Pregnant?

I think my husband might be pregnant! I found the breakfast cereal in the fridge this morning. That is so something a pregnant person might do!

p.s. I just googled pregnant man hoping for some cartoon type picture of a pregnant man. All I got was photo's of actual men with pregnant bellies. Now my eyes hurt!

One week

This time next week we may or may not have some answers. Next tuesday is the big day we have been waiting three months for, the autopsy report will be given to us. I am desperate for answers but at the same time pretty terrified about what they may say. Was it my fault? Are further pregnancies ruled out? inconclusive results? These are all possibilities. I cant think of what would be a good result.

Many people have told me that I must not blame myself, but that is pretty impossible really. Lola died on my watch, I was solely responsible for nurturing her while she was in my belly. Being my third pregnancy I was much more relaxed about it all than previous pregnancies. I wasn't quite as careful about what I ate, I had a glass of champagne on New years eve, I drank a coffee each day. Could any of these things have hurt Lola.

Having another baby has been on our mind for awhile, I guess the thought of having another brings us some comfort. It is possible they may tell us we shouldn't have any more babies. We are so lucky to have two gorgeous little people in our family but from the moment we found out we were pregnant with Lola we suddenly imagined our family in the future with three little people.

Probably the scariest propostion of all is that they may not have any reason at all as to why this happened. Scary because I will have all these questions floating around forever.

In order to prepare for next tuesday I am going to start writing down the questions I have. Put me in front of a doctor and I am like a deer in the headlights. I freeze and all clarity disappears. If anyone has advice on questions i should ask please shoot it through.

I have a whole week to sit with these feelings. The knot in my stomach is growing each day. Maybe this will be one of those situations where the anticipation is much worse than the reality but maybe not too. I suspect this may be a week of melancholy, I have some fun things planned between now and then but I also plan to go gently. I ask of those that I will be spending time with to understand where I am at and to not expect too much of me. I think this probably applies to my husband as well, I know he has had Lola on his mind too. xxx

Image: Rob Eastman

A new blog

Oooh I am so excited! I just discovered that my awesome friend has finally started a blog. This is how she describes her blog;
"A blog about My Littles, a beautiful kid with Wolf-Hirschhorn Syndrome who teaches love, happiness, tolerance and triumph every single day....and some stuff about me too i suppose."
My friend is one of the most courageous people I have ever met and she is my crafting guru! You can find her blog in my blog roll it is called 'Lover of little things'. Enjoy!

Move over Fergie

Last night Bren and I had a lovely grown up dinner with lovely friends in a lovely restaurant, it was a whole lot of lovely! One of these lovely friends, M, was looking especially beautiful last night. She told us about how she has been working really hard and lost some weight with weight watchers.
On the other hand, while getting ready to go out last night, I put on my favourite dress but just couldn't wear it as I look at least 6 months pregnant in it and so had to hang it back up in the wardrobe. I can see you mentally connecting the dots here! So YES, my friend inspired me to join up with weight watchers today. Fingers crossed for me that my pregnant looking belly disappears!

Jackson said

Jackson said tonight "Mummy, even though Lola died she is still my baby sister isn't she? I replied "Of course darling she will always be yours' and Millie's baby sister and Mummy and Daddy's baby girl".
Jackson then said "One day we will see Lola up in the sky wont we!" I replied "I really hope so".
It amazes me how in tune my children are with me and how I am feeling. Lola has been on my mind a lot this weekend, I dont know why, she just has. Yesterday while visiting friends I randomly started to cry, Jackson noticed and said with a very sweet smile "It's alright mummy", Millie came and sat on my lap and stroked my face a few times, my husband put his arm around me and my friend got me some tissues and I felt loved, supported and not like a freak for crying!

p.s. wouldn't you just kill for those eyelashes?
p.p.s Thankyou for the photo Davina xx

Reflections

A friend just sent this through in a message "Life is just so crazy, don't you think? At one moment everything is so horrible and unreal and turned-upside-down, and at the same moment, it's so 'normal' and the same." I think this friend might be just a little bit telepathic as this message came through at exactly the time that I was struggling to describe where I am at but this describes it perfectly!

Yes, everything appears to be back to normal and we are coping with life, even enjoying it but at the same time we are not the same people and we probably never will be. It feels like the name Lola is written on the inside of my brain, she is always in my head, I am never not thinking of her.

I am often vague and not present. I guess I have a lot going on inside and my brain is emotionally tired either from trying to keep busy and not be sad or from being sad. All that I am writing seems very contradictory, it is, because my life is right now. We are happy and savouring every moment of our life but we are sad and confused and missing. Everything is normal at the same time as being totally upside down. I dont know who I am, I thought at this moment I would be a stressed out mother of three children four years old and under. I thought my struggles would be about breastfeeding and meeting the needs of my newborn at the same time as caring for a one year old and a four year old. Instead my day to day life is easy, my children are settled and I am meeting the needs of my two alive children well, I think. While this is a good thing it's kinda not as well. Things are easy and settled because Lola died and so I wish things were different, see it's complicated in here!

I doubt that any of what I am writing will make sense to anyone else, it is such a jumble of contradictory thoughts but I guess that is who I am right now, as a mother of a baby daughter who died nearly three months ago at the same time as being the mother of two alive and happy, beautiful children, as a wife to a husband who is also grieving the loss of his daughter in his own sometimes private, sometimes public way, as a daughter to grandparents who lost a grandchild and as a friend who has been shown so much love, compassion and care but is not yet able to return it all yet!

Image: http://www.rubiomarin.com/en/2008/12/01/emocional/

I like to laugh

How good does it feel to laugh? For me a big belly laugh with your family or friends makes everything better! Things that have made me laugh out loud lately ...

1. Millie's favourite word at the moment is 'duddle' (for cuddle), she follows us around saying 'duddle' all day long, it is so cute and makes me laugh!

2. Jackson, playing pretend games with his big blow up dinosaur Roary the other day, said 'Roary, lets go to the shop and buy... things!'

3. I realised last night that I dont have any digital photo's of Brendon and I prior to having children. My friend kindly offered up one that she had ...


umm bogans much!

Please share something that has made you laugh recently! (click on the word 'comments' below to do so) Go on! I dare you xxx

I'm hungry!

Um if I hear those words one more time today I am going to ... scream? take a few deep breaths? I dont know, something irrational!

My kids are hungry ALL the time. "Well feed them" I hear you say. Believe me, I do! It would seem that their hunger is insatiable. Every time he has said this today (many times) I have found something else for him to eat, 5 minutes later he wants more. I made him and Millie huge platters of food for lunch with lots of different things to eat. 5 minutes later "I'm hungry"! I am quickley running out of ideas. I remember someone telling me once that hungry kids can be a sign of worms, hmm might have to look into that.

So anyway, yesterday was much the same in terms of insatiable hunger and lets just say my patience was running thin by the end of the day. Then after bathtime Jackson came up to me and gave me his 'Little Miss Sunshine' book and said "Mummy this is for you because you are little miss sunshine." OK, I think I disagree with you on that one BUT you are the sweetest little person I have ever had the pleasure of knowing!!! I (a tad smugly) retold this story to Brendon and he informed me that Jackson had given him the 'Mr Cool' book with the same message about Brendon being Mr cool. Ha! Again I dont think so, but isn't our little guy so sweet!! (only joking Bren you are super cool!)

It's tuesday and I cant wait...

I cant wait for saturday night! Bren and I have the night to ourselves and I think I might plan a special surprise night out for him! Any suggestions?

You can join in too here

A Lovely Monday

Yes we are still doing well! Maybe we are through the worst of it? Although I suspect that when we get the autopsy results in a couple of weeks things may digress, but lets see what happens. Last night for some reason I flicked back to Lola's birth story and started to read it again. It was the strangest feeling, obviously since I wrote it I know the story inside out, however as I was reading I was filled with this awful feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach. It was like reliving all those feelings reading the story again. But I was ok again when I finished reading it.

We had a great weekend actually, our friend and his daughter came for a sleepover. I think it is the best way to socialise now that we have children. The kids can all play together (which they did beautifully, soo cute) we can kick back drink some wine and chat and stay up as late as we like (kinda, if you dont think about what time you have to get up in the morning!) AND have breakfast together the next day! A lovely weekend all round!

Hoping for a busy, fun week for me and for you xxx

Saying goodbye to friends

The time is almost here to say goodbye to a few friends : (

I havn't known them for very long, just a couple of months, but that has been enough to grow to love them. Every day I look forward to seeing them, their departure will leave a big gaping hole in my life!


GO JULIE

JOY

A Meet Me At Mikes challenge! So cliche but I immediately thought of this photo. I regularly have to look at it, pure joy!

My week in photo's

This is why the poor blog has been neglected of late,



Snow fun!



Lovely day at the zoo with friends!




Dress-ups at home



My first completed craft project, YAY!

xxx

Mr Strong

My poor little blog has been a bit neglected of late, but I think that is a sign of happy, busy times! I feel like I am channeling Mr Strong at the moment. Jackson loves reading the book and giving demonstrations on how he is like Mr Strong too. Maybe he should be our family mascot. (we dont eat anywhere near as many eggs as Mr Strong though)

I think my families latest spurt of strength can be attributed to my Aunty and cousin's visit last week. We were smothered in love and TLC by my Aunty, she is a born mother and we all adore her, I want to be just like her. And my cousin made us laugh a lot.

My Aunty and I have always been very close, her home was a sanctuary to me while growing up. Now I feel like we are even closer, she really understands the new feelings I am having as a mother now that I have lost a child. You see my Aunty struggled for years to conceive her babies and faced the prospect of not being able to have any of her own. I think there are similarities in our experiences that enable her to understand how I am feeling, what I need to hear and how she can support me plus she knows me so well (we are two peas in a pod). It is really hard to explain but I feel an intense need to savour every moment of being my childrens mother, of us being a family. She knows that feeling.

What doesn't kill you can only make you stronger. Sometimes I forget, sometimes there is shit but hopefully it wont take me long to get through that and find the light again.

Thankyou Lola

Newborns

I wonder if I will ever be able to look at a newborn baby again without a heavy heart? I hope so because I adore teeny little newborns! I keep coming across gorgeous photo's of babies and they make me long for my newborn baby, although she wouldn't be so newborn now. She'd be a rolly polly happy smiley bubba.



That is Millie when she was about 4/5 months old I think. The photo was taken by my awesome friend Davina, see her blog by clicking on the link in my blog roll. At another visit to the hospital (it hasn't gotten any easier going there) this week we found out that there is no gynocological reason that we cant try for another baby when/if we are ready. We just have to sit tight now and wait for the results of the autopsy, our appointment for this is early August. Be bacl later with some happy snaps of our visit to the snow! Was sooo much fun!

As promised...

A few weeks ago I posted a picture of the bunkbeds my clever husband was making for jackson and promised a picture of the finished product. I think they look great and they are soo sturdy they are not going anywhere for a long time. I dont let Jackson sleep up the top, they are too high and he is too little. He adores his new bed though and can often be found hiding under the covers of the top bunk!




My children are loving the camera at the moment!

Jackson's old bed was a very cute little toddler bed. When we moved his new bed in to his room the plan was to move the toddler bed into Millie's room. This meant moving Lola's cot out of the room. This is a job I was really dreading. It turned out to not be as difficult as I imagined. I think because there wasn't a big gaping hole where Lola's cot was, we put the toddler bed there. It's strange how some things I anticipate are going to be very difficult turn out to not be so bad and then sometimes grief turns up in unexpected places and knocks the wind right out of me. Just because I want to remember, here are some pictures of 'the girls' room. It can look much prettier than this but I didn't fix it up before taking the pictures, I wish I had but anyway!




I am having a wonderful week with my Aunty and Cousin. They have taken Jackson to the movies (god help them) and Millie is asleep so lucky me gets some precious time to myself, LOVELY. We are planning a trip to the snow on Friday and we are all soo excited!

Fifteen Facts

hmm hard one, Can I think of fifteen facts about me that others might find interesting enough to read in order to participate in this weeks Blog this challenge?

1. I owe $25 000 in HECS debts (OMG), I just received my statement in the mail the other day. My husband had no idea and nearly fell over when he saw that. What do I have to show for it - 2 1/2 degrees, one in Social Sciences, one in Education and 1/2 a degree in Adolescent Health and Welfare!

2. I adore musicals! any musical! I want to be in a musical! I also LOVE those very tragic dance movies that come out every now and again. They make me want to dance again. (Just add bubbles and I think I am the STAR of a musical or dance movie, unfortunately there is some very scary video footage floating around to prove this!)

3. I dont like anything 'cutting edge'. Not technology, design, fashion or music. I love everything that is old, classic, vintage, pre-loved.

4. My favourite pair of shoes at the moment are my... wait for it

GUMBOOTS! $20 from Bunnings and I love them!

5. I only like even numbers and I think that is why I am having a bad luck year this year, because it is 2009! I cant wait for next year.

6. I only like round, curly and whimsical shapes in design. I dont go for anything square or pointy with a hard edge.

7. To help me get to sleep at night I day/nightdream about what i would do if I won Tattslotto.

8. At the moment I am coveting a new kitchen, at the very least a new floor for my kitchen. I want floorboards, at the moment I have black tiles and they are a nightmare!

9. Last year I very nearly died. We were staying at a caravan park in the Barmah forest with no mobile coverage. I was 4 weeks post-partem and had a massive Haemorrhage. My mother-in-law rushed me to the nearest hospital about 1/2 an hour away. Brendon was out on the boat so had no idea any of this was happening, when we arrived at the hospital he was greeted by a doctor telling him how lucky he was to still have me as they very nearly lost me. I lost consciousness just as we arrived at the hospital and I remember being really annoyed as I was coming to as I was having a really amazing dream. I later found out that when you lose consciousness you experience a feeling of elation, I think that must be what I was feeling.

10. After the above experience I decided that I wanted our family to be able to have holidays whenever we want so we went out and bought a caravan. We LOVE holidays by the beach, we live for them!

11. Our family recently moved (8 months ago) from an inner-city Melbourne lifestyle, living in a small 2 bedroom unit (4 of us) to a 1000m2 block in an outer Melbourne suburb with a big 4 bedroom house. It was the best move we ever made and I love our new life out here. We have amazing views of Mt Dandenong, heaps of room inside and out. The best thing is the difference in traffic. The slow moving traffic used to drive me crazy when we lived in Hawthorn!

12. Pre-babies I worked as a youth Drug and Alcohol clinician. It was an awesome job but too hard with small children as it was shift work. Plus I didn't have the emotional commitment to the job anymore, my babies got the best of me.

13. My first kiss was with a famous racing car driver. He wasn't then of course! My family love to tease me about this and I find it terribly embarrasing every time it is mentioned.

14. My dream for my family is that old cliche of packing up our life and travelling around Australia for an extended period of time, teaching my children by having amazing experiences, seeing things for themselves up close and meeting fascinating people with awesome stories to tell.

15. I LOVE Blogging! It is my support group, my counselling, my outlet! Thanks for reading xx

2 month anniversary

Tomorrow will be two months since my lovely Lola was born. I guess I thought I might be less sad at this point but really the missing is still just as strong, actually maybe stronger now because life is moving on all around us but we still dont have Lola. Can anyone give me a ballpark figure on when things might start to get easier? That would be great people, a coment below or even an email would be appreciated with a timeframe.

One of the positive things to come out of this, maybe Lola's gift to me, is that I am drinking in every little bit of Jackson and Millie, I am not taking any moments with them for granted. Yesterday I had a small but beautiful moment with Jackson. It started absolutely pouring down with rain outside, he turned to me and with the cheekiest grin on his face he said he wanted to go out to the garage to see his Dad. I started to say NO but then thought, why not, so he'll get wet, he can just get changed. I said ok but you need to put your jumper and gumboots on. Jackson agreed and giggled the whole time he hurriedly put them on. He then ran out into the rain but kept looking back to me waving and giggling. It was just too too cute.

Millie brings me just as much pleasure. I am one of those annoying mums who asks their babies for kisses all the time (my favourite thing in the world is my babies kisses). Millie finds it terribly boring though so in order to encourage her every time she does finally pucker up I throw my arms up in the air and say 'Yay for kisses'. So now every time Millie goes to give me a kiss she throws her arms up and yells 'Yay' only she does it just before the kiss so I miss out on the actual kiss every time! Bless her.

Tomorrow my wonderful aunty is arriving to stay with us for one whole week. She loves and misses Lola just as much as we do so spending the day with her tomorrow is just perfect.



I love this photo because it represents all the maternal figures in my life supporting me and loving Lola xxx

Another new book...

A friend told me about a book yesterday that she thought I should read it is "An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination" by Elizabeth McCracken. The story is the authors experience of going through exactly what I am going through right now. It is funny that she told me about this yesterday as I had gone into a book shop to look for something like this and had no luck! For some strange reason I have been craving reading other womens experience of having a stillborn baby.

I started reading the book last night, many times already I have thought "wow, that sums up exactly how I feel". However there has also been things that McCracken did differently to me. As I read about these things I felt guilty, as if I had done the wrong thing. An example is that McCracken and her husband chose not to have any photos taken of their baby boy whereas we went so far as to have a photographer present. I love and treasure the photos we have so why did I feel guilty about having them when reading somebody elses reasons for not having photos? I dont know the answer but maybe it is because when you go through something like this you have no point of reference on what is the right and wrong thing to do, you just do what feels right at the time and hope you have made the right decision in the long run.

I plan on spending my weekend reading, crafting, keeping all snuggly warm at home with my babies and hubby and anticipating the arrival of my aunty on sunday and my cousin on monday. Sounds like a fabbo plan to me!

Have a great weekend everybody xxxx

Happy Birthday MUM

Hope you are having a great day, we are all thinking of you over here in the east xxx

Have you ever

made a hot chocolate with as many marshmallows as you could possibly fit on top? You should try it, it is YUMMO (and probably the reason I still look pregnant rather than the recent pregnancy, how long can I get away with using that as an excuse?)

I made a very exciting purchase today (while out shopping for the billion birthdays coming up in July)



watch this space for my first finished project!

You can buy the book here