My week of babies

5 July 2009

OK, I need to vent about all the babies in my life!

Tuesday. Went to Bianca's for a cup of tea so lots of Harriet. Her and Luca were meant to grow up together. Actually don't feel so bad around her because I love her family so much.

Friday. Ministry night with our new church ministry. There was Joanne and Dennis - Joanne is quite pregnant and Denis constantly asked questions like 'what's it like having a new baby'. What was he thinking?
Peggy and Jacque were there with their baby who was born not long after Luca. They were only too happy to talk about babies all night. It was a nightmare.

Saturday. Party at Therase's for her birthday. Her friend Tea came with her baby Summer. We had our babies at the same time and I've seen her a couple of times since then but she's never acknowledged Luca at all. She saw me pregnant. In fact she cooked lunch for me the day Luca died (though I didn't know it yet of course). We swapped stories about our gestational diabetes. Now nothing. To top it off everyone made a huge fuss of her baby. Tea came and sat next to me with her and I had to endure 'how old is your baby?'. 'Almost six months'. Luca would have been six months old this coming wednesday. It just breaks my heart.

Sunday. Ah church. Place of so many babies. Place of so many pregnant women. Place of so many people who don't get it and say stupid things like 'don't worry, you can have another one'. I can never decide whether to not go for a while or just put up with it. In the meantime I'm not sure it's good for my emotional health. We missed church on wednesday this week to go to a community agitation meeting about a proposed 54 apartment development in our street. Otherwise wednesday night would have been more of the same.

Right. Glad that's off my chest. I'm hoping it will get easier soon. I did have a bit of a breakthrough. Therase announced her pregnancy on saturday and I felt happy for her. Yes, actual happiness! I wonder if it's a bit easier because I feel really positive about TTC this month. I haven't told anyone yet that I have a good feeling about this month. But now I've written it here so it must be true! I'd love to be pregnant with Therase. And my best friend is planning an IVF cycle soonish. I'd double love to be pregnant with her.

I've felt really ripped off about having to be pregnant again, since I thought we had completed our family, but I'm starting to feel a little better about it. I've been trying to focus more on an actual baby - a person, not a pregnancy. And thinking about friends who could be pregnant at the same time helps too.

For this entry's photo I have this to offer - my first scrapbooked page of Luca:

I apologise to all those people I scoffed at because I thought scrapbooking was stupid. The counsellor at the women's said the other day 'you need to find ways to mother your baby even though he is not here'. That is so true. I'm reading a wonderful book at the moment about maintaining a connection with someone who has died - The heart of grief: death and the search for lasting love by Thomas Attig. It is sad in a way because a lot of what he talks about is memories (it's not specific to pregnancy loss), and with a stillborn baby there are no memories of his life. But it is still really lovely and helpful.