Now

There is something about living in the present that I'm starting to learn.
Life is too short for double thoughts and delays. So we are buying a flat, our first (I'm afraid of many) home. As owners of course, because the flat where I'm right now feels very much like home and I love it.
We are buying a flat even if we are pretty sure we're going to move in no more than 3 years time. We need to sort sort out the final formalities and we hope the deal will be concluded next week or so.
It's a fresh start and it feels very good.
There is something about living in the present without being afraid of too many ifs and buts that gives a burst of energy. We leant we don't know what's going to happen tomorrow the hardest way. I knew already, tho. Now the good news is: I'm not afraid anymore. F**k the fears, the potential problems, the unknown of tomorrow. If (that's the only "if" allowed) something's going wrong, we'll cross that bridge!

Misunderstanding

I don't understand.
I'm browsing the web these days, following the links and the links on the links on the blogs I find interesting. Often, on the topic of perinatal losses, I realised many websites and blogs stress the fact that angel parents don't have to feel ashamed and have to shout the grief out loud. I agree on the shouting because it's cathartic for us and maybe helps other people in our shoes if we share how we feel. Maybe, even friends and families find useful to read how it feels to lose a baby, so they can better help their loved ones.
But shame... I just don't get it. I had a full range of feelings from deep despair to blind anger but I never and ever felt ashamed that Jacopo didn't come home with me. Very pissed off, indeed. Shame implies the admission of a guilt, like we deserved to be punished (by who, who knows). I think the other way round, instead. We didn't deserve to have to go through this hell and so, in case, it isn't us who should be ashamed.

No gas

I have no energy.
Everything is like climbing a mountain and I wish to get asleep now and awake in the summer. Like the bear I've become!

5 Months

and I miss you very much, baby boy. Tears are less frequent now and days are less painful. Anger is almost gone and life has taken a sort of new undertone routine. I can laugh sometimes. I have days when I can also concentrate at work and make the job done.
But if I should define how I feel, probably one word is enough: empty. I feel almost nothing, I'm not interested. I just miss my boy and I know that I'm not where I'd like to be, again. I don't feel chatty and it's like I'm living inside me most of the time. Sometimes it's strange, some other times I guess it's like I became, after all I've gone through. Or maybe at the moment there isn't space for much more than survival, still.

10 sentences very likely to annoy a bereavement mum

What's written below is particularly true in early days and weeks, then a bit it subsides.


How are you?
How the hell do you think I am? Pretty shit thanks. I know it's your way to start a conversation but, really, can't we talk about the weather? Do you really want me to struggle in a superfake and polite 'fine'?

It will ease in time
Of course it will, everyone knows it but I swear in this precise moment 'time' is pretty far away and right now I just want to kill myself so it doesn't help that you remind me that maybe in 3 years time I'll be better. 3 years have to pass and in the meantime I'll be pretty shit. Thanks again.

Those are things that happen. You need to accept it.
Yes, sure! easy to say when it happens to someone else. I can't stand the fatalistic attitude coming from people who had a bloody easy life.

It's God's plan.
WTF... couldn't God have had plans for someone else?

Anger is a bad feeling and it damages yourself.
You know what, just shut the f* up. My baby died for no reason and all my hopes and plans and dreams died with him and I'm not even allowed to be bloody pissed off? And what's for? If you want to play at Our Immaculate Lady, go and play with someone else.

It's not her fault (referred to someone else who had a perfect pregnancy, straightforward labour and perfectly healthy baby and you don't want to know anything about)
Of course it isn't, but do you really need to point out how successful she was and what a bloody failure I WAS? I retain to stub any single pregnant woman and any single baby on my way home every day and it costs a lot of efforts, so please, leave me alone.

You need to move on.
No, darling, I don't need to move on, you need to stop missing the point. A son isn't something we need to move on from, it's something which is part of your life FOREVER, even if he is dead.


They are fine (referred to someone else still pregnant who knew your amazing news and was understandably shocked)
Good for them, I don't give a shit!

Are you back at work?
I know that you really want me to be back to normal and work is part of 'normal' but really, I'm not so into career at the moment.

Golden one: Take it easy, stay calm, don't rush, it isn't a competition (when you say that you want another baby).
Oh yes, it is. It is a competition with the f*ing destiny. It took my baby away, I'll make other 5 to get revenge. And I'll start tonight, for God sake. I don't give a shit about what doctors, midwives, obstetricians, GPs, consultants, whoever say. I'm gonna produce another baby immediately and then one per year until menopause. And we'll see who wins eventually, eh, life?

Valentine day

I've never bothered with Valentine day, not even when a was a little girl. It always sounded to me like a very fake and consumer festivity when fake happy couples just have bad food in restaurants full of heart-shaped ballons.
Last year, however, it was different. It was the day I found out I was pregnant. A very special gift to my very special John who ended up in shock for a week or two. We weren't really trying, we thought it would have taken ages, and in two cycles, there we were, two pink lines.
The beginning was funny, the end a bit less, but Valentine day for me will always have a special meaning, now on.

I bought to John eight red roses and two white ones. All my love, a storm and a rainbow.

Jacopo and I

Here is my boy, Jacopo Calabrese, born still on Sep, 18th 2010 at 16:23. 2.38 Kg. My forehead, my lips, John's nose and hair.

And this is my story. Very common. Uneventful pregnancy, everything text book, kicks and punches and one day (Sep, 15th) suddenly, nothing. He was gone sometimes when I was busy at work in a rush to finish all my job before my maternity leave.

This is not what I want to remember. I wish to be able to forget that scan, that room, those words, those expressions depicted on doctors' and midwives' faces. And that tear, just one, which silently streamed down John's face.

But, and this is hard to anyone else to understand, there are things I want to remember. I want to remember all the care I had in the delivery suite from four wonderful midwives who spent their shifts in my room. I want to remember how much love John was able to give me just sitting on that chair and holding my hand. I want to remember the moment I delivered and the care the midwife took to wash and wrap Jacopo before we could see him. And the feeling of neverending love I had when I held him. And John's expression when for the first time in his life, he held a baby in his arms, his own baby as he always had said. Moments, seconds, flashes of crazy happiness in the darkness. The labour was beautiful. We made a beautiful and perfect boy. 

Just a dream?

I dreamt of you, little boy, tonight. But it wasn't the same sad dream with the usual even more sad wake-up. I dreamt that you were coming back. You had been with my aunt and my oncle for all these months and they had taken good care of you. But now it was time for you to come back home, with mum and dad. And John and I were finding your old stuff, to get ready for your return.
I awoke and suddenly realised it was just a dream but this time I didn't fell sad, I felt quite OK, quite serene, quite full of hope.
My boy is coming back, in a shape or in another. He left, he found the place he had to and now he'll be here with us, forever.

Another journey

We'll be happier here, Jacopo, you and I.

Sharing a poem

The Sheikh who lost two sons

A great sheikh has lost two sons, yet he is not weeping. His family
and his wife wonder at this lack of grief.

"Do not think that I am cold and uncompassionate. 

I don't weep because for me they are not gone. 

The eye of my heart sees them distinctly. 

They're outside of time but very close by here playing and coming to hug me. 

As people sometimes see dead relatives in dream, 

I see my sons constantly in this waking state. 

I am even more deeply with them when I hide for a moment from the world, 

when I let the sense-perception leaves drop from the tree of my being. 

I weep for those who have ungrateful souls. 

I weep when boys throw stones at dogs. 

I weep for dogs who bite for no reason. 

Forgive the harm that anyone does. 

We are here to be a forgiveness door through which freedom comes. 

I weep when I ask that the door not be shut."

Some attend to individual mercies and some to universal Grace. 

Try to let them merge. Pond water eventually arrives at the ocean.
One saint works and lingers in the lakes of personal life. 

Another plays without limits in the sea.
Whatever gives pleasure is the fragrance of the Friend. 

Whatever makes us wonder comes from that light. 

What's inside the ground begins to sprout because you spilled wine there. 

What dies in autumn comes up in spring because this way of saying no 

becomes in spring your praise song yes.

(From The Soul of Rumi. Translated by C. Barks)

Rainbow babies

Babies born to families after the loss of a child are referred to as “Rainbow Babies” The idea is that the baby is like a rainbow after a storm. “Rainbow Babies” is the understanding that the beauty of a rainbow does not negate the ravages of the storm. When a rainbow appears, it doesn’t mean the storm never happened or that the family is not still dealing with its aftermath. What it means is that something beautiful and full of light has appeared in the midst of the darkness and clouds. Storm clouds may still hover but the rainbow provides a counter balance of colour, energy and hope.

Un cuore che batte

Un cuoricino che batte scaccia il ricordo di uno che non batte più?

La risposta è no. Stesa su quel lettino, ieri, ho avuto un momento di terribile panico e poi uno di terribile gioia quando Ed ha detto ‘Oh, that’s good news’. 

il suono di quelle parole non e’ riuscito a cancellare quello della dottoressa vichinga ‘I’m so sorry, your baby is no longer alive’.

Pero’ un cuore che batte e due braccina e due gambine che si muovono lascia almeno un cuore colmo di speranza. E il mio che batteva all’impazzata si e’ un po’ calmato. Non so quanto durera’ la sensazione, sembra che stia gia’ sparendo, ma almeno dovro’ trovare altri motivi per agitarmi perche’ no non e’ una gravidanza extrauterina, no per adesso non e’ un missed miscarriage e magari se non vedo sangue posso indulgere nel credere che il cuoricino di questa cellulina battera’ anche la settimana prossima.

Passera’ il primo trimestre.

Passera’ anche il secondo e anche il terzo.

Ci DEVO CREDERE

Cellulina verra’ a casa con noi.

E Jacopo la proteggera’ dal posto pieno di luce in cui si trova.

Mi manchi tanto piccino mio...