After Anabelle

Blogging for six years there isn't much that has been left unspoken.  I've always been open about our grief and the ongoing pain of Anabelle's absence from our lives. 

I've been open about her. In those very early days I shared some of our carefully selected photographs of her, even though it initially terrified me to do so. Terrified because I was scared they would offend someone, or that people wouldn't be very kind. 

Then I decided I didn't care who I offended. It hurt me more not to be able to share her. 

It still hurts me. I think that is why I'm a complete over-sharer of my boys. Frequent and regular photos shared of them on Instagram and Facebook. Because I can; they are here, alive, growing and that is so beautiful. I take many photographs every day, thousands upon thousands a year. Recording each moment that I can, because I can! All their photos feel like a little celebration. I'm so grateful that I can continue taking photos of them. 

We took around 70 photos of Anabelle. And those will never be enough. Never enough, but all we have. We've shared around 10 of her photos on my facebook albums. There are 2 photographs of her I've used regularly here and elsewhere too. But there are still many photographs of Anabelle that I haven't shared. And won't ever share. 

Because if I'm honest, they are too graphic and scary for public consumption. Her broken and battered skin, puffy and bleeding eyes. Nothing like newborn baby photos should look like. Even over the course of the twelve hours we kept her with us, taking photographs periodically from beginning to end, her deterioration after being exposed to the outside was evident. 

Her photos, her, she is so precious and beautiful to me but my fragile heart couldn't take any spiteful or unkind remarks from others or even thoughts about her. Because I know, I know from experience and comments early on in my blogging days that sometimes people just cannot even begin to try and understand. And so they don't. Not everyone can manage empathy. 

I wish we could've taken more. If we could go back now we would take more. Taken some differently. Captured so many more of her small details. But we were in daze, in shock. At least we had the foresight to take photos. Clicking away trying to get anything of her. But it was never going to be enough. 

Oh the benefit of hindsight and photography experience now.  

Tonight I've been crying as I've typed this. 

I've looked at some photos of Anabelle that I haven't looked at for such a long time. I wish she was alive and it hurts. 

I'm going to share a new one. I'm taking a deep breath as I do. You see, this is my most precious, favourite photo of all. My tiny baby girl sleeping on my chest.  Some select people will have already seen it once before. But today is about the unspoken. I'm choosing the unseen.

Please be kind. 

Normalising grief. Baring a little bit more of me.  

Capture Your Grief. Day 5. The Unspoken.

Already two days behind. The demands of a new baby, keeping on top of a rainbow children filled house, choosing sleep over finding the time to blog. I knew it would be harder to make myself make time for this this year! 

Support Circles. 

I think nearly everyone in the grief community, would agree that in the aftermath of unfathomable profound grief, all your relationships take a battering to one extent or another.  

Marriages, partnerships, friendships, family links. 

There is so much truth in the saying finding out who your real friends are.

Some relationships falter, some relationships fail, but some will weather well and come out stronger than ever.  Finding out who your real friends are. 

Some people cannot cope with your grief and drift away quietly. Some people unbelievably betray you. Some relationships are so irreparably damaged that there is no going back. Some will over time start to recover and paper over the cracks, but will never be the same again. We're cautious with our trust now. Secondary losses. (Click to open)

We've been there.

Some friendships and family links took a battering. 

And it hurt.  Some people we miss. Some people we didn't. Some people we realised we were better off without. 

But the people you're left with, the ones that had the strength of character to weather the storm with you, to hold you together, to be a shoulder to cry on, to be a person to rant and rave at, to be the person you could take it out on, to be the person that tried so very hard to understand you; they are beautiful thing. 

Finding our who your real friends are. Finding out the family you can rely on, lean on. 

People you might not have expected it to be. People who kept loving you even when you weren't very loveable. Who keep loving you when you're not very loveable. 

A long-suffering husband, parents. Those who've seen me at my rock bottom worst and never gave up on me, even when I've pushed their love and support away. Closed in on myself, lashed out and let grief devour. Jon, Mum and Dad, unfaltering, always there. 

In those early days leaning heavily into online grief support charity networks. Bereaved parents networks. Finding people who had lived it too. I lived through a virtual support network for the first 18 months after Belle died, posting almost daily on the Sands forum or Mumsnet. And then I found I didn't feel like it was a good fit anymore. I wasn't there anymore, I couldn't immerse myself in such raw grief anymore, it wasn't helping me heal. I spend little time immersed in online bereaved parent networks at all these days. They had their time. They're still there in the background, I still dip in and out of the facebook groups from time to time, other Mum's a similar length along this grief journey as me, but I've noticed I'm not really there in that place so much online anymore. 

There was an undeniable shift in friendship groups. Before friends. In the midst of it all friends. Friends who accepted me as I was then, and as I am now; good days, bad days and all those in-between days. New best friends. After friends. Friends who didn't know the old me but were there at the beginning of life After Anabelle. Fellow bereaved parent friends, who have their own stories, own dead children too. Sands events and Rainbow Baby coffee mornings. Reaching out and making real life links with people who've been there too. Newer friends. More recent links. People who may not even know that much, or anything, about our grief.

Support Circles (Click to open) 

I've been lucky. Many of my relationships survived. There are people I can lean on. People who really want to know me still. And that is so important because grief doesn't end. It changes, it shifts, but there is no end.  

Support circles. They are the core to surviving. 

Capture Your Grief 2016. Day 4. Support Circles.

There are simply no words to convey the magnitude of what it felt like. That moment we were told our daughter was dead inside me. No heartbeat. 

Wednesday 16th June 2010. 

We had gone to the hospital because I couldn't feel her. Really, I think I already knew way before we heard those words. We were taken into a side room on labour ward. A midwife tried to listen. A Doctor was called. An archaic old ultrasound machine was pulled in. The Doctor looked. He said the machine wasn't clear. Still no-one had actually said what was wrong. We were taken to the x-ray and ultrasound department. A sonographer looked, and looked. She indicated to her colleague for a second opinion. There was a silent nod. And I knew, before they said anything at all, I knew. 

There is no heartbeat. 

I cannot remember exactly what they said. All I heard was no heartbeat. 

Barely before she had finished her sentence, before the gel had been wiped from my tummy, Jon was across the room and scooped me in his arms. And we crumpled. Guttural broken sobs. 

I have very little recollection of the sequence of events that day after this. The world was spinning and shattering around us. I have no idea how long the staff left us in that scan room, clinging to eachother. I know eventually we were taken back to labour ward and into Room 4. The Room where Anabelle would be born five days later. I was sick. Another Doctor came to see us, explained what was going to happen next. Induction and Labour. He said it was better that way, better for my recovery and future pregnancies. A different more senior midwife came to look after us. I was given a tablet. We were sent home with instructions. It was all a blur. Those days between her death and birth are all a blur. Time moved differently.  I was sick a lot over these next few days. 

Sent home to wait for something to happen. Still pregnant but not. 

We waited for something to happen. Nothing happened. 

It all felt unbearably cruel. I wanted her out but not all at the same time. 

We went to my parents - and there we stayed until after her funeral. 

I couldn't bare the sight of me. Mirrors had to be covered around the house, I couldn't look at my pregnant shape anymore. The bump I had been loving so much was now beyond painful. I was so scared. 

Then on the Saturday morning I was admitted onto the labour ward for the next part of the induction. Labour ward where despite best efforts it was inevitable that I would hear other women in labour and their babies arriving crying. 

Staff were kind. I was set up on the morphine drip and told not to be brave; to press the button that would administer a set dose of morphine whenever I wanted it. I realise now that morphine was much less for pain management and much more about sedating me somewhat. Numbing me to the horrific reality I was living through. 

The midwife looking after us that morning had been in the same position as me, with her own sleeping baby. I was astounded she could do this job. 

I don't remember how the day passed.

We were in a self-contained labour room. A sofa pull-out bed for Jon, a fridge, a kettle, a shower room. I don't think I realised at the time that we weren't in any old labour room. I realise now it was 'the room' that was used for families like us. 

Twenty-four hours nothing happened.

The same started again Sunday morning, still waiting. Father's Day.

How utterly unbearable for Jon. That his first Father's Day was spent in that room, waiting for his dead daughter to arrive. 

Coming up to 7.00pm that evening Belle still wasn't on her way. I still wasn't in labour. They were going to break my waters and give me overnight, but if I still wasn't in labour by the morning then I would be having a c-section. 

They broke my waters and within minutes it all kicked off. Fast and thick contractions. 

It was only on reading my notes a few months later that I realised how quickly I did dilate and labour after this. Labour was recorded as 5 hours and 8 minutes. 

She arrived. The loudest of silences. Part of me died with her. 

And then, in the afternoon of that day, after all of that. We had to leave hospital without her. And it was that moment that broke me once and for all. Empty. Broken-hearted. Changed forever. 

Capture Your Grief. Day 3. What It Felt Like. 

Anabelle Violet Morgan.

Sometimes it just feels really good to be able to write down her name. 

Anabelle Violet Morgan. Our Belle. 

Our firstborn. Our daughter. The only daughter we'll have. 

The only daughter we'll have is really beginning to sink in now.  I'm not ready yet to explore the finality of that here. But I will in time. It needs processing but not yet. 

We were so excited to be having a little girl.

Anabelle Violet. Named by her Daddy.

She was nearly Violet. It was up there on the first name choice list along with Anabelle.

She could've been Violet Ivy. Isn't it strange when you think of the variation of name choices that were considered for your children?! To think a different decision would've given them a completely different identity.

But it was Belle that won it. Deciding that Belle was such a pretty short name, that Anabelle would be spelt with the emphasis on Belle rather than Anna; so we dropped an 'n'. And kept Violet as a middle name.

And so began our naming rules. Any girls we may have had from then would have had a flower based middle name. Even though no more girls were to be. 

Years before children were even on the agenda, I had always assumed, taken for granted that one of them would be a girl. I assumed I would have some of each. Doesn't every one? 

It could never have occurred to me that I would indeed have a daughter, but I wouldn't get to keep her. My only daughter. 

If she was here today she would be six. She would be in Year 2 of school. The top of infants. No doubt feeling like the very big girl.  She would be a big sister to three little boys and feeling like Queen Bee. I imagine she would mother hen them. 

It is occurring to me more and more that I have no idea who a six year old girl is. I can't imagine her as six, I can't picture her as six, because I've never had a six year old. In those early years I could imagine her baby-ness. But recently, I've realised that is where she stayed - in my minds eye. My tiny baby girl. 

Born just into the 21st June 2010.

Summer solstice baby. 

00:08

It was a Monday. The day before had been Father's Day. Her head was actually born on Father's Day, but it took around 15 minutes for that final contraction, that final push for her body to follow. 

4lb 5oz. 

45cm.

And you forget don't you, how tiny they are when they are born. 

Lucas is 10 weeks old now, and already, the tiny 6lb 8oz he was is getting beyond me. It blows my mind how very very little and light he felt, and that Belle was over 2lb smaller and 5cm shorter again. 

My tiny girl. I wish six years later I could really remember the weight of her, the size of her. I wish I could feel it. 

To this day I'm still more bothered by baby girls than I am by older girls, girls the same age as Anabelle. Of course they make me wonder but its baby girls that still fill me with great anxiety, sadness, and a ball of grief that threatens to overflow. Longing for the baby girl I could only hold for the briefest of times. Still after six years my immediate reaction is to avoid newborn girls. Six years later I'm still working on over-riding these feelings. But sometimes it is still all too much. 

We have a daughter. Her name is Belle. 

Capture Your Grief 2016. Day 2. Who Are They. 

I was awake, up, but I wasn't outside.  If I'm honest I forgot. Earlier in the week I had every intention of getting up and taking a walk up the hill to the park overlooking our house, to sit and see the day and sunrise in. I thought I would have time to do that on a Saturday, with no school run, no chaotic weekday start. But then Lucas's swim session was rearranged from Thursday afternoon to Saturday morning and the days start focus was changed. 

So, at 7.14am (when my BBC weather app tells me was sunrise today), I was just about getting in the shower. I'd already pulled the boys outfits out for the day, organised swimming gear for Lucas and Zachary (who also had a lesson today in the afternoon) and had 45 minutes left to shower, dress, feed Luc and get out of the door to get to his swim on time. Today we've run around, swim lesson, to buying new shoes for the boys, to picking up a heated airer, getting stuck in bonkers traffic in Cardiff, racing to get Zachy to his swimming lesson. Until finally hitting a break at around 4.30pm; but then filling it with sorting out washing, searching for next size up clothes in the garage, sorting out under the kitchen sink and rolling into bedtime routine. It is only in the evenings we often get to take a pause these days. Tonight I've used my pause to watch Strictly. And now, I'm here. Watching Luc stir in his chair and knowing 'my' time is limited.  

The here and now 2016 life is so very busy now.

And we wouldn't have it any other way, life is good. 

But the busier our lives get, especially now we have an extra little person again, the less time there is to consciously grieve. And grieve we still do. Ironic as it may seem, each extra rainbow baby has made her absence even more noticeable to me. Somehow instead of closing the gap in our lives, our children make it feel in some part bigger. I feel her missing, right there like an ache in my chest, every day. Sometimes we need consciously allow ourselves to process beyond the day-to-day. 

Tonight I've read through some of the posts I wrote for Capture Your Grief last year. Last year this project really forced me the opportunity to reflect on where we were and where we are. It forced me to explore parts of grief I'd hidden away. Each title prompt delved into me and picked apart an issue I didn't even realise I needed to process or process again if I had blogged it before. Grief is ever evolving, moving, walking beside us always. 

So Sunrise Dedication. Today on the first of October 2016 I'm going to try and take part in this project again. For me. The intention is Belle and I time. Because last year I felt refreshed for doing it and it was only by doing it that I realised how much I needed it, even when I was feeling in a good place. I don't know if I'll manage to blog on time every day, infact, it is most likely I'll fall behind. But I am going to try and get to the end, eventually, again. 

Capture Your Grief 2016. Day 1. Sunrise Dedication. 

Alexander has surpassed another milestone Anabelle never got to see. 

He has started school!  

I remember how emotional I felt two years ago, on what would've been her first day at school; another day, another date stolen from us. Two years ago there was no neatly folded uniform ready for the morning, no school bag ready by the door, no excited child about the new lunch bag they were going to be able to take to school tomorrow. 

Two years ago I felt crushed because my baby girl didn't get to start school. 

Fast-forward two years and I'm emotional for the completely opposite set of circumstances.  This time my baby is starting school! I'm excited for him, beyond happy that he and we get to share this important and huge milestone. But wow, emotional - we're marking the end of his baby-hood days. Four years, ten months, three weeks of glorious infancy days. 

Now my Big is a fully-fledged school boy. 

He is ready, so ready. Every single day over the summer holidays he asked how many sleeps until he could go back to school. Last Thursday, on being told he was going to school today he actually squealed he was so excited! 

Tomorrow, after just two days of just mornings to settle in, he goes all day. 

Tomorrow morning I know his highlight will be taking all his new bags with him. His Transformer's lunch bag, his Transformer's P.E bag to keep in his locker with his kit in, his new book bag for bringing those reading books home. Xander feels like he is so grown up now he is in Reception, he is so excited to be in the big school and I'm excited for him too. This year I'm looking forward him learning to read to me - those reading books and reading journals to fill in coming home in his new book bag. 

Tomorrow; the first all-day of at least twelve years, and probably more, of full-time school. 

Tomorrow I have to share him a little bit more. Let him go to discover the world and himself a little bit more. 

A new chapter and an end of an era.

Dearest Xander, 

Last Thursday you started RECEPTION. Just for the mornings for those first two days. You were completely unfazed by the new class and your new teacher. If there was any hesitation that first morning it was so fleeting that if I had blinked I would have missed it. As soon as Mr Butcher took you by the hand you were off into class without a hint of a backwards glance. 

Tomorrow morning you will go to school and you'll be there ALL day. You're a big boy in Reception now, and that means starting school at 8.50am and staying there until 3.05pm. No more coming home at dinner time. 

You are more than ready for this new adventure, this new chapter. I know you have already been in nursery every morning for the last almost two years. But somehow, you going to school full days feels different. I feel so immensely proud and emotional in equal measure. You've grown, matured and blossomed into a wonderful little boy - you love learning, you love school, you have a thirst to absorb as much knowledge and information as you can. You are ready to be in school all day.

But I can't help but feel a little sad that now school will get the most of you.  Indeed probably the best of you while you arrive home over-tired, exhausted, over-sensitive as you adjust to a whole day somewhere else, with higher expectation of you than there is at home. Weekends will be more precious than ever my darling. They will be our days with you. 

Tomorrow marks the end of an era. You are a little boy now. Not a baby anymore. 

Tomorrow is a new chapter with those baby days behind us and you taking your first step into school age child-hood. I'm sad about all the week-time fun that you'll miss out on at home now with me, Zac and Luc.  But I know you're ready to go and do the bigger boy things now; baby and toddler classes are far too babyish for you - I've noticed you getting bored, you are ready to grow. You are ready, even if I am not! 

But although I will miss you at home, I'm so excited for you too. I can't wait for you to come home and tell me all about your days. I can't wait to discover all the things you are going to learn to do this year. We're going to be with you every step of the way, always behind you, encouraging you and spurring you on. 

You're going to have a wonderful time in school, in Reception. 

Beautiful boy. As we get ready to share you with the big wide world a whole lot more, know that we love you and we're so proud. 

One more step along the world you go. 

Always our baby, even when you're Big. 

Mummy and Daddy xx