Sometimes I don't know how to start these posts, today I don't know how to articulate how I feel. I can't believe we have a 9 month old son, who lives in the sky. Some days I've accepted that yes this is it, this is my life and we have to deal with the cards we've been handed. But some days I just want to say 'Fuck you Universe, why us? Why him?'
It's really important for me to try to focus on the positives; compared to some poor families we were very lucky. I had a healthy pregnancy where Ollie had no issues, we have a good support system, he wouldn't have suffered any pain, our post mortem results were as positive as a post mortem result could be in terms of trying again, we have a lovely house where I feel safe, work have been very understanding...all of these things I feel so privileged for. But some day's it's really difficult to shrug off the loneliness that comes along with losing a baby. I'm more sensitive to everything, but at the same time more hardened. I'm offended more easily when people forget things about him, important dates, forget the fact that I'm struggling, but then remember that life still moves forward, people move forward, it just seems to be me that's stuck in the past...
I've always held onto hope and how important 'Hope' is, because without it I don't know where I would be. It's an invisible force, but incredibly powerful. The hope that things will be okay and will get better, that we will see Ollie again, that we will one day bring home a baby. Some days however I've felt that hope slipping through my fingers and I'm unable to grasp it. Some days I'm so frightened of what's to come or what could happen that I can hardly catch my breath, but then other days I wake up and think 'Actually, this could be okay, it could work...just maybe'. There is no set path to grief, which is another thing that I'm finding hard, the unpredictability of day to day life.
9 months was always going to be a difficult milestone for us, I have now carried him for as long as he has been gone and that's hard to accept. His absence hasn't got any easier; I look for signs of him everywhere and ways to drop him into conversation so that he isn't forgotten. He is always missed, at every point of every day, from the mundane to the events - he is always in our thoughts. I'm still hitting milestones of my own, this week was my first day back in the office since Ollie died and my first time seeing colleagues. Some knew and some didn't, which is okay. I made sure I said his name several times, in a way to make it okay for others to say it. His picture was on my desk, alongside Bluebear who came along for the ride! I met another loss Mum who's journey is similar to mine all the way from Essex. Every week there is something which shows me life is returning slowly back to what it was like before, except nothing is like it was before.
I know that it won't always be like this, that it won't always be this painful, and things have gotten better since the early days. Learning to parent a child who has passed away is something I never thought I would have to do, navigating how to try and remain hopeful and positive, whilst honouring your babies life is hard. But as hard as it is, I wouldn't take back a single second, because he is the best thing that ever happened to us and will always be part of our family, we will do things because of him and for him and he won't be the reason that we're afraid or don't do things. We have managed to forge some good memories in the last 9 months despite how we feel, even though it feels like pushing treacle up a hill I know that we are moving forward in some way.
We don't always want to be 'that couple who's baby died' we want to be 'Ollie's parents', to change the narrative on how people see us, to remind people that we have a 9 month old child, to show people that we can a live a good life, with him in our hearts, to break this stigma surrounding baby loss.
'Hope is the only thing stronger than fear...'
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