5 months

We collected Jet's ashes yesterday. A little urn that we got to take home. One day we'll bury it with Kees and Freyja.

That's all we get. His ashes in an urn.

:::

Today is 5 months.

Five months since my sweet Jet was born.

Five months since I looked into his beautiful eyes.

Five months since Craig and I cried tears of joy.

Five months since I thought I could start healing.

Five months since I first saw Freyja and Kees' little brother -- our second son.

Five months.

A visit to the doctor

Craig and I went to visit our GP today. Our monthly appointment.

You may remember we changed our GP in August last year because the GP we were seeing was unhappy with the way things were. See this post.

Anyway, we changed our GP - but stayed in the same practice. A very nice young female doctor. Craig and I both liked her immediately when we first saw her after Jet was born and died.

This morning we walked in for our appointment and the first thing she told us was that she was pregnant.

Great. Not.

So she discussed with us that we might want to change GP's. That she understands that we might not be comfortable with her. She's right. I won't be comfortable. I'll be sad. I'll be angry. In fact I'll be filled with rage. Rage that her baby will probably be fine and will live. Rage that my babies all died. So we'll probably have to change GP's again.

She had also been in touch with various genetic specialists to discuss how we will proceed once Jet's autopsy results are known. She was surprised to find out that obtaining autopsy results take six months or longer. We're not surprised of course because we've been through all this before. She was surprised to find out that Freyja had been born in Australia. (Why, oh, why, does no-one ever read their notes/files properly??? They have a copy of Freyja's post-mortem results on file. I swear I have told every doctor I have ever seen in this country about ten times where Freyja was born. But they just don't listen.)

Anyway, she told us that the doctors and geneticists who she had spoken with had all expressed their frustrations that there is no international protocol or even a national protocol with respect to post-mortem results relating to sudden and/or unexpected infant deaths.

I was so sad. I just started crying.

Of course I know that there is no such protocol. Whether it's national or international. I know that. Of course I know that. I have three dead children. Why is she telling us this like she expects us to be surprised like she was surprised?

Doesn't she know that as parents of three dead children we know way too much about this? Doesn't she know???

Doesn't she know that I wish that every time a baby dies in the world, that post-mortem investigations should be compulsary?

Doesn't she know that I wish all the information gathered from post-mortems are done in accordance with an international protocol?

Doesn't she know that I wish all this information was available on an international data-base? A data-base which should be added to on a daily basis, whenever babies die. A data-base which should eventually answer questions. Questions which parents have been asking for way too long. Our questions, about why our children died, which may be answered one day if they have an international protocol and an international data-base.

She doesn't think. Just like most other people. She might be a good GP, but she doesn't think.

:::

On a positive note, my brother is coming to visit tomorrow.

He's broken up with his partner and decided that instead of moping around by himself in Sydney, he'd come to the cold and snow in Amsterdam. (I'm sure he's very sad about the break-up, but nowadays I always think that as long as no-one has died or is dying, it can't be too bad.)

I'm looking forward to seeing him.

It's never over

And by that I mean the following: the births and deaths of my children have affected my life in such a profound and truly terrible way, that I sometimes feel it will never end. It will never be over.

:::

We were away this week. Sometime ago, a certain international credit card company was offering a special on certain 4* and 5* hotels here in Europe, at massively reduced prices, so Craig and I decided to take them up on their offer. We went to a lovely hotel in Luxembourg city and then on to Chantilly, just north of Paris, France.

As you might know, Craig and I are widely travelled. We have travelled extensively together, but we also travelled extensively before we got together. And I've noticed that I've become a very spoiled traveller. By this I mean that sometimes we go to places or see places which others perceive as beautiful or wonderful or marvelous, but which we see as nice. That's it: just nice. Luxembourg city is like that. The LP guide-book describes it as a fairy-tale city, but I see it as just another city. Perhaps because I live in a wonderfully fairy-tale city, or because I've been to many, many beautiful cities around the world.

Anyway, our trip ended early. We drove across to France, to Chantilly, to our 5* hotel, but were very disappointed. In a typically French way, this hotel may have been 5* when they opened it 30 years ago, but it certainly isn't today. And NO-ONE spoke English. I know that the French have a reputation (well deserved in my view), but I thought that I'd gotten used to the French. It appears that I haven't. I found them rude and arrogant. And even when they clearly knew that we did not speak French (although Craig gets by), they refuse to speak anything other than French with us. In a 5* hotel. What a joke.

Then we had car problems. A hose came undone and lots of fluid necessary to the car escaped. We went to the LR dealer in Chantilly who told us (without even looking at the car) that they were *busy* and could we come back in February. Seriously. Amazingly arrogant. (It's a gift really ... I wish I had it ... that utter arrogance.)

So we decided we'd had it with France, the French and their arrogance, and drove home. We stopped at one of our LR dealerships in the southern part of the Netherlands, where we know the main guy's name, and he kindly got one of his mechanics to look at our problem. As we thought, it was a hose which had come undone. Forty-five minutes later the car was fixed and we were on our way back to Amsterdam.

We were happy to be home. Blair was happy to see us at home. We brought back several presents for him -- I believe there is a real advantage to being an only cat in a dead-baby family.

:::

But back to it never being over.

I am not the same person I was before all this dead-baby stuff began. (I say "began" because it happened again and again and again.)

I am physically not the same person. I have put on 25+ kilos since Freyja died. I always had a very slim physique, to the extent that my parents used to worry that I didn't eat enough! Ha! That's certainly not the case now. I eat for comfort. Truly comfort eating. But it doesn't comfort me. Of course not. It just adds weight to me. I'm fortunate that I'm tall - very tall - so that the kilos are nicely spread across my body.

I am mentally/emotionally not the same person. I used to be a lawyer dealing with high pressure international transactions. Working 80+ hours a week. Earning lots and lots of money. Now I get scared when the phone rings. Now I am filled with RAGE when colleagues pretend nothing bad ever happened. When they pretend that my children were never born or died. I can no longer work professionally with people who have not even acknowledged the births and deaths of my sons.

I can no longer separate the personal and professional me. I can no longer control my anger. My feelings about the births and deaths of my children override *all* other feelings. I can laugh at something funny Craig says or does, I can go to the cinema and watch a funny film, I can (sometimes) read a book and enjoy it. If I can concentrate long enough, if I really try to focus, I can do all these things. (Although sometimes I can't concentrate or focus, so then we just walk out of the cinema half-way through the movie.) But these things are fleeting. They are temporary.

The dead babies are always there. The dead babies never go away. My feelings associated with those births and deaths -- they haven't gone. They're just below the surface. I don't even need to scratch the surface to find those feelings -- they truly are just there.

A few nights ago in Luxembourg, in our lovely hotel, I was sad. It was more than sad really. I was devastated. I was devastated by the disaster which is my life, our life. I was crying and crying, and Craig was holding me, as he always does. I cried for hours. I kept him awake for hours. Because it will never end, you see. Those dead babies, they'll always be there. Always. It's never going to be over.

I am never going to get my life back. Craig will never get his life back. This is it. This is our life. And what a truly shit life it is.

And changes keep happening. I haven't been back to work since Jet died. And in a few months, my employer will no longer be legally required to employ me. So I will be fired. But Craig and I rely on that money to live. That's our sole income (remember Craig's job ended at the end of November 2009). It scares me a lot. What will we do? Will we stay here in Amsterdam? Will we go back to Australia? Will the apartment sell if we put it on the market?? The real estate market is very depressed here, and I'm concerned that we won't be able to sell for the amount we require. What will we do? Where will we go? What will we do when we get there? What is going to happen in our life?

I used to thrive on this sort of stuff. I used to be a bit of an adventurer. I used to be up for any challenge. Now I just want to hide in my apartment, pull the blanket over my head, and pretend that everything is ok.

We should never have been in this position. We should not be in this position. It's all so very, very wrong.

My career, of which I was once so very proud, and with which I used to be so happy, should not be ending like this. And it is ending. Of course it is.

Our future should be certain, not a complete question mark. I should not be living in fear of each day, each week, each month. I should be settled in my life, not fearing what the hell will happen next in it.

I am 41 years old and I am scared of life.

I feel like it never ends. It's never over.

4 months

Yesterday was four months since our sweet Jet died. Four months. Time flies. Yet I can close my eyes and remember those days like they happened yesterday.

Four months since I held my sweet Jet in my arms. Four months since I said goodbye to being the parent of a living child. Four months since I said goodbye to my children forever.

:::

As for the new year. Well it started with a bang. Literally.

In the Netherlands it is legal to buy and set off fireworks. We bought some ourselves. Only a few, because I think the amount of money which is spent on fireworks is *outrageous*.

This story states that this year in the Netherlands alone, people spent up to EUR 64 million on fireworks for new year's eve. And that's not the government, no, that's just the people.

And that's just in the Netherlands. Imagine the total INTERNATIONALLY. Bloody terrible.

What an enormous waste of money. Just think of all the research into SIDS/stillbirth which could be funded by such amounts of money ... it just makes me want to cry.

So I lay in my bed on Thursday evening and was woken by the fireworks. As you may know, we live in the centre of Amsterdam, and literally thousands of fireworks were exploding all around us. Debris from the fireworks was falling on our roof -- we could hear it clearly. And all I could think whilst this was happening was, what a shameful waste of money. Maybe my children would not have died if some of this money had been spent on research.

:::

In Australia recently, a young toddler died in a car crash. She was peacefully strapped in and sleeping in a car which was crashed into by some men who had just committed several armed robberies. This toddler died purely because her parents were driving their car in the wrong place at the wrong time. See this story. The story is entitled "Young Life Lost".

And of course it's terrible.

But what's even more terrible is that there are hundreds, thousands of babies dying all the time, lots of young lives lost, yet no-one sees their deaths. No-one but their parents and immediate family.

How come their tragic stories are not front page news?? How come?

Why isn't there more public awareness about their deaths???

Why isn't more being done to prevent these deaths?? Why isn't EVERYTHING being done to prevent their deaths???

:::

I guess I want to know why it's ok to spend millions and millions on something so wasteful and fleeting as *fireworks*.

And I want to know why it's front page news when *one* baby dies tragically in a car accident when thousands of babies are dying every year and NO-ONE is doing anything about it. People don't even know about it.

Why?