Enough support?

One of my on-line friends said to me recently that she hopes my family is being more supportive during this pregnancy. I didn't really give it much thought until yesterday.

We live far away from our immediate families. Both of our families live in Australia. We live in northern Europe.

When we were pregnant with Kees, it was the same.

When we were pregnant with Freyja, we lived in Melbourne and our families lived in Adelaide and Perth (for those who don't know: Melbourne-Adelaide is about 800 km and Melbourne-Perth is about 3,000 km).

So we've always been a bit "on our own" when it came to pregnancies. For the day to day stuff of pregnancies it was just us, and for the planning stuff (like who will look after the baby when s/he was born) it was just us. This was pretty major stuff as Craig and I both had careers which meant our expected child would go to childcare instead of staying home or being with grandparents.

Support following the death of your child is important, but in those first few weeks there's not a whole lot that other people can do. We experienced the same with Freyja and Kees. We had to plan to funerals, and with Kees, bring him back to Adelaide for burial. We didn't need support for that.

We didn't hang around in Adelaide after Freyja's funeral nor after Kees' funeral.

I guess I've been thinking about how our families could have supported us and how they actually supported us. And maybe they've all tried their best to support us, but the truth is, their best hasn't really been good enough.

I've mentioned in some of my earlier blogs about the things they've said and done. And the problem is, the more they say and do (or not say or do) the worse it gets. It's a snowball -- my anger and resentment towards them for showing such a lack of sympathy and understanding, grows every time they do the wrong thing or say the wrong thing. And (if you can imagine) because we've had two children die over the last three years, there have been plenty of opportunities for the anger to snowball.

For example, my in-laws did not contact us for Kees' first birthday -- when confronted by Craig, their response was "we were too sad".

Similarly, my brother F does not remember either of my children's birthdays (or death-days). I truly believe that he does not know when these days are. I don't believe that he realises how important it is for us to remember these days. In two weeks it will be Freyja's birth/death day. It will have been three years since that awful day when she left us. If we are fortunate my parents and my sister L will remember. No-one else in our families will. Certainly none of our real-life friends will - it appears they all think it's best forgotten and put "behind us".

(Just a note: my parents do make efforts to support us. They just don't know what to do really. My sister L always calls us. Always. She's the only one who does really. She makes a real effort to keep in touch and find out what we're up to. Real life support is difficult because we are so far away from each other. Also because she has three gorgeous little girls. Her youngest is three months older than Freyja should have been. I often find this a very painful reminder of what should have been, and I don't cope well with it. So when we do see each other, it's ALWAYS overshadowed by what they have and what I don't have.)

Another classic instance occurred about 6 months after Freyja died.

My brother F is gay and "came out" about 6 months before Freyja died. My parents reacted very badly to this (they are fundamental Christians). About six months after Freyja died, Craig and I were visiting my parents, and I picked up a book from the coffee table. It was a book about parents who had gay children, and was written from their perspective. I turned some pages and read some of the responses. (I have never had any problems with homosexuality and my brother's revelation that he was gay didn't change a thing for me. However, I knew my parents were struggling with it.) One of the women who had written in the book wrote that when her son told her that he was gay, it was like "he had died for her". That's what she wrote: her son died for her when he told her he was gay. I was enormously offended by this and told my father so. He didn't understand. He did not understand at all why I was so offended by this statement. He could not see what I saw. He could not see that it wouldn't have mattered to me if my child was gay -- if s/he was alive and healthy that's really all that mattered.

That's the problem isn't it? People who haven't lost a child don't understand. And if they don't understand they don't really know how to be supportive. (I should mention that my dad is the chaplain at the local district hospital. It's his job to be comforting and understanding and supportive to strangers. Yet he failed miserably with me, his oldest daughter, when I lost first my daughter and then my son.)

During my pregnancy with Kees I had some friends here (in Amsterdam) who were supportive. In the normal, every-day way. They didn't shun me because I was a baby-lost mama. But they didn't talk to me about my lost baby Freyja either. They tried to be "normal" - the way we used to be. But even they couldn't cope any more when Kees died. They tried to do "normal" again and didn't understand when it wasn't working. We grew apart -- sometimes deliberately, sometimes naturally. I can't be friends with people who think it was all "meant to be". I can't be friends with people who think that it's been "long enough". They needed me to be the person I used to be. They couldn't see that I wasn't that person any longer. That it wasn't possible any more. (I looked for that person because I missed her too, but she's gone forever.) I can't be friends with those who don't believe me when I tell them something.

Just like I can't be close with family whose response to Freyja and Kees' death is pure selfishness. My in-laws were (and still are) so sad about losing Freyja and Kees that they don't have any time or capacity for us. My mum is so busy trying to cope with her own distress caused by my sister's divorce, my brother's gay-ness and my children's deaths, that she can't help me. My youngest sister and her then-boyfriend were so peeved that we did not invite her then-boyfriend to Freyja's funeral that they physically snubbed us. That the then-boyfriend, now life-partner, didn't bother coming to Kees' funeral. That they still snub us. Pure selfishness.

You see, it's all about them. It's all about how these things affect them. (Never mind that my sister is better off without her lying/cheating husband, or that my brother is happier now than he ever has been. Never mind that my children's death is irrevocable and will have far-reaching consequences for me and my husband for the rest of my life.)

So, support. Have I had any? Yes, fortunately I have.

When I was first pregnant with Freyja, I joined an on-line pregnancy community in Australia. I became a member of that community in February 2006. I was very fortunate that one of the many forums available to me was a forum for baby-lost mamas. When I lost Freyja, I joined that little group. Those women have been incredibly supportive of me over the last years. Some of them were able to attend Kees' funeral in 2008. Some of them have blogs as well.

And of course I have Craig. I've been so fortunate with my gorgeous husband. He's been my rock. He's kept me from falling, and sometimes, when I fall anyway, he picks me up and carries me if necessary. He drags me out of the pit that I often find myself in. He's been endlessly patient with me. I don't know how he's put up with this sniveling, sad, broken woman for so long.

I've been fortunate that I've been in a financial position to take time off from my job. That Craig and I have been able to take time off together to mourn our losses together. That we've been able to create new memories with our travels together. That we've been able to escape from the "real world" and explore another part of the world.

And now, I find that blogging is very therapeutic. I am so comforted when I express myself in my blog and get responses from other baby-lost mamas (and papas) who KNOW or who UNDERSTAND and who don't think I'm a freak. It's a relief to find that my normal is someone else's normal too. It's a relief to know that my anxiety and fears are ok. That my almost hermit-like behaviour is ok. That someone else out there (other than my darling husband) UNDERSTANDS.

I'm well aware that even if I am fortunate, and this child lives and becomes an integral part of our family, I will still need lots of support. I know that even if this third child lives, the grief I feel for the loss of my beautiful Freyja and Kees, the grief I still feel for my lost future, the loss of all that boundless hope and optimism, the heavy burdens which I carry -- I know that all won't just go away.

I know I'll still need support.

Fortunately I have what I need for the moment.