After Anabelle

This is what my little girl sounded like, alive. 

This, the only recording we have of the sounds Anabelle could make. The beautiful sound of her little heart beating away. She sounds like a train doesn't she!

But then she stopped. She stopped beating and it is never, ever going to be OK.

A heart that should have long out-beat mine. I'm having one of those 'difficult to process this is actually my life' moments. 

Today is the first time I've listened to this since she died. For over two and a half years the recording has been safely stored away. The sound of her alive. A few days ago I got the urge to listen to her, my baby girl, after nearly three years.   

And it is painful. Because this little 34 second clip reminds me she really was alive. Of course I know that, but sometimes wonder if other people forget that she was alive even though she wasn't born. She died. Her little heart stopped and its the deafening silence that haunts me. 

We've been robbed of our daughter, our beautiful baby daughter. Xander has been robbed of his sister who he would have adored and there is a hole in our family forever. 

Driving my own Ferrari

The best way to get around Mothercare

Easter; all about resurrection, new life. 

Over this weekend I read this post by Beth Morey. I'd never thought of God as a bereaved parent before reading Beth's post. Her faith and outlook often challenge me to look at my own, to see things in a better way; but this time I'm struggling to get past that,  after three days Jesus rose from the dead. On a personal level, God had to wait just three days for his son to live.  Being a bereaved parent wasn't quite the same. Even though I know the purpose and bigger picture of Jesus death, I'm struggling to get past, that for us, no-one we love is raised from the dead. That Anabelle cannot be raised from the dead. Just three days of heartbreak wasn't an option for us. Forever. 

Beth, like me is a bereaved parent. Her firstborn, a little girl called Eve, was born asleep, she too has gone on to have a beautiful rainbow son. I often relate so much to Beth's posts, her writing is honest and so brave, and so full of faith. She explore areas of her grief and fears for the future that I know and feel but am not yet brave enough, ready enough to share here. 

And then there is her faith, I admire her faith in God, a faith I fail at daily.  I admire that in the face of her loss she is able to trust so deeply. This part of her post struck a chord with me.

"I couldn't feel God in the midst of all of the confusion and fear and pain, but I trusted that he was there. It was a tenuous, desperate trust, but it was trust all the same." 

That sentence, summed me up. How, over two and a half years later the cycle of anger at God vs. desperate trust in God is always there. Sometimes I'm in better places than others. 

My daughter's death pulled me back to God. After almost seven years of almost completely ignoring that part of my life it took my heart breaking, my daughter dying to go back to church. Most people don't understand this; they don't understand why I would run to a God that put time on my daughter's life before it had even really begun.

To be honest, I didn't completely understand it either, sometimes I still don't understand it when I'm in the midst of another cycle of anger and hurt. 

My trust is the so very desperate kind, I'm not very good at faith. An exemplar Christian I am not. Grief makes believing, makes trusting conflicting. I'm reminded of this post recently at Still Standing magazine, when so much of it rung true. Perfectly summarising the cycles of anger.

"Easy for you to say trust God, if you've never felt betrayed by the heavens themselves."

A glimmer of trust pulled me back to church, to a God I was so angry with, felt betrayed by, because I believed Anabelle to be in heaven. A faint, desperate glimmer of trust almost drowned out by pain, that I either believed that, clung onto that, or had nothing. So I continue to desperately trust, that although she can never be here, I'll hold her there. That God has promised me that. 

But for now, that is enough, a belief in heaven and believing my pain, hurt, grief will slowly be turned into something beautiful, that there is a purpose, that God is there. Desperate trust.

"Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted." Matthew 5 v. 4. 

Xander discovered he could peek under the cubicle walls at the pool!

Another visit to a park!

Its an end of an era.

A week ago, Xander had his last Mummy feed. 

It was a mutual decision, a natural end. He had been becoming less and less interested each evening over a period of three weeks. Lots of bobbing on and off me, swapping boob for dummy, looking around and then swapping dummy for boob again. The cycle repeating for a minute or two until he settled for his dummy and didn't want boob. I don't think he had been getting much milk really. 

So after a couple of weeks of this I decided to give it another week, and if he was still feeding like that to call it a day, and that day was last Thursday. He had his last little feed. I haven't offered again since and so far he hasn't asked for it either. 

Despite feeling quite emotional for the first few nights without Mummy feeds as part of his routine I am happy with this decision. I planned to stop around his 18 month mark anyway, but I'd rather it have been led by him, which is was in the end. He decided it was time to grow!

Because I knew it was likely to be our last feed I asked Jon to try and capture a photograph of the occasion. Which he did, and this special moment will be something I treasure forever. 

I can't believe how far we came; with the struggles in the beginning, feeling claustrophobic, battling with  the 'one bottle of formula a day' guilt, worrying it would be a slippery slope (it wasn't, he had one bottle a day for 5 months and then dropped that himself too), never mastering a shield free latch (which filled me with guilt too, but clearly wasn't at all a big deal when here we are 17 months later). Then realising I had fallen in love with this precious time with my boy. Feeding beyond 6 months, which in the beginning felt like an eternity away, never intending to be an extended breastfeeder but then feeding beyond 12 months and being led by my boy all of the way. Now here we are...

I'm hugely proud I fed Xander for 17 months. So far beyond all my expectations! 

Now my little baby is blossoming into a toddler, becoming more little boy and less baby every day and is finding a new routine. Although he'll always be my baby baby to me and Mummy couldn't be more proud of him. 

#17 Where did you go today?

Roath Park 

I've been fairly useless attempting to keep up with the 365 questions challenge. Infact I don't think I've done a relevant post so far this month. We've been busy; our birthdays and then Mother's Day. March is emotionally tricky. 

I wish today was Mother's Day. Today was a lovely perfect day. Nothing like last Sunday at all. Today we've had the sort of day I hoped we would have had last week, but emotion and raw grief took over. 

Today started with the boy waking up at 7.30am. Fairly early by his weekend standards recently! So we bought him into bed with us and had lovely morning baby snuggles with Cbeebies on in the background for Mummy and Daddy dozing purposes! 

After breakfast a little later Xander and I went off to church.  Today there was an inspirational guest speaker, Jade, who works with girls rescued from human trafficking and prostitution in Cyprus, as well as co-ordinating  The Night Shelter in Newport. The timing of her visit to our church this morning, following us meeting Joseph and homelessness in London was quite something. Joseph has remained on my mind. Just this week I have emailed St Mungo's, another homeless charity based in London. 

They had put a post on facebook asking people to refer in any sighting of homeless people so that they could try and reach them and find somewhere warm for them overnight over another cold snap recently. So I responded to the post and referred Joseph to them, describing where we had seen him,  but well aware that two weeks later he has probably moved on from that spot. I guess I'll never know what happens to him, but Jade's visit to church served to remind me again how huge homelessness is and all its other associated problems. The stories of trafficking she told us of, foreign girls, some young teenagers, kidnapped and forced into brothels were harrowing. A world wide problem, no just happening in Cyprus, it is happening in Newport too. Frightening stuff. My eyes really are being opened to vulnerable people right now. 

After church we went to my parents for our usual Sunday roast dinner, and after dinner, we decided the weather was unusually spring like and off we went to Roath Park for a family Sunday afternoon walk and feed the ducks.   Alexander clearly recognises he needs to be gentle and loving to animals. As a swan walked towards him, Xander said 'awww' as he does when he sees Fiz. However, Xander didn't grasp the concept of feeding the ducks, and didn't really want to share the bread with them! I think he ate more bread than the ducks did! 

After the ducks had been fed we had a little wander around, and let him have a play in the park, on the swings, slide and some weird bouncy seesaw! Fun and enjoyment all round. 

Too much fun for some maybe. Jon has now been asleep in his armchair for two hours since 7.00pm. Being 32 taking its toll as he heads towards middle-age clearly! *wink* 

All in all a lovely day. The sort of day I dream of for Mother's Day. Maybe next year I'll hold myself together long enough to.