After Anabelle

The last time I wrote about my breastfeeding journey with Alexander I was in a pretty down place. 

My confidence, once restored after a wobbly start was again crushed after a health visitor clinic. If you remember Alexander had had an excessivley sickly two weeks and often distressed after his feeds. As a result he hadn't gained much weight and dropped below one of the percentile lines on the graph.  Instead of taking my list of concerns with an interest my health visitor appeared dismissive and just suggested that if he was being so sick I should be feeding him more to keep his weight up. Nevermind that my normally content baby was so often distressed. Thankfully my GP was far more interested and diagnosed a touch of reflux easily remedied with a few weeks of baby gaviscon; Alexander has been much better all round since. 

But the damage was done in that clinic. I went away feeling I wasn't doing enough for my son. Cue the start of a major breastfeeding wobble. 

There was a number of things going on. I'd already been feeling smothered by the whole breastfeeding thing. I wasn't sure if I really wanted to do it any more, I wasn't sure I was enjoying it enough; Alexander fed for up to and sometimes over an hour at a time, now I was worried that despite how long he fed that he wasn't getting enough. Guilt upon guilt. He had been having an expressed bottle every evening, but I was starting to struggle time and supply wise to get enough during the day. We were considering formula for that one feed, but the huge pressure surrounding breastfeeding had bit me on the bum and I was in turmoil. 

So I wrote a blog on all my frustrations. 

It didn't help my turmoil. Comments on my blog on added to my guilt. 

I was told formula fed babies were at greater risk of cot-death, amongst other things.  The days went by and I tormented myself more and more. How could I introduce formula now? My baby might die and it would be my fault.  Of all the statistics to spout to a bereaved mother is it not a little insensitive to highlight this one? I fear his death every. single. day. I check he is breathing multiple times a day, the first thing I look at if I wake before him is the flashing green light on his breathing monitor to confirm he is still alive, a few times in a week I even convince myself he is dead and my rational self cannot fight the irrational... in my mini-meltdowns Jon is often sent to check on our son because I'm too scared to go in case he is actually dead. 

The fear of my second child dying really really didn't need adding too.  

So way to go anonymous commenter; an already emotionally vulnerable bereaved mother pushed ever closer to the edge. 

We carried on as we were. Epic feeds, trying to express, feeling like I wasn't getting a break. I had a week or so where I started to dread every single feed; a few feeds I even found myself on the verge of panicking and clawing at pillows, counting to 10 and breathing deeply to get me through them.  Things surrounding feeding were not great. 

Just over a month ago I don't think I believed we would get to 3 months old with me still feeding him. I thought a falling weight gain would push us towards formula as well as my failing emotional state about it all. But here we are, a month later, still feeding and in a much better place about it. 

Jon and I made decisions which was right for our family. So there has been a change but I am happy and enjoying feeding him now, it feels special again. I've taken that pressure off myself and taken away the elements of feeding Alexander I wasn't comfortable with. 

Alexander is having around 6 feeds a day, one of these is a formula dreamfeed now. 

Jon gives him this as he was when it was expressed breast milk. The change to formula was seamless, he was completely un-bothered that it wasn't my milk in the bottle and there has been absolutely no fuss about it.  The relief and pressure taken off our day by not having to express now has been just what we needed. The initial guilt the first night he was given formula was enormous, but Jon took control and I've made my peace with it now. Regardless of what the militants might suggest I am not damaging my son with this decision. He is being fed; damaging would be starving him. My emotional health is important too; regardless of what some might say. 

Another biggy; I no longer make myself feed in public. I feed him in the car where possible or designated baby feeding rooms or otherwise he has an expressed bottle. We manage a plan around his feeds and I'm happy with this; happier that the worry of having to get a boob out in a restaurant or park bench.  There is no more working myself up and this solution really suits us.  I'm still expressing most days if I can, and this expressed milk comes out and about with us. 

His feeds are far quicker now; the hour has dropped to anything from 15 to 30 minutes on average. This has made a big difference too. 

A month ago I didn't believe I'd still be feeding him now; but we found the solutions for us to carry on. 

Now I can definitely see me feeding him up to and maybe beyond 6 months old - it doesn't feel such a huge challenge anymore. Six months old is so close now, we're already over half way there. I hope if I come up against another wobble that I have the confidence not to torment myself for so long again and just implement a change to make us all happy.  

That is happy including me. 

This has been the sort of week that maternity leave is made for! Lots of quality time spent with my gorgeous boy and filling our days with enjoyment, fun and laughter! So far resolutions four and six for 2012 are going well!

This week I have been cheerful because...

See we are busy bees and thriving!

Now if only there was a way to become a permanent stay at home Mummy!   

... is a phrase I'm beginning to loath the more I hear it.  I've blogged before on my disdain for the official terminology surrounding angel babies.

No-one, as far as I know, has used this phrase in relation to my family; but I've seen it time and again recently in relation to other people. And each time I see it, I cringe and get cross. I get cross because the implication is thoughtless at best. Down right derogatory at worst. 

Let's put this in to some context. For example; 'Caz had a stillbirth in June 2010'. 

So what is it about this sentence that is upsets me so much?

Because it is, as far as I'm concerned inaccurate, insensitive, deeply hurtful and offensive. 

I didn't just 'have a stillbirth'. I had a DAUGHTER. A baby girl. A person. Who, if it is insisted upon using the official terminology, happened to be stillborn. Or as I prefer my baby girl was born sleeping.  To merely describe her a stillbirth dehumanises her. A phrase so cold that it can't even be bothered to acknowledge the fact there was a baby involved at all. That in fact she is a real baby. Real. A person. My baby. Anabelle; not just an event that happened to me in June 2010. A person who came into my life forever. 

Urgh. Sometimes these things really get to me and I'm sure I'm not the only angel parent to feel this way. 

The Reasons to be Cheerful blog hop is one I couldn't bring myself to link to last year; I rarely had any emotional energy left in me to find things to be really be cheerful about. That is not to say I was constantly miserable; but being so constantly anxious doesn't lead to positivity. 

This year, in the spirit of my new positivity along with my new Picturing Twenty Twelve blog I've decided to find Reasons to be Cheerful and join in the blog hop when I remember. 

So this week, my reasons to be cheerful are: 

Its been a good week! 

For more reasons to be cheerful go and take a look at the blog hop over at Mummy From the Heart. 

Last night I watched the first episode of  Call the Midwife on iPlayer. 

There was a miracle; a stillborn baby lived.

Jon was unsure whether I would be able to watch Call the Midwife as I cannot cope with OBEM; due to the era the series is set, post war 1950s, infant mortality would probably be a given. As I've said previously, even is storyland I find it hard to sit through baby death. 

So I was watching it; scenes of overcrowding and poverty. Children being born at home in dirty conditions. Even though I knew it was acting I was a little shocked, realising how fortunate we are today with an established NHS (despite its faults) access to hospitals and mostly excellent care.  The NHS then was still in its fledgling days. 

Episode 1, some of the story went like this;

A lady, 30 (ish) weeks pregnant had a fall and went into labour. The parents were told it would be unlikely that their baby at such a small gestation would survive the birth and to prepare themselves for the worst. Facilities for caring for premature babies in the 1950s were not widely available, survival for such small babies was unusual. 

The baby arrived, grey and pale and declared dead. Placed aside in a dish and not even shown to the parents, not even told if their baby was a boy or a girl. Baby treated like a non-person. I found this treatment of the tiny baby and their family particularly difficult to watch. I'm so thankful that times have moved on significantly and the memories and bonds we were able to form with Anabelle. I cannot imagine not being allowed to meet my child simply because they were dead. 

But then what I found even harder to watch than that was the miracle.  The miracle that parents of all born sleeping babies wish so hard for. 

The dead baby cried. Five minutes after birth, from their discarded dish their baby came back to life. Swiftly wrapped up and reunited with his parents. 

Where was our miracle? Why can that only happen in story land?  

So Call the Midwife took me back to our silent delivery room. To those minutes where we desperately wished it to be a terrible mistake after Anabelle was born. Looking at her, holding her and willing her to breathe. To somehow be alive. To cry.  

Anabelle stayed dead. How am I ever going to really come to terms with it? My daughter is dead. Call the Midwife proved once again that real acceptance is still some way off. 

I was watching it jealous. How ridiculous is that? Jealous of a pretend couple getting to keep their pretend baby when we couldn't keep our real one. 

On Christmas day we had this photograph taken; Mummy, Daddy and Alexander on his first Christmas. 

I've struggled to call it a family photo. I struggle with calling us a family because I never feel complete. This photo is not complete. Anabelle is missing. Always missing. 

Referring to our little unit as a family feels somehow not quite right. But this is my family now isn't it. Is it completely wrong to say I find it so depressing? Depressing that everything is touched by sadness. Why is everything so bittersweet? Why has it always got to be a bit like this? 

Will I ever reach a true acceptance of our situation? True acceptance that my daughter actually died. That something so horrifically awful actually happened; that this is forever real. 

Sometimes I think I go into a renewed shock. Back at square one and utter disbelief, my mind unable to comprehend something so huge as my daughter dying.  

Apparently there are seven stages of grief; stage one being shock and seven acceptance and hope. Along the way over these last almost 19 months I've always been sat somewhere on the grief spectrum, going around in circles. I think we've even touched hope. Alexander was and is my hope, but I'm not sure I've ever really found a proper acceptance. Of course I know that this happened, I accept that it is real, but I have not accepted it is fair. I have not accepted how unjust it is that my baby died. I touch on angry often, even now. Does that make sense? 

I think the spectrum is now some sort of forever journey; who knows which stage I'll be sat on at any one time. Even if I find some sort of warped acceptance will I find acceptance forever, or just for a time before cycling the grief process all over again? Maybe my experience of the stages of grief is something I can think about again. 

So we're a family. Alternative as it is from the inside, Jon says I need to focus on what is now, and not what is passed. I have to somehow make my peace with referring to us as a family, without feeling guilty that by doing so Anabelle is forgotten or unacknowledged.  I know she is part of my family too, but I guess from the outside we look like a normal little family of three. 

A family of three plus a memory of one. My family is four.