Update

Well, you haven't heard from me for a few weeks. I don't have anything to say. Nothing new. It's all the same. Dead babies, dead babies, dead babies.

It's nearly xmas. It's nearly 2010. 2009 has been Jet's year. Soon that year will be gone. Just like Jet is gone. Just like Freyja went. Just like Kees went.

People keep on getting pregnant. They keep on having babies. Even baby lost mums. And they don't tell me. They don't tell me that they're pregnant and then they don't tell me that they had their babies. They simply don't contact me. They cheered for me and hoped for me when I was pregnant, and they sent me a "sympathy" email (or a card if I was lucky) when Jet died, but then I didn't hear from them again. Even they (baby lost mums) want to pretend everything is ok once they get their rainbow babies. I'm just a very scary reminder of how lucky they are. And they don't want that reminder.

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Craig and I have been out and about these last few weeks.

We went to the UK for a few days. We took our new (used) car off-roading. My first time ever off-roading and it was fun. We got stuck in the mud and needed to be pushed out by fellow off-roaders, but that was also fun, and I was there with my camera to record the event.

We drove around Wiltshire in the UK for four days (including the off-roading) and visited lots of lovely towns and historical sites. It was COLD COLD COLD. (Our new, very expensive, car battery proved to be worth its price tag as the car started every morning no matter how cold it was.) Fortunately it was also dry, so the cold was ok. I've included a photo of us at Stonehenge -- my first visit to that very awesome place, although Craig had been there before.

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Then we were home for a few days in Amsterdam, which Blair was very happy about, before heading off again. This time to visit some xmas markets in Germany. That was a trip we'd been planning for a long time. Even before Jet was conceived. The plan was of course that Jet would be with us for this trip, but unfortunately that wasn't the case. Nevertheless, we enjoyed our trip. Despite seeing families and children and babies everywhere, we both enjoyed our xmas market experience in Germany. We visited the markets in Nuremberg (a gorgeous city where we experienced our first snow of the winter), Heidelberg, Dusseldorf and Cologne. Very nice and we didn't even spend too much money!

Everywhere we went, I kept seeing babies in their prams, snuggled up in their warm sleeping bags, and thinking that should be Jet. That should be Craig pushing Jet through the crowds. But also every baby I saw, if they were sleeping, I thought they were dead. They looked dead. That's how our babies looked when they were dead. They just looked like they were sleeping. That's why we can never have another baby in our house. Because neither Craig nor I could ever close our eyes again. Because every sleeping baby looks like a dead baby to us.

Anyway, we're home now. We came home from Germany yesterday. Blair was ecstatic. And other than a night away from home just after Christmas, we'll be home for the next three weeks.

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Today we're going to put up the xmas tree. We bought an imitation tree last year after Blair distributed pine needles all over the apartment the year before. So we're going to drag everything from the storage room and set up our xmas tree.

I like xmas with my husband. I like not being with my extended family or Craig's extended family. I don't want to see other people's children around the xmas tree opening their gifts. I don't know that I will ever want to see that again.

People keep asking us if we're "going home" for xmas. They don't realise that we are home. That this is our home for now.

"Home" is certainly not where other people's children are living and happy. Where I'm expected to share that happiness. Where I'm expected to be happy for other people because their children are not dead. Because their children are alive.

Home is here, with my husband, with my cat, where my children can be mentioned openly. Where I can cry without making others feel uncomfortable. Where my children are more than just a photo.

This is where home is, and this is where Craig and I will have our xmas.