Lots of thoughts have been going around my head lately. I thought maybe writing them down might be helpful to me.
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Newsletters. When did it become "fashionable" to send a family newsletter to everyone you know?
Today we received two. One from my cousin S, and one from Craig's cousin J. The newsletter from S was in electronic form and came via email. The newsletter from J was in paper format and was (thank goodness) only one page long.
S has four children. The youngest is probably about 10/11 and the oldest is a teenager. J has two children. The youngest is 14 and the oldest is now probably about 17/18. Naturally these newsletters were all about their children. Naturally.
To add insult to injury, S visited my youngest sister earlier this year and met her youngest child. She wrote about this visit in her newsletter. She wrote in her newsletter about how "special" it was meet my sister's new child. I have no contact with this sister. I have not met this child. This child was born after Kees died and before Jet was conceived. My youngest sister has four children. I have no contact with her for various reasons (see earlier posts).
So, back to the newsletters.
What could possibly make these cousins think that we might be interested in reading pages (yes, the newsletter from S was many pages long) and pages about their children? Doesn't it occur to them that it might be insensitive to send a newsletter about their children to us?
Quite frankly, I think it doesn't. I honestly think these people don't spend even one SECOND thinking about who they should send their newsletter to. S just sent her electronic newsletter (complete with many photos of her children) to their designated email group. J included her paper newsletter with her christmas cards. They just send their newsletters to EVERYONE.
I sent my cousin S an abrupt email in response. (She sent her condolences upon hearing of Jet's death via text message, which I also find incredibly inappropriate.)
However, these newsletters only confirm (again) what I have long known.
People. Don't. Think.
So when they tell us that they "think of us often", actually they don't. We might pass through their thoughts in a fleeting manner, but they don't actually "think".
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We went to our physiotherapist, E, on Tuesday. We go twice a week. Craig has physiotherapy for his knee once a week, and I have physiotherapy for my back twice a week. It's a post pregnancy thing. My back takes a long time to recover after a pregnancy.
Our physiotherapist is a nice woman. She knows all about our children. Her sister's first child was stillborn at 26 weeks. She went on to have a healthy son, and a few weeks ago had her third child, a little girl. This little girl was born with a congenital heart defect, but it was surgically corrected four days after she was born.
We were talking about pregnancies and babies at our most recent appointment. E said something about how people generally expect a healthy baby during a pregnancy, but that we, upon Jet's death, must have expected his death somehow.
I just want to write this down once and for all. Although my pregnancy with Jet (and with Kees) was filled with FEAR (terror actually), I did not expect Jet to die. In fact, I fully expected him to live.
I don't think I actually know any woman who knowingly and willingly becomes pregnant with a child who she expects will die.
No. Woman. Does. That.
Things go wrong. Oh, we all know that too well. But we don't expect it.
In all three of my pregnancies, I knew all too well that things could go wrong, but I did not expect it to happen to me and my baby. I became pregnant with Kees expecting that he would be healthy and would live. I became pregnant with Jet expecting that he would be healthy and would live. In fact, I chose to become pregnant because I expected my children to live.
And you know why??? Because the doctors had told me so. They told me that there was no reason for Freyja's death. They told me it was just "bad luck". That it was statistics. That babies sometimes die for no reason. That she was the 1 in 140. They told me that Kees probably had a virus. They told me it was a coincidence that he died too. They told me his death was 1 in 40,000. They told me that there was no reason for it to happen again. They told me that these two previous deaths had no medical implications on future pregnancies. They told me there was no MEDICAL reason for me not to have any more pregnancies. THEY TOLD ME. But they were wrong.
Let me say it again. I fully expected that each one of my children would LIVE and LIVE LONG.
No woman - NO WOMAN IN THE WORLD - voluntarily enters into a pregnancy for NINE LONG BLOODY MONTHS, knowing that her child will die. I certainly did not. And I certainly did not do it THREE TIMES.
I do not have a disease. I do not have a condition. I do not have high blood pressure. I do not have diabetes. I do not have anything which makes pregnancy a risky venture either for me or for my babies. Nothing that the doctors know of. I have healthy pregnancies. The worst thing that happens to me during pregnancies is heartburn and insomnia. That's it.
So when people like our physiotherapist make the assumption that we must have been "less shocked" by, or "expecting", Jet's death, they are wrong. Very, very wrong. I feared his death. Oh, I feared his death. But I expected his life.
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Every night when I go to bed, I lie in bed and say to Craig that I want to go "home". Every night. Sometimes I don't say it to him, but I think it.
And it's a stupid thing to say. Because I am home. This is home. I don't have another home. This is the only home I have.
But I think maybe it's more than that. I think maybe I long for that place of my childhood. That place which is safe.
Remember when you were a child, and your whole world was like a bubble? As a child, you are protected from just about everything. Your parents create a safe environment for you.
I think that's what I'm longing for at night when I say that I want to go home. That safe place.
But of course it doesn't exist. Not any more. I was fortunate that it existed for me as a child. Too many people don't even have the memory of a safe place during their childhood.
My safe place, my bubble, disappeared forever when Freyja died. Gone in a flash. Just like a bubble I guess.
Now, every night, I lie in bed almost aching with longing for that safe place. For home. Every night.
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It's 3.36 in the morning here. I can't sleep.
I drank too much wine tonight. When I was younger, wine would put me to sleep and keep me asleep for about 8 or 9 hours. Now that doesn't happen any more. Now I wake up in the middle of the night with a hangover. In the middle of the night. I used to be able to drink a bottle of wine and wake up in the morning and go to work with hardly a sign of a hangover. Now I have two glasses of wine and I get a hangover. Although tonight I drank more than two glasses.
Craig doesn't like it when I drink. Because once I start, I never want to stop. Alcohol is an escape. For a few hours you can fade away. Your mind becomes less focused. You become less sharp. The pain somehow seems to become less.
It's all an illusion of course. I know that. I know it all too well. And I know myself too. I know why Craig fears me drinking too much. And he's right. I fear it too.
I was a single woman for a long time. I used to drink alone often. There used to be a stigma attached to that. Drinking alone. But nowadays so many people are single, alone, that drinking alone has become the norm. It's ironic that now that I'm no longer alone, no longer single, now that I able drink wine with my husband, now I can't do it any more. Because I'm scared that maybe one day I won't be able to stop. And that's what Craig is scared of too.
If only I could permanently live in that alcoholic haze. That haze where nothing seems to matter. But I can't.
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It's 3.43 in the morning now. I'd better go to bed.
