My friend Lou, from my last post, she had a big, healthy baby girl on Wednesday. Lucky, lucky Lou. xxx
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My teapot broke this morning. It was a special teapot and I'm very sad about it.
Craig said he opened the kitchen cupboard and it fell out -- onto the stone bench top.
My tea pot is stone -- it has a metal jacket which is lined with felt to insulate the stone pot. The metal jacket, which clips around the stone teapot, has 4 legs (oops, it has 3 legs - Craig just corrected me).
It was a gift from my aunt and her partner when I moved into this apartment in 2002. A house-warming gift. I loved it so much.
I remember when they were coming to visit me in my new apartment. I was desperately looking through my apartment for a coffee pot to serve coffee to them, but failed to find anything. So off I went, on my bike, cycling frantically to a shop a few streets away which specialised in tea and coffee. As I walked in, I saw my aunt, and heard her say to the shop assistant that the tea pot was for her niece - a house-warming gift. I said (as I closed the door behind me), yes, that's me, don't bother wrapping it!! We laughed about it a lot.
And the pot died today. It's not repairable. Craig says he will buy me a new one. But it won't be the same pot, and they're terribly expensive.
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I've been thinking recently - how will I do it?
How will I parent a living child, after I've only parented dead ones for more than three years?
I thought I knew what I was doing with Kees. I was so relieved when he was born alive that I let my fears go. Pretty quickly.
I don't think that I will be able to do that this time. Let my fears go that is.
I think I'm going to fear death for a long time. A very long time.
Other parents, they don't see their child as being so fragile. They don't see their child's death as being something real or something possible. Something that could actually happen. It's the unthinkable for them. That's what they all told me. When Kees died -- after we'd already buried Freyja. That it was "unthinkable" and "unimaginable". For me obviously it's neither unthinkable nor unimaginable -- it's reality. My reality. A reality filled with horror and fear and death.
Do you remember a time when death was surreal? It was like something so far away that it wasn't anything I had to worry about. Not for a long, long time. It didn't even register on my list of worries, and that list has always been pretty long (I'm a bit of a worrier). I remember that time. But that time was long ago. Before Freyja died.
Now I fear death always. I feared Freyja's death, but didn't really expect it to happen. I feared Kees' death and I really did expect that to happen. Not when it did, but before, I feared his death when he was inside me. When he was born it was like we'd beaten that. Beaten death. But we hadn't. Death won. Now I fear Craig's death. Not mine, but Craig's. Because I don't think I could survive without Craig. He is what has kept me going over these last few years.
So if I don't go mad in the next couple of weeks, and if this baby is born alive, how on earth am I going to be a good parent to a living child? How will I beat my fear? How will I live my life without letting fear of death ruin it? How can I parent a child with that overpowering fear hovering around me? How will I let myself love a child who I fully expect will die? How will I sleep at night without fear that when I wake up my child will be dead? How will I be able to be at home with my child if Craig is not there? How will I stop myself panicking every time my child sneezes or coughs? How will I be able to bathe my child without fearing that he will drown? How will I not go completely mad?
How?
This fear of death ... how on earth am I ever going to get over it? How will I ever let it go? When will this fear go away? Will it ever go away?
Or will I spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder for death ...
I am 36 weeks today. 14 days to go.
17 comments:
Mirne, I am sorry about your beautiful tea pot. I too broke something very dear to my heart a few weeks ago. Can you keep a peice of it at all?
I don't know how you will beat your fear of death. I have not yet and I still sleep in my girls rooms at night time. I believe that we will beat it eventully but until then we just have to live with it.
I am sorry I don't have the mgic answer. Know you are not alone in your fear x
Love your belly x
Carly x
I'm so afraid with you Mirne.
Oh Mirne. I just don't know. I know that I spend a fair amount of my time looking over my shoulder. I know that death is there. That it can take my daughter, my husband, my sister in the blink of an eye. That it will take them without a pause. That I cannot possibly hope to fight it or protect them.
I sometimes feel that other people know this but to them it is simply a theory. That their children could die. But I feel that I know it, like that knowledge pulses through my veins. There is no magical protection around my daughter. Sadly for me.
For me, I feel that acknowledging how little I can do against death helped. Like I just threw my hands up in surrender.
You look beautiful. xo
Look at your baby belly! I love the updated pics.
I have great advice other than try to live in the moment and not fear the future that has not yet come. Yeah, I know, easier said than done. I can only think back to those rotten, raw and crushing days of early grief when the only thing I could do was breathe through each second. Maybe there will be those panic filled moments you will have to breathe through, survive and then realize the moment is passed. I hope that death will leave you for a while, a very long while, and let you raise this baby boy for years and years and years until you are old and he is old. I hope during those years the fear fades away and peace and joy are able to fill the moments.
Lots of love and light.
Here's what I think...that losing Freyja and Kees will actually make you and your husband BETTER parents. You will appreciate what you have, never take anything for granted. And while fear will certainly always be lurking, so will great great joy.
First... what a beautiful picture!!! You both look so happy!
Even with your fear you and DH will be wonderful parents. There really is no right or wrong way to handle your fears. You just simply will find a balance that works for you and your son and your life together.
I have to agree with ezra'smommy - you and DH will probably be better parents than any child could ever dream of.
Mirne, I think all these things too. I'm so afraid of Aaron dying too. He is my rock and I don't know how I would do this 'living' crap without him. I feel so fragile now.
I can tell you that my son's fragility just scares the willies out of me too. When he sleeps, especially when he's on his back, I see Jordan laying dead in her coffin and it breaks me. I don't know how this fear will ever go away to be honest.
In terms of loving a child you fear will die. Toughy. I can tell you that I spent five and a half months loving my daughter who I knew was more than likely going to die. It was devastatingly hard but also easy. When they are in your arms and you're holding them they take you to that special 'mum/baby' place. I loved that little girl so much, despite the pain, despite all the horror. When I held her in my arms she was my perfect little girl and I was her mother.
I think you will bond. It'll still hurt like the dickens, but you'll love harder too. That's what these losses do to us. Make us love that much harder.
I wish I could give you a big hug.
xx
Mirne - I'm so very sad that you live with this fear. I really just can't imagine how strong it must be for you after losing both Freyja and Kees.
Know that so many are thinking of your family.
You guys are going to be wonderful parents to this little guy, just as you are wonderful parents to Freyja and Kees.
I haven't told you this before, but your blog was among the first I came across after losing Rose. You were very newly pregnant then, and I remember thinking - what a love this mom has for their children - that even in spit of all you endure in losing your babies, you had the courage to try again. I gave me hope that I might again find the strength to try again.
So much admiration for you. Sending you hugs across the miles. That pregnancy belly is gorgeous. :)
I agree with Ezra's mommy. You will no doubt be an awesome mother to this baby. I think once we lose our innocence about death, we will always feel it creeping behind our backs. I do remember when it was some distant thing, something I had a long while until I needed to worry about it.
I'm sure you've guessed I'm a worrier as well.
The fear will be there but perhaps, eventually you will be able to ignore it and enjoy every moment you have.
Also, babies are terribly hard NOT to fall in love with. I have so much faith in you.
Love, Lindsay
I fear death. I think we can never win from it. If someone is meant to go there is nothing anyone can do to stop it. I hear of babies being born on freeways, in trains, atop garbage bins and they all survive. Mine was so well taken care of and did not.
In India we say that if something breaks, especially something precious it is good. Whatever bad is about to happen has happened to that inanaimate object rather than to a living family member. I pray and hope that is true and that you bring home a beautiful healthy baby forever after.
I wish I had some answers about the fear. I think your losses have connected you very directly to something that most people are afraid of, but able to deny and rationalize.
And to echo what others have said here, you are a very good and loving mother already. You will be a wonderful mother to this new little one, even if you are afraid.
I can't really offer much that everyone else hasn't...there's nothing anyone can say that's going to make you go "Oh, well, that's true!" and not be afraid anymore. It's something you are going to have to live with...and I think, like the grief, it's just going to become more manageable with time.
Something did occur to me as I was reading this though...and that is that I *think*, just maybe, that little boy is going to be the one who teaches you how not to be afraid - or at least how not to be consumed by the fear. That's kind of the beautiful thing here - that baby doesn't have a clue what went before. He's just him. He'll be a baby and do normal baby things and then he'll be a little boy and do normal little boy things and he won't know that he's supposed to be extra careful or fearful. He'll just be who he is. And you, I think, will find a way to let him be who he is and not be so afraid. It may take awhile but I think it's possible?
Standing strong with you and believing the very very very best. Congratulations on the finish line nearing, and you look gorgeous.
I think that you will be a wonderful mum to your baby. A mum who never takes her child, the miracle that he is, for granted. A mum that understand how special and wonderful he is. I hope the next two weeks go by quickly and uneventfully for you.
I have the same fears. I had it for a long time growing up after my Dad passed away when I was 8. It eventually faded, but I must have been in my 20s. I thought I was "protected" from it happening again. I don't know what to tell you. I think that time and this new baby boy are the only things that can help.
I never feared death before Collin died. I never knew of any babies that died, so I always thought death came at a ripe and ready time, when people could say "at least he had a good life". Boy was I wrong. Death is the only thing I really, truly am afraid of now. Not me dying, but loved ones. Loved ones who shouldn't die. Yes, I'm afraid of spiders too, but you can squish them- you can't squish death.
Hoping you have an easy, uneventful two weeks left.
Mirne, you look so beautiful.
14 days... well, I guess it's 12 now because I'm late to this. Thinking of you in this incredibly hard time xxx
I'm overwhelmed by your story and your courage for telling it. I lost a baby May 19 and only recently happened across blogs by other mums who've suffered losing a baby. I hope and pray that you have a good delivery and a healthy baby. The joy he brings to you may be just enough to overcome that fear a bit as time passes. But my heart aches for you and how hard this must be. Lots and lots of prayers. I hope that all of us other mummas sending good thoughts and prayers gives you some comfort and strength in those horrible moments when you feel adrift. Pax.
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