Boxing Day Blues.

While Christmas Day itself was a non-event, as desired, it still resulted in feeling fragile. We had 8hrs in a car driving home, and besides the brunch we’d made together before leaving, we survived on petrol station food (only thing open on Christmas Day!) & candy – so by the time we arrived back in our township I was tired & cranky, and full of feels. I can only assume it was the sitting for hours with too much space to think that brought the wave of feels on. Mr then insisted in popping by his parents for a quick Christmas drink (they live 2kms from our house…), being social was the last thing I felt like doing, but he didn’t want to wait til the next day when we’d be fresh (he was going back to work late morning) so I reluctantly agreed. They’re super positive people, I sometimes wonder if they can even feel ‘negative’ emotions, so when I said “I’m ok” rather than “I’m great”, they jumped on the phrase, asking “why only Ok?” – I think I was also feeling a bit defensive, feeling like they expected me to be great because we’d been away, and I’d got my way of not having a family Christmas…..who know’s, I’m good at making stuff up so that could all be in my head. I managed to brush the inquisition off by saying I was tired from being in the car all day. They of course went on to tell us all about what Mr’s siblings were doing for the day, and all about the grandkids etc. Last thing I wanted to listen, to but I tried to appear interested & present. Then they showed a video clip of the youngest grandkid walking (he’s only just started)….the phone was handed to me so I watched that clip then set the phone down, however my FIL said ‘oh there’s another clip, just swipe for it’, I really didn’t want to watch another video of someone else’s baby walking, so just said “It’s ok” and set the phone down on the coffee table. Unfortunately it was within reach of him and he picked it up, found the clip and held it in from of me to watch….no escaping that then. Luckily Mr didn’t insist on visiting for too long and we were home shortly afterwards.

I never can tell if he just isn’t aware or if he chooses to ignore it if I don’t seem to be in a good mood because he doesn’t like dealing with the uncomfortableness. He never acknowledge the visit might have been difficult…he loves hearing about his niblings so it probably didn’t cross his mind.

Christmas Day was finally over, and I naively thought that was it. However, Boxing Day came, and with it a whole new wave of feels. I’d been so focussed on surviving Christmas I hadn’t put a care plan in place for the days after….silly really, when I know in the past the days after have been just as hard. Mr went back to work and there I was at home with only myself for company……I don’t much like my own company at the best of times. I’d thought I’d be focussed and super productive on my Uni work and therefore not have much time for feels. Unfortunately it’s really easy to be thinking & feeling stuff about non-uni related things at the same time as doing Uni work…..though my productivity levels were nowhere near as high as I need them to be….distracted by the feels, and having had a week of indulgent eating, I just wanted to eat my feels…..yes I had medicinal ice cream in the afternoon.

One too many Christmas Pregnancy Announcements finally pushed me to log out of my social media accounts and take a break – I’d planned to for the time we were away, but hadn’t…justified to myself by the fact I was watching lovely twitter people donating to charities on behalf of other twitter people (if you’re on twitter look at the #nzsecretsantasubstitute hashtag for some kindness stories). The irony of course, is without the distraction of social media, I’m even more alone with my thoughts, but scrolling mindlessly through social media just leaves me feeling lonely & left out, and reminds me of my childless state, so either way I can’t win.

Thankfully I have some fun plans in place for New Years Eve and the days that follow, so hopefully as I get further away from Christmas and closer to the New Year, the feels will reduce in intensity for the time being. And hopefully I’ll be visited by a burst of productivity that will see my Uni work actually progress! And thankfully my favourite local cafe reopened today, so at least I have good coffee to get me through!

Did you get caught out by the Boxing Day Blues too?

Surviving the Festive Season.

If you’re like me, then from about the time you’ve been pregnant for, oh, say a minute….you’ve started dreaming of a future with that baby. This years pregnancy was no different, in the short few weeks of pregnancy I’d imagined many times over what it would be like to have a new born next Christmas (we would have had a 6.5 week old if we hadn’t miscarried). So from when we found out this pregnancy was no more, I had started dreading this years Christmas. I’d found the last couple of years hard enough, the joy of the season stolen by years of infertility treatment and loss. The thought of pasting a smile on my face to make it through a day of family, where the kids would be doted on by loving grandparents (and a loving aunt & uncle, cos I wouldn’t deny those kids my love), where the family themselves are almost ‘picture perfect’ (such a loving, functional family I’ve decided they must be abnormal!). Not helped by the fact my family has had more trials this year, resulting in more separateness in those relationships. Christmas is a tough time when your family is difficult, and you don’t have the children you desperately want.

I read various blogs on tips for surviving the season, looking for the magic solution and my desire to just run away got stronger and stronger. Unfortunately, Christmas is yet another area where my husband and I aren’t on the same page so a lot of the tips I read aren’t quite so helpful because they rely on you both wanting to avoid/manage the season. He loves his family, he loves spending time with them, doesn’t seem to be affected by the same bittersweet pain I get from being with the kids and the others. To him they’re his niece & nephew, they’re not a reminder of the cousins our kids should be growing up with. Me playing with them seems to just be me being an Aunt, whereas for me watching him play with the kids reminds me of the great father he would be, and how much I wish I could have provided him with a child. For him the only way to have a Christmas, is to spend the day with his family. And due to the tension in my family, and the nature of his work meaning at best he’s home for about 12hours on Christmas Day, all the past Christmases have been spent with his family.

So when I admitted to myself that what I really needed to do this year, was have a year away, just the 2 of us, making some new, non-traditional memories, in the hope of having a clean slate next year…..it was a struggle to get him on board with using his annual leave to do something other than spend time with his family. In a time filled with other marital stress it was a tricky situation to navigate, lots of tears were shed, and we even had to communicate via written letter. Here’s an excerpt of what I wrote (with a few changes to keep it anonymous), trying to get him to understand why I needed a year away from family Christmas.

For years I’ve loved Christmas – after the Christmas when I had appendicitis and could barely even open presents because I was in so much pain, Christmas became about family for me. That was when my favourite Aunts and Uncles might visit, our house would actually be filled with laughter for a change, there’d be people chatting round the table at meal times, unlike the silence we often had when it was just the immediate family. I could actually have conversations with people, rather than just listening to my dad or brothers talk at me. It was probably then when I really learnt to love cooking and baking for people, the family that visited always appreciated what I made – and even said so. And I loved the camaraderie of preparing meals with my relatives. There was more fun in our house then. So Christmas became even more important, because that’s when I got a taste of the sense of family I’d always wanted. When I joined your family Christmas’s, it took a bit to adjust to because you had different traditions, and different ways of doing things – but that sense of family was there from the beginning. I was overwhelmed that first Christmas with your families generosity and inclusion – well I have been all the time not just at Christmas. From really early on I knew I wanted a future with you, and I started to imagine how wonderful and amazing it would be when we had children, for them to grow up in that environment, with such generosity and love and fun and laughter and attention. As your sister’s had their kids, I imagined even more how wonderful that would be for our children, how they’d get to have a lovely relationship with their aunts and uncles and cousins. I could picture it. And I did picture it, every Christmas. And then we started trying to have a baby. I remember us being unsure about how we’d managed Christmas and going to Queenstown for my brother’s wedding (when it was first planned for the end of Dec) because we thought we’d have a new born. But we didn’t because by then we’d found out we needed IVF. And then we got pregnant, and I imagined being pregnant at Christmas, and then we weren’t. A little of the shine of Christmas wore off, but not much. And then we had the Christmas with the chemical pregnancy just days before, that really spoiled the festive season, and the same year there was all the drama with trying to do Christmas with my parents separately. And then we were pregnant again, and I imagined next Christmas being pregnant, and how the one after that we’d have a baby, and how that would be with your family, and how spoilt and loved our child would be by everyone. And then we weren’t pregnant any more. And I wanted to avoid Christmas completely, but it was important for you to be with your family, so I tried. I did less Christmassy things than I normally would leading up to Christmas because I wasn’t feeling it, and I wanted to conserve my energy, so at Christmas I could keep a smile on my face, and ignore the pain in my heart so as not to ruin everyones day. And then last Christmas we had a tiny bit of hope again so I didn’t feel I could ask for a Christmas off, I wasn’t keen on Christmas, and well, nothing with my family felt Christmassy, but we did it, we had Christmas with your family the way they wanted it, but I could still see in everything we did that Christmas all the ‘what ifs’ – that was the Christmas we should have had BabyX with us after all. And then this year, for as long as our BabyY was with us, I had imagined the rest of this year, and into next year. I had imagined having Christmas with a newborn, finally we’d have that Christmas we’d talked about, that I’d dreamed about for years. And then that was stolen from us too. And on top of that every year at Christmas someone in your family says ‘Christmas is all about the kids’…..which as we haven’t managed to produce kids for Christmas to be about (and remembering I often feel like its my fault we don’t have kids) leaves me feeling even more pain about Christmas. You talk about how emotionally drained you are from all the years of treatment and loss. That is how I feel about having to go through another Christmas, trying to smile and pretend my heart isn’t broken, and not wanting to ruin the day for everyone else, but also seeing our BabyY & BabyX & other losses in every element of the day. That’s why I want to just do something different this year, just with you. So we can make some new and different memories. So that at the next Christmas I can actually participate in it, and find the joy again, & be fully part of a family Christmas again.

Our counsellor got it straight away, but of course she’s never going to tell us what to do. Eventually he agreed, reluctantly. We booked accomodation at a place we’d never been to together, so we could do different things and make new memories together, and where we knew no one so there’d be no expectations to socialise. Apparently when he told his family we wouldn’t be around for Christmas, his sister was upset “because the kid’s wouldn’t get to see us for Christmas”…….it probably had a more to do with the reasons he told her for us going away, than her specifically, but to me, the fact that that was her first thought rather than “oh shit, my SIL is really struggling, how can we make things easier for her” says a lot about this whole f’in pronatal world we live in. I was concerned they would try to recreate Christmas on another day – which I didn’t want to do…it’s not about the calendar date, it’s about the activities that make up the day. So we arranged to have a casual BBQ with a small secret Santa gift exchange the night before we left – control what you can right.

Of course, I was fully expecting our trip away to be amazing, full of fun and laughter, easy – and putting pressure on myself to make it this way. To prove to my husband we could have a good time together, and that it was a good choice to go away. I should have seen it coming, but I’d been so busy and exhausted that week I didn’t have time for self awareness. Our first morning away I was woken by the yelling, laughing and crying sounds of kids having the quintessential Kiwi summer holiday. Followed a few hours later by the lovely arrival of period cramps. Hormones & heart ache, such a lovely combo. It’s hard to be good company when you’re feeling dizzy, nauseous and crampy. Which of course made me feel even worse, that he wouldn’t have a good time & would regret agreeing to going away. That it wouldn’t be a good trip for us to reconnect with each other. That it wouldn’t be the solution to Christmas I was looking for.

I got even shittier with the situation and myself as we wandered around the township we were staying, and it was filled with happy families and pregnant bellies.

The grip the hormone gremlins had on my brain and body eased somewhat, and we did have good times, did things we hadn’t done before (like horse riding on the beach) and made some nice memories. I also realised it was better than a family Christmas – despite all the reminders, it was just the usual reminders I’d get on any summer holiday, rather than specific Christmas reminders to our family. I allowed myself to accept that while it was easier than dealing with a family Christmas it was by no means easy, and nor should I expect it to be.

Because after all there is no escaping the pain of heart break.

PS This is one of my own photos for a change.

All or Nothing.

I generally think I’m an all or nothing kinda person – I’m either doing really well at sticking to my healthy eating plan, or I’m really not! And also, I grew up being told I never finish projects or stick to things, so often I feel I have to complete something because I said I was going to (being true to my word is really important to me!), and a lack of self-trust (and a lack of what some people call ‘gut instinct’) means I can easily keep going with a project or idea for longer than I should. Generally about the time I finally decide to stop doing something, I realise I should have made that decision earlier (fine example…going part time at Uni!). So despite the creator of Capture Your Grief, specifically saying, only do the days that feel right, and look after yourself etc., it wasn’t until TheEcoFeminist wrote this very wise post, that I gave my permission to stop doing this project. Part of me had felt maybe if I keep pushing through it, I’ll find some healing – you know ‘gets worse before it gets better’ kinda thing. But I was finding doing the project had me thinking about the babies we’ve lost, ALL THE TIME (and it’s not like I don’t think about them pretty much every day anyway) and looking at other people’s Capture Your Grief posts on various social media sights. It started negatively impacting my sleep, which is generally a bad sign, and brought on an all encompassing grief attack. Yep, I’d captured my grief all right, I was literally drowning in grief.

Of course, it may not have been this project at all that brought on this latest deep, dark grief attack. It may have been the lady who did my manicure (the one that was a birthday treat, supposed to be a nice experience of pampering)….the one who’s baby is due 2 days after the due date for our most recent miscarriage. Yeah, that was fun, sitting there captive, listening to her talk about going on maternity leave etc!

Or it could have been, just a normal, unexpected, wave of grief as sometimes happens. Whatever the trigger, it’s been a long lasting, smothering, horrible grief attack.

It’s really hard to keep your head above water, when none of your coping strategies seem to be making any difference, nothing seems to be changing, and then when it starts having a really noticeable impact on your marriage….well, combined with the general “don’t know whats going on with my life, everything is in limbo”…..it really feels like you’re a bunch of tiny pieces being tossed around in a horrible stormy sea (and believe me, I know how that feels to sail through an actual massive storm). There’s a decided feeling of ‘What’s the f%@king point?!’

It’s a real shame there’s not set of instructions for dealing with this kind of grief – follow these steps and you will start to feel better, or at least see some progress. Instead you try a bunch of different tips and tricks, and then try them all over again, and if something helps you keep  doing that, til it stops helping, and then you starting trying everything else all over again. All the while, trying to support your relationships and your partner to get through this safely too.

So in summary. Grief sucks. What ever you’re going through at the moment, I hope you’re taking care, and that you’re surround by people taking care of you too xx

Uncovering Feelings

Recently I was thinking that I’d started to feel (a little bit) better….better/ok is all relative though, so having been feeling pretty shitty for so long it doesn’t take much to feel like an improvement. How quickly our bars for ‘ok’ are reduced!

However, I also recognised that this was the time for some healing to occur, when there’s a tiny glimmer of emotional energy to process things. So we made an appointment with a grief counsellor, someone neither of us had seen so that we could have a clean slate to start healing as a couple, not just working through things individually – things had become a bit fragile with our relationship so strengthening our marriage is also important at this stage.

We had our first session yesterday. It was quite confronting, the therapist asked some hard questions – ones I at least struggled to answer. While logically I realise I need her to ask the tough questions so I can process and accept my feelings….emotionally it’s terrifying. Made me realise how much I’ve boxed my emotions up in order to feel less pain. Flip side is you feel less anything. But now her questions have started making gaps for feelings to escape. I’m not sure I really want to feel them even in order to find a way to start actually living again.

She also was surprised at the amount of treatment and loss we’d been through, and that I’m still wanting to keep going. While its obviously always been still there as a big possibility, I’d been ignoring the fact that it’s most likely we are still facing a childless life – grieving our baby boy was enough, I didn’t want to feel the feels of facing a childless life too. But now the therapist has started asking questions, that reality has been shoved in front of me again. I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want that to be my future. The few thoughts I’ve had about it since yesterdays session has already started the feelings of panic and absolute terror welling up. Utter lack of control and powerlessness, overwhelming fear of the future. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to face these feelings full on, they seem to big for me to handle.

I learnt pretty young that life isn’t fair….but this, this losing a dream, is a whole other level of unfairness!

Another Rollercoaster Ride

I’m sorry it’s been a while since I wrote….have been meaning to write this post for ages, but life & feelings keep getting in the way. I’ve um’d and ah’d about whether to write this post or not…..I feel a little like a fraud after everything I’ve written before now….but then I also realise I said I wanted to show the reality of life after fertility treatment….and it doesn’t always go the way we expect, so being open about that is probably a good thing too. Fully away also that not everyone reading this will get or understand or agree with our decisions – and that’s ok, if this post is triggering for you I’m sorry & I understand you moving away from the blog….but I’ll also put up front (in case you don’t want to read til the end) this is not a happy blog post.

Towards the end of last year, while we were still struggling to come to terms with a childless life, we somehow stumbled ourselves on to a page where both of us realised we weren’t ready to be done with fertility treatment. As much as we knew fertility treatment was painful, last year was painful too and we didn’t feel like we were making any progress in accepting it (despite spending lots of $$ on therapy!) – so suddenly we found ourselves looking into treatment options we hadn’t considered before.

And before we knew it, we’d remortgaged paid a deposit & booked flights to Europe….we were going to try again, with different treatment in a different country – surely that boded well for us, taking a different approach to all the other times…..the healthy eating & taking tonnes of supplements kicked in – though tripping around Europe with all the cakes and baked goodies did mean there was some (lots of) indulgences! Treatment went surprisingly well – was hard to believe….and was interesting watching my anxiety responses kick in before I even had any news on the days we talked to the clinic – trauma responses take a while to get rid of I guess!

Once we returned home, life was a whirlwind – sold our house, bought a new house, Uni started (which involved going out of town for a course)…..it was quite hard to cope with this much Life going on, all the while wondering if I was pregnant….when we finally got the blood test results it was positive…the pain of all previous times over rode any excitement and all I had was tears….I hoped that further into the pregnancy my worries would be more manageable and that there would be space for excitement…..We made it to our first scan at 6 1/2 weeks….the anxiety levels before this appointment skyrocketed….last time we had this scan it hadn’t been good, I’d had some spotting leading up to this time, so I wasn’t feeling super positive…..but there was a heart beat….I cried, there was a baby growing in me….it was amazing….it still didn’t feel real…I still wasn’t excited….I was so scared….I kept having words with myself…there was a heartbeat…all the signs suggested everything was going fine….I just needed to keep breathing….

We made an appointment with a midwife, we moved into our new house, I kept trying to do some Uni work, I felt uncomfortable in my own skin but mostly I could remind myself it was all for the greater good…it’d all be worth it……

We went to our 9 week scan, both of us pretty sure everything was fine….the anxiety didn’t really get too high this time, surprisingly….we were in new territory….but it would be ok.

Except it wasn’t. There was no heartbeat. Our baby had stopped growing a few days after our last scan. Our world was falling apart all over again. We swore & cried, & left the appointment….and just as we hopped back into our car, someone trying to park next to us, drove into us – nothing major just frustrating, we held it together, exchanged details….and as we drove off…the driver got her baby out of the car…..F’ing hell, she got lucky and drove into us….we got nothing.

That was a week ago….feels like yesterday and forever all at once. I went to hospital a few days ago for surgery….at least now physically I can start to return to normal. I’m not sure how to heal our hearts thought. And as for what’s next who knows….everything seems a bit pointless at the moment, so we’re focussing on breathing, holding each other close & medicating with chocolate.

On this day.

{CW: Miscarriage}

A year ago today, 22 August 2016, we had one of, if not the, worst days of our lives. It was the day of our 7week scan. All the blood tests said I was still pregnant with our last embryo, the one out of the 4 we had pre-genetic screening on that was chromosomally normal. We’d not made it to the scan day with any of our previous pregnancies so we thought we had finally got lucky. The excitement and desire to see our babies heartbeat was high, even though I had some serious doubts due to symptom changes a week or so earlier.
I remember being incredibly nervous, sitting in the waiting room at the clinic, waiting for our specialist to call our name. I remember going into our appointment, getting myself up on the bed, with the ultrasound wand in place, watching the screen as the specialist moved it around trying to get a good view…..and still moving it around trying to find the foetal pole, a heart beat, anything to show a sign of life. I remember thinking, this is bad, its not supposed to look like this. And I remember Mr not having any idea of what was happening, til the specialist said “I’m sorry, there’s no heartbeat, its a blighted ovum”. I remember just going numb, staring at that screen, as my husband held my hand and started to cry. The specialist left us “I’ll give you a moment”. We held each other tight, he cried, I was numb, frozen, barely able to form thoughts let alone words. After I was dressed, and the specialist returned, he tried to explain. Bad luck basically. The worst luck ever. I remember the specialist looked like he was trying not to cry too, he said he’d been looking forward to our scan all day. It’s easy to feel like just a number in the process some of the time, but for that moment I knew the specialist genuinely cared.

We talked through options for how to manage the next steps, and he gave us time to think about the decision, letting us text in later what we wanted to do, so we didn’t have to actually have a conversation about it.

And then we went home. I remember holding hands the whole drive home, I just stared blankly in front of me, random thoughts floating through like “Why us? How will I survive this? Why aren’t I crying?” I remember sitting on the couch when we got home, still staring in front of me, Mr held me close, I didn’t want to be held or touched, but I knew at some level that for the future of our marriage, I couldn’t block him out at this point. He needed me too. I remember thinking a blighted ovum was super cruel, here we were in love with our baby, and it had never even been there. I felt like such a failure, betrayed by my own body.

Somehow we made it through the evening, I think I cried eventually. We somehow found a way to tell our family. The next day we drove out of town for the day, trying to escape our world for a moment, in the hope we’d find a way to breathe again. Somewhere in there we made the decision of what to do next – I wanted on a D&C, Mr thought I’d already had enough drugs & intervention so maybe we should let it happen naturally, but after the last time I didn’t want to go through that trauma again. I also, however bad this sounds, just wanted the drugs, wanted the general anaesthetic so I could escape this pain for just a bit. I also just wanted someone to look after me for a change with no expectations in return. Fortunately (as fortunate as one can be in this situation) we only had to wait a few days before the hospital had a space for us. What should have been a half day at the hospital ended up almost a full day there – thanks body for being more weird again. And a day or so later we went away out of town for a few nights, we just needed to leave our life for a little bit….except you can’t ever escape that pain.

While I remained numb for weeks after, it wasn’t a numbness that means no feeling, it was more a freezing of the emotion. It didn’t change, there was no ebb or flow, there was no escape, and no release or respite. Just so much heaviness, so much pain.

A year on, I still hold the memory of our baby close, I might not have got to hold them in my arms, but for a few weeks there I was pregnant, the pain is still strong, I miss our baby so much. I’m guessing over time the memories of the days themselves will fade, but our love for that wee embryo never will.

Dear Baby

{CW: Miscarriage}

A year ago I was pregnant. A year ago I wrote another entry in my journal to the baby I was carrying. I’ve decided I’ll share that entry with you here. I think it helps show, that no matter how early someone miscarries, that baby was real and loved.

Dear Baby,

5 weeks yesterday 🙂 Another week achieved. On Friday I figured you must be growing lots as I kept getting really really hungry. Then over the weekend I started really worrying about you. The few pregnancy symptoms I had (super smell, nausea & tiredness, oh and aches) seemed to disappear, which scared me! Made it hard for me to concentrate on studying thats for sure. I’ve had a bit of nausea today again, but the worry wobbles are still in full force 😦 tho I read in a pregnancy brochure today that most miscarriages are due to chromosomal abnormalities – and we know from testing that your chromosomes are normal, so surely you’re ok!

I keep trying to daydream about you to get rid of the worries – I wonder if you’ll have curly hair like your Daddy, or if you’ll get blonde hair since we both have siblings with blonde hair. I wonder if you’ll have my blue eyes or your Daddy’s hazel eyes. I sure hope you get your Daddy’s eyesight rather than min!

Waiting for Thursday when I get another blood test to check you’re doing what you should! And by then, your Daddy will be home and he’ll help me worry less.

Daddy sends you a hug too.
Lots of Love,
Mummy xo

Auntying

I have 8 niblings (not counting my friends kids that I think of as niblings) with another nibling planning to arrive later this year. I love being an Aunty and take my aunty role seriously – anything is acceptable to score favourite aunty points! (I don’t really expect my niblings to choose a favourite….just to have them like spending time with me is enough.)

Growing up I wasn’t particularly close to my aunts and uncles. Don’t get me wrong, I loved it when they came to visit, but for a start they didn’t live that close so visits weren’t that frequent, and secondly, my parents are the youngest of their families so my aunts & uncles were in their 40s when I was born, where as I was in my 20’s when my first 2 niblings arrived, which I think makes a difference to the relationships. It also meant when I became an Aunt, I decided I wanted to be an important part of their lives – I personally think kids can’t have too many adults that love them and want to spend time with them.

Another motivating factor to being a good aunty, was not having any adults I could talk to growing up. I wasn’t particularly close with my parents – not in a tell them everything/anything kind of way, and there were no other adults I felt I could go to if I needed someone. So I’ve always hoped I could be someone my niblings felt they could talk to, so if they needed another adult to have their back, they knew they could come to me.

Recently I had the privilege of hanging out with my teenage nibling – I was a bit worried they might be too cool for me, particularly with all my self-conscious, lacking in self-worth thoughts lately. But we have a fabulous time together, chatting about almost everything – even drugs and alcohol! The fact they felt they could talk to me about such things, maybe I have achieved what I wanted to – being an adult they trust. And then when their parent shared that this nibling felt they had a special bond with me……well, I might have cried a little bit.

I’ve read/heard comments in the past about how being an aunt is the best – cos you can hand them back at the end of the day, or when they get tired & ratty. And yes, to some extent this is true, it’s also the worst part of being an aunt – well an aunt thats childless at least. ‘Cos handing them back, saying goodbye, is often one of the hardest things, when you return to normal life, the house that’s no longer filled with the sounds of younger people, and the reality that you’re not going to experience parenting a teenager.

Because for all that being the favourite aunt is something I strive for – I’d have done that anyway, even if I’d been luck enough to be a mother to children on Earth. For all that I love my niblings to bits, it doesn’t fill the gap left empty by not having children of our own. Auntying and Mothering are two different things.

Through the cracks.

After my last post, I was thinking I should see if I can actually find something positive to write for a change – and then a couple of (almost related) things have happened that I decided were share-worthy.

Growing up my family weren’t ones for saying they loved each other, hugs were fairly common (though I think as a child I had to be pretty demanding to get enough), though possibly not between me and my siblings. I think I was about 23 before either of my parents told me specifically that they loved me – as in verbally to my face, not like “Love, Mum” in a card or letter. So I also wasn’t in the habit of telling others I loved them. It’s like I had to teach myself to how.

My In-laws however, quite frequently tell each other that they love each other. My niblings on that side of the family have been told by their parents, grand parents, aunts/uncles ect from they day they were born that they’re loved. It took a long time before I told my niece that I loved her, not because I didn’t feel it, but because I didn’t feel comfortable saying so, and didn’t feel, being the uncle’s partner (so not married & not blood related), I was allowed to. I still remember the first time she said it back to me when she was about 3 – I almost cried.

As I wrote in a previous post I’ve been struggling to feel loved by others – I hear their words, and logically know its true, but actually feeling it….not really happening.

One of my closest friends has 2 beautiful little girls. I have loved those girls since the day they were born, in my mind they’re my nieces too (can’t have too many niblings can you?). They generally get pretty excited when I come to visit, running at me when I arrive, and climbing all over me, drawing pictures and snuggling in close. They’re pretty good at filling my hug tank up. The other day when I was visiting, the oldest was cuddled up on my lap, when out of the blue she turned in close and said “I love you”. Not only was I able to reply the same, without any thought, I noticed her words actually made their way through the protective wall to my poor beaten up heart. For a change I actually felt that someone loved me. And while I often leave my friends place with a bittersweet feeling (I’d so love to have a child as lovely and beautiful as my friend’s) for that small moment, it was perfect – and I’m claiming that as a win. A small movement in a healing direction.

And to add to that….my now 9yr old niece ended a message to me today with “love you” – all on her own accord, not in response to me saying it first

 

Can you feel the love tonight?

Have I given you all an ear worm now? I started out with LeAnne Rimes lyrics “loving you, isn’t something I should really do” – but it didn’t quite fit with what I want to write…so now I have both songs mingling in my head!

A few weeks ago, I was watching a conversation on Twitter, someone was being open about the depressive episode they were going through at the time, and many others were sending (virtual) hugs and other words of support. This particular tweep commented that while they appreciated the thought, real hugs weren’t actually something they wanted right then, and another person responded that they’d felt the same when they were grieving the loss of a loved one – they didn’t want the contact, and couldn’t feel the support even though they knew it was well intentioned. But they did say, once they’d got out of the deepest depths of grief, they were really grateful for the love, support and hugs that were still given to them during that time, and that that was what got them through.

It got me thinking about how I felt after my miscarriage last year, and after that day earlier this year when my world fell apart. I didn’t want to be hugged by anyone, not even my husband, and to be honest months down the track there are still only a select few that I’m happy to be hugged by (and of course that changes with each situation). And when people told me they loved me, or were sending love to me, it didn’t mean anything to me – logically I knew it was a kind thing to say, but I just couldn’t feel it. Again, even with my husband I couldn’t feel the love when I told him I loved him or if he’d said it to me – but on some logical level, I knew my survival, and our marriages survival was relying on me to say and do these things even though I couldn’t feel them. So I made myself say them, and made myself hug my husband and a select few others, hoping that one day it would stop being an effort, and I’d actually feel the love that I was told surrounded me.

In my foggy grief stricken haze I could vaguely see that I was closing in on myself, and blocking everyone else away – it’s a common survival mechanism after all. The thing that struck me most though, was that not many people could see (or at least acknowledge) that that’s what I was doing. So they allowed themselves to be pushed away, gave me time and space to heal & grieve my way. But what I realised on some level then, and even more so in hindsight, was that the few connections that remained were vitally important. And I could have done with more. If everyone lets themselves be pushed away, then the result…..is I’m left alone, with only my head for company. Humans are social creatures, we need connections with others, loneliness causes as many if not more health issues as things like smoking. Yet, we are so quick to think “I don’t know what to do, I’ll just leave them, give them time to heal”, waiting until the person dealing with grieve, depression etc is ready to connect again.

Now I realise there’s a fine line between not giving someone space so they’re not lonely, and overcrowding them. But I’d suggest risk the over crowding, because you might be the only one stepping into that space and giving them a life line to hold on to while dealing with their pain.

So if you know someone grieving I suggest you find ways no matter how small, to maintain some connection with them, so if they want to talk or need company the space is not too big for them to cross. Tell them you don’t know what to say or do – they probably have no idea either, because when you’re that down you have no idea whats going to help. But acknowledging that, helps being people together. Send little texts every few days, so they’re not alone. Drop off baking or a meal – home cooking is often loaded with love, and that sometimes gets through….knowing someone did something specially for you, might not seem to make it through the clouds of pain right then….but it will be remembered, like a glimmer of light, later. Send them a card, treat them like you did before what ever happened – as in don’t contact them less, don’t stop inviting them to things etc. Even just saying ‘you might not be up for it, but if you are we’d love to see your face” or words to that effect. Tell them you want to visit, or go out for coffee etc, and then ask when – if action is reduced to one decision its so much easier to handle.

And by doing these little things, you make it easy for them to dip their toes back into life again when they’re ready, the space around them isn’t so big it feels scary to step across, you minimise any awkwardness they might be feeling, and most of all you keep them wrapped in a bubble of connection and love….that one day will break through that protective ice barrier, and they’ll learn to feel love again and to give love again.

Please, what ever you do, don’t let someone grieve alone – even when they push you away.