Not a practice baby

I went to the ob today again. My regular fortnightly appointment. Everything looks good, although for some strange reason I haven't put on any weight in the last fortnight -- none. Not even 100 grams! Ob seemed to think this was ok, but if I haven't put on any weight next fortnight I'll be getting worried.

I've been getting some pressure from my mother and my sister L about breast feeding. I happened to mention to them over the last month or so that I was considering BF'ing this baby.

I don't want to open up a discussion on my blog about what is best. I tend to consider that what's best for mum is best for baby. Kees was bottle-fed and thrived! As I mentioned in my last post, he put on 2.5 kg in 7 weeks. A big boy my baby Kees.

Anyway, I've thought I might give BF'ing a go this time, mainly for the closeness and the bond which I hope would be the result.

With Kees our reasons for choosing to bottle feed were multiple. I was going back to work full-time 10 weeks after his birth and Craig would be a stay-at-home dad. So we were keen to grow a bond between father and son. In addition we wanted to get Craig into a night-time feeding routine with Kees, which they'd worked out perfectly -- despite 3-hour feeds. I also went onto medication after Kees' birth as we were very concerned about possible post-natal depression. If I had BF'd, medication would not have been an option.

Every time I come out of a discussion with either my sister L or my mum, I feel like I did something wrong with Kees. That he died because I didn't BF him. That they're advising me now with this baby because I failed with Kees. Like he was my practice baby or something.

Not surprisingly when I got off sk.ype with my mum last time, I was crying my eyes out.

Do they really think that I'm stupid? Do they really think that I didn't examine all the options? Do they really think I chose a course of action which was not in the best interest of my son?? Sometimes I wonder.

So now I'm getting it from both of them. "Encouraging" me to BF this baby.

For us a major consideration is that we share this baby's care pretty much 50/50. We both want to be involved as much as possible.

In addition, we're both very much aware that our anxiety levels with this baby will be incredibly high. And this is something that neither my mum nor my sister have any idea about. I mentioned it to them both, and they dismissed it with a wave of the hands. "Oh, we'll just have to hope that doesn't happen." Right.

I don't want to spend my days and nights looking at my baby's chest for his breathing. I don't want to be scared to fall asleep at night wondering if my baby will be alive in the morning. I don't want to wake up to hear Craig screaming "he's dead ... he's not breathing" again. I don't ever want to see my husband performing CPR on our dead baby again.

I suspect (if this baby boy is born alive) that much of his early childhood will be with me hovering in the background wondering if he is still alive, if he's ok, if he's ill, if he's slept enough, if he's big enough, etc, etc. I suspect I might be a very anxious mother. And I suspect that the anxiety will rear it's very ugly head the second he comes into this world.

I don't want to go on to medication following the birth of this baby boy. I really don't. I just want to be me. But I don't want to be so anxious that I make myself ill. So we may very well choose not to BF simply because it's better for my baby boy's mother to be medicated to stop her from becoming ill from anxiety.

My mum and my sister don't understand what I worry about. They really don't. They're very loyal to me and of course they mourn the loss of my children. But they don't understand my deep fears. They don't understand that I still fear the death of this baby. They don't understand that I'm not "happy" now that I have this pregnancy. They don't understand that I'm anxious about everything. They mean well but they simply don't understand.

What they should know is that Kees was not a "practice" baby. They should know that I would never choose a course of action which is detrimental to my children. They should know that I only want what is best for them.

BF'ing may not be an option for me. And if it's not, that's ok. I'm ok with that. Craig and I have discussed this. We've researched it. We were so happy that Kees thrived on his formula. We used to love giving him his bottle and watching him guzzle it all down. Sometimes he drank too much too quickly and he'd erupt like a fountain and vomit half of it up again! Greedy little boy ...

I don't feel any misgivings about possibly bottle-feeding Kees' little brother. Neither does Craig. I don't want to have this discussion any more with my mum or my sister. Kees was not a practice baby. He was my son. I know all too well that he didn't die because of something I did or did not do.

Baby clothes

I did it. Or rather, we did it.

On the weekend I was feeling so lost and sad, I felt that I had to do something ... something positive. So Craig said, "why don't we get some of Kees' things down out of storage?"

He brought down Kees' lovely blue cot with the mattress and all of the storage boxes with toys and clothes and sheets and things.

We had to completely rearrange our spare room. We rearranged it twice! Because everything did not fit, so we had to compromise. We vacuumed the carpet about six times ... the carpet is a vile dark blue and we have a ginger cat ... every time we moved something the cat had to come and investigate!

In the end Kees' little wardrobe had to be moved into Craig's study because it just would not fit into the spare room. But the study is right next to the spare room, so hopefully it won't be too awkward. Fortunately it doesn't take up too much space in Craig's study (where he works every day from home).

Today Craig and I sorted through all of Kees' beautiful clothes. That was hard. Very sad. All those beautiful clothes that people gave us when he was born. We have so very many clothes. And Kees only got to wear a few of them :-(

I found the little outfit he was wearing when the emergency medical team got to him ... it was all cut up, from where they cut it off him. (See the outfit he is wearing in this photo.) I cried when I saw that. Craig put it into the memory box -- where other things are kept from Freyja and Kees. I think we need a bigger memory box. Craig found the underwear that he'd just put on Kees when the emergency medical team worked on him. That was cut up too. He put that into the memory box too.

We sorted all the clothes, so that we could wash the stuff for newborns immediately, and we put the other stuff back into a storage box. Craig has already washed all the sheets and things, and we just need to fold it all and put it in Kees' wardrobe.

So many people were so happy for us when Kees was born. He was the answer to so many prayers ... including ours. He was such a beautiful, happy little baby boy.

We don't pray any more. Prayer hasn't helped Freyja or Kees or us in the past. But I hope that Kees' baby brother will also be beautiful and happy. I hope that his baby brother will be able to wear all those clothes that Kees never got a chance to.

Sadness and anger

Recently I've been crying a lot.

I've been feeling overwhelmed by sadness and anger. Strange combination, some might say. But for me these two emotions have been holding hands since Freyja was born.

The man who was the funeral director when Freyja died, Andrew, told us (after Freyja's funeral) that he and his wife had also lost two babies, both at around 20 weeks gestation. They are fortunate that they also have 3 living children.

Anyway, we asked him (in our then new baby-lost parent innocence) whether it ever went away. The sadness, that is. He told us that it never goes away, and that a day didn't go by that he didn't think once about his lost babies.

I guess in some way I thought that's what would happen. That I would think about my Freyja once a day.

Of course, now, three years later, all that innocence has gone. Even if I don't consciously think of Freyja and Kees every waking moment, they are a part of me, my daily life all the time.

I was lying in bed this morning, crying, saying to my husband that I'm sad all the time. That this sadness is with me all the time.

That doesn't mean that I can't appreciate life, because I can. I can appreciate a beautiful sunrise or a beautiful sunset or my gorgeous husband. But there's this element of sadness with me all the time. A sadness which reflects my reality that my life isn't the way it should be. A sadness that I know is caused because something (someone) is missing.

When Freyja died, all I could think was "why me?" And I was convinced that somehow it was my fault. Now I know that it wasn't my fault. There was nothing that I did wrong, and there was nothing that I did not do. She just died. As for the "why me?" ... now I know it was more like "why not me".

Babies die. For. No. Reason.

And nothing I do or don't do makes a difference. They. Just. Die.

And of course that's where the anger comes in. Because I still can't understand why it happened to me. Not once, but twice.

You see, my children were both healthy. There was no reason for them to die. They should not have died.

Freyja was stillborn at 28 weeks. She weighed 1.4 kg and was 39 cm long. The doctors found no reason for her death. She was healthy. I was healthy. Accessories (placenta, uterus, cord, etc) all healthy. Unknown cause of death. Case closed.

Kees died when he was 7 weeks old. Born at 37 weeks. He weighed 3.5 kg and was 52 cm long. He was super healthy and happy. His heart stopped and he just stopped breathing one morning when he was 6w5d old. He had been weighed 2 days earlier and had put on a whopping 2.5 kg since birth!!! The community nurse said he was blooming. My beautiful son.

The emergency medical team managed to revive our son and got him to hospital to the NICU. He stayed there for two days, but the doctors determined he was brain dead (lack of oxygen because the emergency medical team took too long to revive him) and decided to remove him from the machines. His heart stopped again (this time forever) whilst we held him in our arms. An autopsy revealed an infection of the muscle around his heart, with trace evidence of a virus. A virus that in normal circumstances goes to the lungs, causing a cold. But because it went to his heart instead, there were no symptoms, no reason for us to think there might be something wrong. The first indication that something might be wrong was when his heart stopped. What happened to Kees happens to 1 in 40,000 newborn babies.

Why me? Why us?

I cry for Freyja and Kees all the time. I could cry for them at the drop of a hat. But I don't. It makes people uncomfortable. And, after all, it's been so long. So I must be used to it by now. After all, must get on with life, hey??

But I haven't gotten on with life. The most I've done in terms of "getting on" is get pregnant again. And again. I got pregnant with Kees because I needed something to look forward to. The possibility of joy in my life. The possibility of a future. I couldn't bear thinking about a future without my Freyja, and if I couldn't have her, I would have her sibling.

Then that all went pear-shaped.

So then I did it again. "Got on with my life" by getting pregnant again. Because what am I going to do if I don't have a living baby???

Aha. That's it in a nutshell isn't it? What am I going to do if I don't have a living baby? I have no fucking idea. I think I'll have to reinvent myself. I can't be the person I used to be, the one before babies, because she's long gone. And I don't know who I could be. I don't even know what I'd be like as a mum to a living baby. I was only a mum to a living baby for 7 weeks, but I really liked it, and I think I was pretty good at it. But what on earth would I do with the rest of my life if all I got was dead babies???

And the anger. Yes, the anger. The anger is not just because my children are dead. The anger is also because other people's children live. I feel anger not just at whoever/whatever is responsible for my children's death, but I feel anger at EVERYONE who has living children. Get that. And I don't know whether I'll ever get over that anger. I read a comment on a blog recently from a woman who said she thought this would be a life-long battle for her. I think that's a good description for me too. I may well be battling that anger for the rest of my life.

I can be generous to people now. Whilst I'm still pregnant. Whilst there is a possibility that I might have a living child. I can be generous to other people in their pregnancies. And for their living children. But I know that should something happen to this baby inside me, that I won't be so generous. That in fact I will be overwhelmed and consumed by anger. That I will not be able to see babies and children and families without being consumed with RAGE that my children are dead, and those children are not.

Don't get me wrong. I don't want other children to die, I just want mine to live.

I said to my sister L months ago that I wish I could swap one of my children for hers. That instead of both my children being dead, that one of mine had lived and one of hers had died. She was horrified. She started crying just at the thought of it. And that's just it isn't it? Of course she thinks it's terrible that both my children are dead, but she's happy that hers aren't. And me suggesting otherwise is terrible and mean.

Simply put, she has absolutely no comprehension of my loss, my tragedy, my life. Just trying to imagine what it would be like to lose one of her children has her in tears. Just imagining. You see when she imagines it now, she tries to imagine ME, MY losses, MY DEAD CHILDREN and how I feel in MY life. But imagining it happening to HER and one of HER CHILDREN and HER life has her in tears. Just imagining. And she doesn't even realise that I really mean it. That if it had been an option (if it was still an option) I would swap the life of one of hers for the life of one of mine. In a flash.

I'm in limbo. Hope still keeps me going, but it's a battle to keep sadness and anger at bay.

Venting

I got a phone call from my GP yesterday afternoon. She was ringing to let me know the results of some blood tests I had done earlier this week. Fortunately it was all good news.

However, she also wanted to clear something else that was on her mind.

Craig and I see her together every month and have done so since Kees died last year in March. Every month like clockwork, a half-hour appointment. Our most recent appointment was last Friday.

We had seen our obstetrician the day before our GP appointment with the usual results. Everything looks fine. Oh, you have some pains? That's normal. That's what they say about everything. The stock-standard answer is either (i) every pregnancy is different or (ii) that's normal.

So when I saw my GP I expressed my dissatisfaction about the stock-standard answers. I also expressed my opinion about my general dissatisfaction with the Dutch medical system. I was also pretty peeved with her (my GP) that we had to wait for 30 minutes for our appointment. Anyway, appointment finished, and that was that (I thought).

So when I spoke to her yesterday she wanted to let me know that she was "unhappy" about the way our last appointment went. That she doesn't like going home feeling "unhappy" about her work. That she didn't like leaving it like that. That she doesn't like to take bad feelings home with her. And more along the same lines.

I was quite stunned. I didn't know what to say. I mean, how she feels is really not my problem. She's my GP. It's her job to listen to my concerns about my health and my baby's health. She knows my history. She's been treating me for over two years. She's spoken to my psychologist about me.

At first my response was nothing. Then, as she was clearly waiting for me to say something, I asked what she wanted from me. So she started again about feeling that she's doing her job properly but that I was obviously unhappy, so that meant she had bad feelings at the end of the day. And that perhaps we should see someone else. And that we were quite unreasonable to expect her to be more on time. (We were her last patients of the day, there was no-one else in the waiting-room.) She feels that she's been more than generous with her time (we always book double appointments and never go over our time.) So we should feel free to go somewhere else if we feel the need to.

Well, I never felt the need to until I had this conversation with her. So after my silent response didn't work and my stunned response didn't work, I went for the direct response. I said that I'd never had such an unprofessional discussion with any doctor in my life. I said that I thought it was part of her job to listen to my health-care/medical concerns. I also said that really it would certainly be better for me and Craig to see another doctor. I thanked her for calling and hung up.

Do you believe it????

For over two years I've been her patient. She treated me for depression and anxiety prior to my pregnancy with Kees, as well as after. She's prescribed anti-D's and other medication. She knows my history. And yet she feels that she's within her rights to ring me at home and tell me that I'm making her job miserable and she can't leave her job at the office but takes it home with her. (I told her that I'd learned to leave my job at the office a long time ago, as most professionals do.)

I know that GP's in this country are generally SHITE. If you can find any GP who is a hands-on medical professional you're doing pretty well. Our GP's practice is a good one. They even take blood samples, urine samples, remove moles (and the like) and generally do stuff that NO GP's in this country do.

But what am I supposed to do when she rings me at home to tell me that our appointments make her miserable? That she feels like we are being unreasonable? That we are making her feel unhappy when she goes home at the end of the day??? What???

I think I will walk away from this one. There's nothing I can say or do that I will be happy to live with. I'm still in shock at having such a personal and unprofessional conversation with my GP.

Secret Garden Meeting - July

How do you see or imagine your babies now that you do not have them with you?

Freyja would have just turned three years old. I imagine she'd be tall -- she was a tall baby -- but then her mum is over six feet tall!! She'd be blonde. She looked a lot like me when she was born (with her dad's earlobes and lips and chin). I think she'd be a very determined little girl, with lots to say.

Kees would now be 18 months old. Walking and following his older sister and generally annoying her. I think he'd be much more relaxed and easy-going than his sister. We had Kees with us for 7 weeks, so we got an impression of who he was. He liked colours, he liked songs, he loved his mum and dad. He loved his food!! He put on 2.5 kgs in seven weeks!! He was a BIG boy. He looked more like his dad, but also very much like his sister. Sometimes we used to look at him as he lay sleeping and it was scary how much he looked like his sister! He also had his dads earlobes, lips and chin. I think he would be blonde as well. A very chunky boy -- I don't know whether he would have grown as tall as his sister.

I often think about them. Every time I see a family or a mum with kids, I think about my kids, and my family that should have been. I often try to picture them in my mind.

How did the loss of your last pregnancy affect your choices/decisions about the birth of your subsequent pregnancy?

Unfortunately I've had ample opportunity to think about this one. My son Kees was born 18 months after I lost my daughter Freyja. (Kees died when he was 7 weeks old.) I chose to be induced at 37 weeks when I was pregnant with Kees. I was pretty open-minded about the induction procedure itself. An epidural was always an option for me. I think the medical staff were relieved when I had my epidural!! The pains were overwhelming. I am now pregnant with my third child and I hope that he will be born in four weeks. I am again being induced. This time at 38 weeks. Again, I'm open-minded. I just want a living, healthy baby - that's all. I have no strict principles that I have to adhere to -- a living, healthy baby is my only priority. We have chosen a different hospital this time though -- another priority (to ensure my sanity) is knowing that my husband can be there with me for my entire time in hospital. So we found a place which allows us to do that.

Last day

... of July that is.

Tomorrow is August. A new month. Full of possibilities.

In August I will celebrate another birthday. Craig will celebrate another birthday. More birthdays without Freyja and Kees. More birthdays without our children.

But hopefully we will also celebrate a new birthday ... our new son's birthday. Hopefully we will celebrate the day of his birth on August 28 or 29. Hopefully.

I sent a parcel off to Australia the other day. A parcel with birthday gifts for my sister and two of her little girls. I included birthday cards addressed to each of them. Each card was signed "Mirne & Craig". I considered that maybe, if we're lucky, if everything goes well, by the time my sister and her girls open their gifts, it will be "Mirne & Craig & little baby boy". When I was pregnant with Freyja (and maybe with Kees ... I don't remember) I sent cards to people signed "Mirne & Craig & bump". I don't do that any more.

Maybe August 2009 will become a month which we will celebrate and remember with joy for a long time. I hope so.

I am 34 weeks pregnant today.

When Face.book sucks

My cousin and her husband have a joint FB identity. Today their status was:

ALL WE WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS A LITTLE BABY GIRL. YEP, [COUSIN'S NAME] IS PREGNANT AND DUE DECEMBER 20. HOORAY.

Right.

This is one of the primary reasons why my FB page is very limited, and generally only accessible to my other baby-lost mama friends.

My cousin and her husband used to be my "friends" on FB, but I got ruthless a while ago and culled my group of friends to people who I actually had some contact with and who I trusted. They didn't survive the cull. (They're still "friends" on Craig's page which is how I heard about their FB status.) Occasionally I get "friend requests" from the people I culled, but I just ignore them. Yep, I'm ruthless.

How supremely and unsurprisingly confident of my cousin and her husband to make their announcement to their entire world (their "friends" on FB are around 700+).

They are fundamental christians who work for the same (voluntary) missionary organisation as one of my sisters. Their belief in God is so absolute that it wouldn't occur to them that their baby might die and God might not do something about it! Everything in their life is "perfect". God provides everything they need (literally - this is an entirely voluntary organisation - they need to pay for everything themselves despite not actually "earning" an income).

I'm not happy that she is pregnant. But then again, I'm not happy these days about anyone being pregnant (except baby-lost mamas). She's young, and no doubt her pregnancy will be perfect and her baby will also be perfect. Everyone in her family is perfect. Everything in their family is perfect. If anything, I get pissed off.

And, of course, I can't tell anyone that I'm not happy for them. Or that it pisses me off. Because then I would be a "bad" person. People wouldn't understand that I find it difficult at this stage of my life to be happy for them. Because I'm pregnant and they're pregnant. In everyone else's eyes we're in "equal" positions. But of course that's not the case. I've buried two precious children, I'm living a life of fear and grief and sorrow. They're on their first pregnancy and have only hope and joy. They have many years ahead of them to have children. I don't.

Nope, all I can do is blog. So blog I do.