What can I say?

How is it that I have nothing to offer?

Are we built to forget the experiences of pain?

It was only two and a half years ago that I too, came home after holding my new daughter as she died. I know the horror of the nursery set up. The mockery of a mobile, swinging and playing tunes. The unbareable ache of empty arms, longing for a burden ever so light.

I know these things. I KNOW these things.

But when I look at someone else IN these things....... I have nothing.......

I want to warn them, to let them know that it will likely get much worse before it begins to get even a tiny bit better. But I know no-one wants to know this.

I want to let them know that they are not alone... while knowing, when it comes down to it.... we are all terribly alone in our greif.

I want to let them know that they will survive it, while knowing that their may well be a part of them that does not want to survive it. Because sometimes death has such beauty, and holds something so dear, it does not seem an enemy.

I am left a floundering fool - like the others whom I looked at with disdain - because I have nothing to say except those tired tired words that have well and truley crumpled under the weight we expect them to carry "I'm sorry". How can that give anything? Like this post, it is about me, not them.

But I am sorry.

Little Silas I am so very sad.

This medusa

Intro to this post.


When holding your daughter as she is dying, and after she has died, you find out if you have faith.

I found out I do.

What exactly that faith is, or is in, is still quite unclear. But I believe.

------

Today. I am on my knees, weeping with gratitude.
Today. I know what makes the world.
Today. I know that LOVE is the only force powerful enough to create.
Today. I know that every single created thing is made in LOVE, and is LOVE.
Today. I know that my job in this world is to see this, and to carry on the job of creating with love.
Each blade of grass is profound.
The beauty of light hurts my heart.
I will plant a garden.
Today. I know that I know what love is.

-------

A mist has descended. It weighs on me. Heavy. Heavy.
I cry and it muffles the sound. My wailing sounds distant. A cry from ancient times, a legend I once read, about a woman whose only child died. She longs to be enveloped by the earth that holds the core of her. She goes down into it, away from light and voices.

-------

Can you see me? Can you give me a sign? Do you know how much I can love? Do you see my pain?

Please God. Please. Please. Please. Please. Please.

-------

Buried so deep, hiding so well, nothing can touch me. Not the coolness of the ocean, or the the way the new leaves shine like silver. A death of the heart, and of eyes that choose blindness, and ears that prefer silence. Giving birth to a rising panic. What is this place? Is there still further to fall? Will this be the death of me?

-------

But somehow I am found. A baptism, while swimming naked at the bottom of a waterfall. Thanksgiving rising with me and the bubbles. I shout "YES! YES!" and laugh, when snorkelling the next day, because I can hear the ridiculous noise of a parrot fish munching on coral.


And like in a good Irish hymn, I can sing from the middle of the shit, that I am OK. I haven't triumphed, turned the fates, won the victory, and yet, I know that it is well with my soul. Even in death.

This is my faith.

Thanks friends

Thanks for checking in on me.

Yes my fragile little happiness is growing very slowly but surely. It has become a little sturdier, and while it gets knocked over relatively easily, it bounces back in a fairly short time.

When people ask me how I am I have stopped saying "OK I guess" or "not tooooooo bad" and have started to say "pretty good actually". Which is pretty good actually - don't you think.

I don't know what has happened. It's a miracle to say the least. And I put at least some of it down to the choir I have been singing in, and the circus classes. Did I mention how much I love circus?

My other sister (not the one who just had a child) but the one in the middle - she is also pregnant, and about to get married. Which is great for her cause she is 35. It was an Oooops thing. Although I'm yet to figure how two 35 yr olds ooopsed their way into that. I think it involved serious denial, Christians and all.

I won't go into all that commotion - the point is - this is something that could really tip me over. I'm organising her hens party today (a picnic tomorrow), and the wedding is next week. And, listen up peoples, I'M OK.

So there you have it.

Thanks again to those who have been checking in.

It means alot.

love B

In Silks

Do you think it is OK to do circus classes while doing a cycle? It's all about your core muscles getting serious workout. Feet tangled in the tissue - hanging upside down and attemping sit ups - that kind of stuff. Like uber pilates.

Could it be?

I think it might be.....

I think I'm happy.

Look at that. I sincerely didn't think I would be writing that for a good few years. But there it is. That mundane, commonplace word. And what a delight to be reacquainting myself with it. I'm clapping my hands cause I'm happy and I know it.

I have been feeling like Charlie - pre chocolate factory visit. So deprived that when a bar of chocolate comes to me on my birthday, I treasure it as more precious then gold. Taking it out every now and then to look at it, eventually tearing off the tiniest bit of wrapper, nibbling a bit from the corner, tasting it's sweetness and then putting it away because I need to to last. *Happy* has been my precious chocolate bar.

For the last two and a half years, each time I have had a happy moment I have been conscious of savouring it - turning it over, trying to pull it out in the crap times to remind myself that it does exist. I would say I have become good at getting mileage out of even the smallest bit of Happy. I hang on to the memory of the feel of the sun of my shoulders, or the smell of the ocean, and try to make these little pieces of Happy carry the huge weight of my sorrow. Unsurprisinngly, they often sink under its weight. (OK so now I'm really mixing metaphors -chocolate bars/life bouys-but are you with me?) I make each piece of Happy go a very long way.

But look at this week's list of Happy:
Tuesdays circus class - Check
Taking my 3 yr old niece out for the day on her birthday and decorating her cake with paper shapes and icing sugar - Check
A boozey dinner followed by whiskey and watching The Opening Ceremony - Check
Watching Tima (my furry friend) retrieve his stick from the ocean and accidentally body surf back to shore - Check
Sydney sun (even in winter). It's all gold and blue today. - Check
Lyrics Born gig - Check (well that is tonight but I already know it will make me happy)

Not quite a chocolate factory but definately enough to gorge on in a week. Fortunately, unlike chocolate, too much Happy does not make you feel crook.

There is no reason to explain this showbag of Happy - there are many things going on that could have tipped me into more months of heartbreaking sadness - but I just don't want to let these things do that to me anymore. I have developed an almost ferocious ambition for my own happiness. I WILL BE HAPPY. Damn it. I f*** in will. I am.

You watch me be it.

Family circus

There is what is "right" and what is true. Be brave my family. Give up "right" and embrace what is true. I promise it is not as terrifying as you think. 

*****

But I felt at home at the circus class. Here are my people, even though I don't know them. We laughed and cheered as we watched each other swing on a trapeze for the first time ever. Issi climbed like a monkey up the fabric. I only made a few metres, but managed a pike upside down.

*****

And I am learning to bounce in other ways.  The more times you get knocked over, the better you become at righting yourself. Some days I can do it in 1/2 an hour. Which is pretty good going don't you think.

Faith, Hope and Longing

I am trying to untangle what hope is.

Hope is something that we all think we know what it is. Most people think that hope is a good thing, that we can't live without it. But us baby-less people know it as something else.

Hope is a monster.

Nothing makes this clearer then doing an IVF cycle. The very fact that you are doing an IVF cycle is a statement of hope. You are doing all you can to make real the hope of bringing a little person into this world and your arms. But for those of us who have been burnt a few times by this, that hope comes with a great amount of fear. We want to be hopeful, be positive, and at the same time protect ourselves in the event of failure. Managing hope is an exhausting process of hedging bets both ways. Of opening yourself up to possibility and shutting yourself down to disappointment. The process of wrestling hope also includes a strange entanglement with superstition.

It goes a little something like this.......

I need to be hopeful. It is important that I be hopeful. How can this possibly work if I don't think positively about it. I have to be positive for this to work. But what if it doesn't work. What if I have bought the lie and then have to pay the price. Maybe I will just pretend this isn't happening. I will go to the clinic and pretend the blood tests are for something else - to donate blood. I'll ignore that bit of the day where I have to give myself injections and just pretend, pretend, pretend..... and then maybe it will sneak up on me. Catch me by surprise. Yes, pregnant, Yes, delighted. Surprised! / No, no, I'm doing just fine. I never expected it to work anyway.

It is true, the amount of hope you have for a cycle does effect the crushing disappointment of a failed cycle. The higher you climb, the harder the fall. Last cycle I believed I was pregnant. For gods sakes I started lactating! The changes I felt in my body were real, so I believed them. Sadly, they were real changes that came as a result of injecting hormones into me, not as a result of being pregnant. The despair of the last failure was extremely bitter, and I am still coming to terms with it.

So I have this little flame of hope. The wind blows and it becomes a raging fire during an IVF cycle, and then my period comes and a fireman with a wet blanket starts beating at the raging hope. Smacking it into place. Suffocating it. Until, once again it is a tiny ember. Precious, suffocating, almost spent. I look at my little ember of hope and wonder if I have the courage to nurture it back to a fire, and face the chance of it being beaten again. Maybe this time it will finally be put out. Is that what the end of the road looks like?

People who want to "give you hope" have no idea what the hell they are talking about. That kind of hope is high risk, terrifying to the extreme, and could possibly kill you.

But I have had a different sense of hope that is growing alongside this. This hope is not like the fire that gets whipped into a fire storm and then beaten back down to a tiny ember. No, this is a very different kind of hope. And I think it is secure enough for me to build something on. Let me tell you the hope.... I have to whisper it because it's still tiny........ but it is this:

I'm going to be OK. No matter what.

See. Nothing like that out of control fire. Just a tiny little seed of something that might grow and grow and grow and become big and strong. It will stay with me through all of life. It won't be able to be suffocated. Sometimes I won't be able to see it but I will know that it is still there. It grows with strength and a sadness too. Because to live without a living child would be a very very sad thing indeed. But I would still live.

What is this kind of hope called? Is it faith? Or is this true hope and the other sort just desire or longing. What does it mean for my longing for a child? that other sort of hope? do I have to let go of that?

A day in the life of.......

These relentless rainy days are the worst. The nightmare of every parent of young children, childcare workers and school teachers. ( For those of you that don't know, I teach kids with autism and have the "high support" class)

I guess we get a bit complacent in Sydney and view outside play not only as a right but a daily need for children (and for those of us that care for them). So we pay no attention to the miracle of long sunny day after long sunny day... and when the rain finally comes..... as it did this week, we find it can be a rude visitor that overstays it's welcome. Sydney likes to get all it's raining done in large chunks so we can get back to those clear blue skies, so we love the first day or two, the idea of rain, the feeling of relief that it inevitably brings, and then get much less tolerant by day 3 and then when we are on our 4th or 5th day of constant rain, the world begins to turn upside down.

A damp start to the day then. But a sweet tableau on arrival, a mum sitting on the floor trying to engage one of the other kids (let's call him rock star - he's very good looking) in play. Rock Star was busy trying to stack the toys in two tall piles and experimenting with height vs base area ratios. For him, the ideal achievement was to get as much height with as little touching the ground as possible, resulting in inevitable crashes of large piles of toys. A large, clunky sound from Elmo and a rather deformed looking B1 who popped back to his bannana-ry shape after a ship was taken out of his head.

Enter (let's call her) Floss. Filipino. Two very messy pig tails (she can't tolerate the hair brush) sticking out perpendicular to her head. She sees me and does a little jump and flap of excitement - her way of saying "Good morning Barbara. I like you" and then starts whinging at me to find her favourite Dorothy the Dinosaur song book.  Said book found, she finds a spot to look and point at the pictures singing "Ya, ya, YA" which is the only sound she ever makes. Apart from lengthy wailing.

Not-at-ease comes in with his mum. He is a difficult kid. One of those tragic cases of autism where the kid develops normally through the first few years of life and then all of a sudden starts losing skills. The parents watch in horror as the child they know disappears in front of their eyes and a complicated and very unsettled little person takes their place. Not-at-ease does not feel right in his own body. The proportions somehow aren't right. His joints think they need to be carrying someone much heavier, so they feel restless and constantly want extra weight. Not-at-ease searches the room for things to push against, to make his bones feel right. He touches things with his fingertips and leans into it to feel pressure through his fingers and wrists, he taps things to his mouth, he puts his head into my knee cap and leans in to get a strong pressure through the top of his head, he puts his head between the legs of anyone standing near and pushes against them with his shoulders. He will grab the front of your shirt and pull very hard to try to let you know something (but what????? I can never seem to give him what he seeks.) A day trying to help not-at-ease feel a little easier in him self sends your blood pressure sky high and is physically exhausting.

The day starts with our usual song and dance routine. That is, I sing and dance and the kids look at me and judge my performance by either staying in their seats (yes, an excellent performance today Barbara) or by popping up out of their seats and wandering round the room (not-so-good today-Barb. Could tell your heart was not in it). The teachers assistant sits behind them and plays "whac-a-mole"  - only with kids - and hopefully we more or less muddle through and the kids more or less sit, and something more or less is learned.

We, all of us, are ready to get outside when morning tea time comes. Only no outside play!! AGHHHH! 

Normally on Thursdays we spend some time at a soft play centre but due to this miserable weather, it was very crowded yesterday. Rockstar has got a habit of tipping anything with wheels upside down to spin the wheels, including prams. Not-at-ease is a constant forager and will eat food off any table or the floor. Mr Wiggle constantly tries to climb in  the ball pit which is only for toddlers, and the little fella climbs the walls of the jumping castle and then sits on top and bounces up there. He likes to watch everyone shouting at him to get down. We usually try to go at least busy times so there are not many other kids around as we expect all of the these things to happen. When we arrived, the teacher assistant and I looked at the room full of prams and kids parties and decided that it would be fool-hardy mission even for brave people such as us. Poor little Mr Wiggle wept and wailed the whole way home. He was the only one cluey enough to realise that we had dangled the promise of an hour in the ball pit in front of his face and then taken it away again. He thought it was very unfair. Fair enough.

So, here's a priceless moment from the day (I have great stories after each day of work and if I ever stop finding them funny you may have to kill me).  Rock Star has a big bucket of beautiful glass beads that someone gave to us. He is busy making a cartoon graphic out of the black and yellow beads (like the Walt Disney castle or the Pixar logo - only this one says Ragdoll). At one point he had either messed the whole thing up or had run out of the right beads to continue. Frustrated, he messes up the whole logo , lucky I had already taken a photo - and then picks up the bucket of beads and tips them over his head. Very Rock Star. Just like in Down With Love where Catcher Block tips the champagne bucket of ice over himself.  Apparantly Rock Star thought it was a pretty neat move because as soon as I had cleaned the mess he did it again. And he also did it with a jigsaw puzzle, and then with a box of plastic shapes. 

So, that's my day. Each day.

That's why I took a mental health day on Wednesday. When things are fine I am usually OK, but when I'm tipped over already, it's a hard place to be.