When it comes to writing my weekly blog post, I usually start the week with the idea of what I want to write, then I will sit and write it and post it on the same day. But this week it didn’t really go as planned.
I had my subject, I knew what I wanted to write, but for some reason no matter how many times I tried to write, it I felt like I couldn’t commit to it. As a quite spiritual person, I try and trust my intuition as much as I can, and so I left it. I went past the deadline I usually give myself, trusting what I was meant to write about would show itself; and then Saturday happened.
I would like to begin by issuing a TRIGGER WARNING for baby loss before you continue to read.
In February 2020 I found out I was pregnant with my first child, and in July 2020 I said both hello and goodbye to my baby when she was born sleeping.
I still can’t believe it happened. I always said at the time it was much like living in a nightmare. Naively, I imagined the nightmare was in three parts: the finding out, the birth, and the funeral. What I didn’t think about was after that, and how the nightmare would never come to an end.
Don’t get me wrong, I have okay days, but I have at least one ‘meltdown’ a week, which comes at the most unexpected times. Things trigger it out of the blue, and well, let’s just say I’ve got my money’s worth out of the waterproof mascara I use! (NYX Worth The Hype, in case anyone need a recommendation.) And now I’m back at work I’m finding it hard to avoid the triggers. Some days it feels like the triggers feel like tennis balls in one of them machines that flings them hurtling toward to player. I think my racket is broken and they just fly through and hit me instead of being able to bat them away.
See, I work in a supermarket. So I can try and avoid the obvious triggers like baby aisle, or that pushchair that’s clogging up the aisle I need to walk down. I can train my eyes to not look at the baby clothes in the clothing department, but what I can’t avoid is people.
Most people are okay, they avoid the subject, or they ask me a simple question like, “Didn’t you have a baby?” and apologise when I tell them. These interactions I can just about handle; people don’t know until you tell them, and I understand that. I really appreciate that these people leave the situation alone and don’t push for more information, but sadly some people do push for more.
“How old is baby now?” I awkwardly stood there and told them we lost her.
“Oh, are you trying again?” They asked.
For months after I lost my baby I struggled to get to sleep. Unwanted images and memories of the entire situation on my mind, sentences that unkind consultants and sonographers said to me spinning in my mind like in a washing machine. I’ve not had a night like that in a long time, until Saturday night anyway. Despite having heavy, tired eyes from crying, I spent the night tossing and turning, unable to stop the trauma from flooding my mind again.
“Oh, are you trying again?” That sentence kills me every time.
When I’m asked that question, I don’t get the cosy vibes of imagining a life with another baby in it, I get cold vibes, as if what I experienced and lost counts for nothing. It’s like people don’t see me as a mother or acknowledge my loss because they knew me before and after, not during.
I had my baby, she’s just not where I wish she was. I don’t need to have another just because she’s no longer here. What I need to do is deal with the trauma and grieve my loss so that my mind can be in the right place to have another one day. Having another baby will never fix the sadness I feel, or fill that space she should be in, and it hurts that anyone would assume that it would.
It’s not that I don’t want people to talk to me about her, I do, but only the right people. I would much rather some normality from my acquaintances and colleagues I only talk to at work. You know, how was your weekend? Where did you get your mask from? Did you hear the Taylor’s Version of Love Story? (Talking about Taylor Swift is always a safe subject with me)
Whether it’s the questions that emotionally make me curl up like a hedgehog, or it’s the sad eyes that peer over masks and they lay their unspoken sympathy on me; I’m learning to handle that as much as those around me are learning to handle me.
I want to feel normal again. I know I can’t never get back to my old normal, but there is a new normal out there that is slowly being found. I just wish others would let me find this new normal and assist me on that path, rather than pull me back with questions that take me back to July.
Going back to July is a path only I know how to get through safely. It’s not a path I want to be dragged down unwillingly, or that I want to allow others to trespass on.
But I’m unsure on how to tell people to stay off the path.
I guess I’ll learn, in time.
Gwen Richards 