I was all set just to rearrange the date. But then in our chat I told her all about what had happened in the previous week, threatening premature labour and instead of setting a new date Sarah was like 'Oh my goodness, I'm coming over now to get these photographs of you incase this baby is coming early.' 

Oh how glad am I that she did. These are the last photographs of me pregnant with Belle. Look how happy we are, so fresh-faced we are. How unaware we were. How our world came crashing down around us just 48 hours after this set of photographs were taken.  Jon wasn't even supposed to be in this set of photographs. At 32 weeks it was just supposed to be another Mummy shoot; Jon was supposed to be part of the final shoot at 36 weeks. But after her threatened early escape we and Sarah decided that he should be in this shoot. Just incase. 

We thought just incase she came to soon. We never thought just incase she died too soon. 

36 weeks never came. And these photos mean the world to me. 

Memory. Capture Your Grief. Day 7. 

I didn't really know what to write about tonight. The subject brief of suggestions asked for books we had turned to in the wake of our grief or had helped in the life after our loss. I read a few 'grief' books - one I can't even remember the name of anymore (what does that tell you?!) and another about trying again and pregnancy after loss.  Both had their place at the time but neither particularly inspiring. 

After we lost Anabelle I didn't find myself lost in self-help books. 

But I did read blogs; other bereaved parents blogs. I immersed myself in other peoples loss; striving to find connections, finding people who felt like me, to read something I could relate to. 

Today I follow Still Standing Magazine - with its wonderful collection of different writers, from different backgrounds and different circumstances. All with one thing in common - bereaved parents. Regularly I read something there that I could've written myself, or a piece is posted that hits the nail on the head in a way I hadn't found the words for yet. Regularly I share a post from there. 

But still tonight I didn't really know what I wanted to share. Books. 

So I'm going to share this post...  about a book I've shared before. A book that touches on death through a children's story, oh so gently and beautifully. I discovered this book when I was pregnant with Alexander, when I was trying to figure out how he could possibly ever know his sister, or understand. 

At very almost four he certainly does know his sister. Oh how I agonised how he would know her. How she would be a fluid through this family. And now, ironically, I realise that Zac barely knows her all.  Not in the way that Alexander already did at his age. At 22 months Alexander would've been able to point to her photograph when asked 'Where was Belle', Zachary would just look at me blankly. When showed her photo Zachary will tell me 'Baby' rather than 'Belle'. What a failing on my part. Or maybe the agonising of her place in this family is over, when her place is so firmly set. Zachary will know her of course, but I guess his 'exposure rate' has been slower, less 'forced' than Alexander's maybe was in those early days. Her intrinsic part of our household is all around him, around us and very soon Zachary will start to know in just the same way as his big brother does. 

But Alexander, he knows he has a sister. He associates her with gardens and flowers and balloons. Xander regularly mentions her name and brings her into conversation; frequently adamant that if we've bought flowers then they're absolutely for Belle, not realising that sometimes it is ok to buy flowers for other people too. He knows. 

But he doesn't understand. Alexander is reaching a stage now where he is questioning that what is real, and that what is pretend. Sometimes recently he has been confused which category Belle fits in to. He is beginning in his own way to question why he can't see Belle and if she is just an imagination. Some of these conversations have been painful for me, even in his innocence. He is trying to figure out the complexities of his family and I guess will soon begin to learn a bit more about what death means. Death that has been a constant in his life from the moment he was born.  

He knows his sister died but he doesn't know what died means. How can he at barely even four? For now I guess he simply needs to know dead is not the same as pretend, that is his sister is real, that he can see her photograph and visit her garden, but he cannot see her, because she died. We've been very careful to be simply truthful and factual about it, about her, even though I have no idea if we're getting it right. 

Books. Capturing Your Grief. Day 6. 

Small said, 'But what about when we're dead and gone, would you love me then, does love go on?'

Large held Small snug as they looked out at the night, at the moon in the dark and the stars shining bright. 'Small, look at the stars - how they shine and glow, but some of those stars died a long time ago.'

'Still they shine in the evening skies, love, like starlight, never dies.'

I've experienced more kindness and empathy on this journey than I have deliberate insensitivity. Sure there have been times when people have hurt me, very much so. There were relationships lost and relationships changed.  But there were also relationships strengthened and formed. Those are the relationships that have stuck the course, roll with me, roll with it and continue extending their empathy on the continually moving journey of grief; even 5 years and 3 months on. 

I've been lucky that my group of friends and extended circle of acquaintances have treated me well for the most part. I have lost count of the number of 'saw this and thought of you' links and gifts have been sent my way; both for Anabelle and my two little rainbow boys.  Every single one touches me greatly. 

I guess it helped from very early on that I started blogging. 

I was uncomfortably honest here. I was raw, my innermost grief has spilled into these pages. I shared the blog, I bravely shared it to my Facebook; to my friends and family, to everyone that remotely knew me. I left no-one in any doubt how hard I was grieving, how utterly destroyed I felt, how huge a gap Belle had left in my life.   I'm sure I have made everyone extremely uncomfortable at times how vocal I am about my pain. 

But it raised awareness. Not just about my pain, but other bereaved parents too. 

People realised it couldn't be fixed. That Belle didn't just die and it hurt for a while, but that I lost her forever and forever I will grieve what should have been. It made them think of others they knew too. 

Over these last few years I have had numerous messages from other people; some of my friends and acquaintances who had other friends or co-workers whose babies have died. Messages asking me what could they do to show they cared, to show they remembered. Messages asking me if they could share my blog with their recently bereaved friend. Messages telling me that my blog had helped them know how to behave for their friend. Messages from people who desperately wanted to show their empathy. 

My photograph today is of a sympathy card we were sent from my Mumsnet Antenatal online group after Anabelle died. We were sent so many sympathy cards, so so many, but few stuck out. Most were cards aimed at the death of an old person, or a few had the word daughter on; but even they didn't look like cards for a baby. How could they, when it isn't very mainstream for someones baby to die. 

But this card, this card touched me. Before I even knew what I needed in terms of empathy and understanding my grief from other people, a group of women I had never met got it so completely right.  

It was pink, it looked like it should be for my baby and the biggest thing of all? Her name. They had used her name. 

And right there she was validated. She existed, she had an identity and someone else with this homemade card made such an effort to show me that she mattered. 

Even today the greatest empathy comes from those who mention Belle within conversation. Or make me feel comfortable enough to know I'm able to talk about my little girl without making them feel uncomfortable. I'm lucky that I can use her name often within my family and friendship groups and friends still ask me new questions about her and our experience, or ask me with concern how I'm going to feel if they know something might be emotionally tricky for me. Anabelle is included. And that is empathy. 

Today I'll finish with a Wish List, with its many lessons in empathy, that I found posted on the Sands forum in those early days after Anabelle had died. 

Empathy. Capture Your Grief. Day 5. 

There is no denying that grief has taken me to the darkest of dark places of myself. I've been a me that I could no longer recognise, a me that felt things I didn't know I could feel. It was frightening, at times this life After Anabelle has been frightening. A mind, a being so out of control with grief.

Darkness swallows you whole. I fell down a black hole and drowned under that darkness for such a long time. It felt impossible to escape. At times I didn't even want to escape it; I let the weight of it sit on me, a shattered heart struggling to find a reason to try and live. 

And then that glimmer of hope appeared. A rainbow was on its way. We didn't dare to believe it could really come true. 

But he did; my beautiful Rainbow Xander shone a magnificent healing light through our lives and darkness. That boy saved me from myself. 

He will be four next week. That light has circled this family for four beautiful years and shone brighter still when our smallest Zac arrived too. Those boys glued those broken pieces of heart together again and remain the glue that holds me together whenever I feel broken. 

Some things may never be healed, there will never be true wholeness again but rainbow light is what keeps me winning; even when I don't think I can anymore at all. Darkness still has its patches, that is well documented here but at the moment I feel like I'm winning and Light is on my side.

Dark and Light. Capture Your Grief. Day 4.

Anabelle Violet Morgan 

I'm doing this project in honour of her. The empty space in my life. The silent baby that left the loudest noise. Grief is noisy. All consuming loud. So this babyloss awareness month, capturing grief is for her. An unapologising opportunity to #saytheirname, say her name. My Belle, my Anabelle Violet. 

Anabelle who set the precedent for our naming 'rules'. A long name that could be shortened to a cute short name. A middle name for any girl that would be a flower or plant. A middle name for any boy would be a family name. 

Anabelle. And the moment my life irreparably changed in a way I never expected. Where grief became my normal and death infiltrated all of my being.  Where immeasurable shattered pieces of life learnt to live again. 

The journey After Anabelle has been long, but short, slow, but fast, so painful, but so joyful, so black, but so colourful. It has been so many contradictions, a life of two extremes that somehow learn to meet in the middle. 

It is a life in honour of her. Living, determined to live, even when I didn't believe I could, didn't know I could.

The journey After Anabelle keeps evolving, keeps changing, keeps learning. It is healing and still has so much left to heal. It is this. 

In Honour. Capture Your Grief. Day 3. 

Today the project directs us to set a new intention, inspiration towards the next path of grief and healing. But the truth is I don't really know why I'm doing this, or what I want out of taking part in Capture Your Grief. Mostly I guess my intention was to just set aside half an hour or so out of my evening to reconnect with my blog. 

I write so much less than I used to and it has become a bit of a neglected space. 

Writing and posting has become centred all around those important dates or more difficult times of the year. The in-between times have become a celebration of Anabelle's rainbow brothers or a lull. This summer has been a lull. 

Sometimes I need to write and a post forms in my head as I try and organise my thoughts, fears, anxieties, grief. The post never gets written, I'm distracted by life and the moment passes. Sometimes I'm not even brave enough to 'write it out-loud' anymore. 

But healing for me has been writing. Releasing words to a page to let it go. At least for that moment. 

So I just thought I would see where each prompt on each day of this month took me. Giving my mind the space, the permission, the time, to write a post, explore some more parts of grief my life still holds. Will always hold. 

The sun was late to appear this morning, the mist and cloud dominated the sky line and our area. Even if the sun had been there to capture I wouldn't have been well enough to go into the cold outside air to take it. This week I've been afflicted with a stinking cold and chest infection. The sun was late to burn into the sky  and I was late to rise too. Quite fitting really. 

So instead of a photo of the sun-rise, or lack there of, I'm sharing a photo of where I was at sunrise this morning; our home. 

We put this plaque up on Anabelle's 4th Birthday. We had owned the house for a month and were still five months off moving in, but we named the house for our girl on her birthday anyhow. 

Anabelle was never here. 

But she moved with us. 

When we discovered the house we were offering on was number 21 it had felt like a sign; that although we were moving away from the home where Anabelle had been, albeit only inside me, this new house had her with us too. Number 21, her number, her birthday. It felt only right that the house should be named Mehefin, June, in honour of her birthday and of course a bell for Belle. How many little girls can say a house was named for them?! 

Our house, her house. Her existence, her place in this family is ever present in this house and home. Her existence greets us at the front door, everyone at the front door, every time we arrive here. Our home, her home. 

At sunrise I was in my 21 Mehefin home this morning; I was finding the boys outfits for the day, for Jon to dress them and take them to my parents, before crawling back into bed to try and sleep illness away. 

October 1st 2015 has been mostly slept away, but I feel so much better for it this evening.  Tomorrow, God-willing, there will be another Sunrise. 

Sunrise. Capture Your Grief. Day 1.