A special post... The changing attitudes on grieving for stillborn babies and neonatal deaths...

I came across this today and just had to share it...

I think of my own grandmother and Aunty who experienced the loss of their babies under these circumstances... My grandmother tells the story of how she didn't even know she had given birth to twins until several days later when a nurse 'slipped up' and mentioned that the boy had died... My Aunty that lost her baby was the other twin! And I was so blessed to have them BOTH there to see Mikaila after she was born, and my grandmother holding my hand through the birth!!!

Here is the link to the video... it is only a few minutes long and well worth watching... we have come so far in accepting grief and the loss of our infants. I am eternally grateful for the time I was able to spend with Mikaila, the photos I have of her, and the fact that I was able to give her a funeral...

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-11/changing-attitudes-on-grieving-for-the-stillborn/5017970

Capture Your Grief - Day 14: Family...

The only word I have is broken...

My first experience of broken family was when my grandfather passed away. I was 14 years old and things were just never the same without him around.

Then my parents divorced when I was 16 and my family was truly broken... and things have never been the same.

Brokenness seems a common theme in life, particularly surrounding family. We tend to have idealised dreams of creating a perfect family, being a part of a perfect family, even comparing ourselves and our own experiences to others who we think have the perfect family... In reality, though, there is no perfect family. Each and every one of us has our own brokenness, our own challenges and our own imperfections.

15 years, 8 months and 16 days ago my family broke again when Mikaila was born sleeping... The break has mended somewhat with time, but the cracks will always be there...

9 years, 2 months ago my family broke... with the loss of my 4th baby. A baby I never had the chance to know or connect with. A baby that was gone even before I had the time to feel it was a part of me or for the pregnancy to become 'real' to me...

3 years, 8 months ago my family broke again... In a way that I never imagined, even after what we had been through already. My marriage broke down and my husband and I divorced. It has again mended somewhat with time, but with even deeper cracks and bigger gaps... My dream of creating the 'perfect' family was now completely shattered forever...

1 year ago it was broken yet again... when my oldest son, my second born child, made the choice to live with his Dad. I believe in children having a voice and being heard and would never stand in the way of ANY of my children making such a decision... BUT IT HURTS.

I feel like I am grieving all over again...

I know that I will mend again, but each break leaves deeper scars that seem harder to heal.

THIS is my struggle TODAY... An accumulation of grief. Not just for Mikaila, but for the baby I never got to know and for the family that will never again resemble the one I had always longed for...

I hope that through my brokenness I can become stronger and more beautiful within my soul… like a piece of pottery that has undergone the art of Kintsugi – “golden joinery” that turns ugly breaks into beautiful art.

Kenetha J. Stanton has summed it up perfectly on the home page of her blog, "A KintsugiLife - Becoming strong at life's broken places and finding beauty in the healing". She writes:

“The world breaks everyone, then some become strong at the broken places.” ~Ernest Hemingway

“We all get broken in one way or another in this life. It’s an unavoidable part of living.

But we do have a choice about how we handle those breaks. Sometimes we get stuck in the brokenness and never heal. Or we try to pretend the brokenness is not there, driving it into our shadow where we act it out toward others without knowing why.

Sometimes we give ourselves the time and resources we need to heal those broken places, but the resulting scars remain tender and reactive.

And then there are the times when we do the hard work that’s required to not only heal the broken places, but to make those places stronger than they were before. It is then that our scars become beautiful in the way they allow us to bring healing to the world around us.

The Japanese art of Kintsugi repairs broken pottery with seams of gold and is a fitting metaphor for this last way of dealing with the broken places that life gives all of us. Kintsugi repairs the brokenness in a way that makes the container even more beautiful than it was prior to being broken. It is a long and difficult process, but the results are worth it.”

Today my picture is borrowed from Elephant Journal.

 

Capture Your Grief - Day 13: Book...

I have always read books. When I was younger I liked reading novels, particularly stories about old England and tragic love tales, like Wuthering Heights... but I have always read books about personal growth, maybe in a quest to make some meaning of this life I am living, but mostly because they 'made sense' to me. I had so many ideas about how life could be that it was good to find that I was not the only one who was thinking that way.

After Mikaila was born I continued to read, and I read books about grief, losing a baby, pregnancy after the loss of a child... and they helped me at the time... although I think for the same reasons as the personal growth books did. They acknowledged and supported my own beliefs and thoughts.

I find I read very little now. I don't seem to 'have the time', although I know that if reading was something I really wanted to be doing, I would make the time. I think the truth of it is that I have read so many books that now they seem to just repeat the same thing and I find there is very little that is 'new' to me. That combined with the fact that I seem to read a paragraph and start falling asleep these days!

I believe that we already know everything there is to know. It is within us and remains within us throughout our lives. It is a matter of connecting with that knowledge and trusting our intuitive self to provide answers that are right for us... and what is right for each of us will be sometimes very different and that is very much ok.

So my picture today is a stack of books I have on my bedside table - all of them I have read at least once. An angel bookmark that was a Christmas gift for Mikaila. And a chalkboard - symbolising that our learning never truly ends... Although learning often is purely a realisation that we already knew in the first place!

Capture Your Grief - Day 12: Article...

I have no photo for today... but I have a dream... and that is to take photographs for 'Heartfelt'. This article on the Mamamia blog explains beautifully what this organisation does for people to preserve their babies memories forever... The work they do is Completely. Heart. Felt.

I am so blessed to have photos of Mikaila... and a family who were thoughtful enough at the time to make sure they captured the precious time we were together. I could not imagine being without these images.

As a photographer I am passionate about capturing memories for families. The milestones of their children. The simplicity of children just being children. The special intimacy between a parent and a child. But I can imagine nothing that would compare to the honour of preserving the memories of a family that will not be taking their baby home. Because at the end of the day, the memories are all they have left.

Please visit the Heartfelt website and share with EVERYONE. You never know when it could make a difference to someone you love...

Capture Your Grief - Day 11: Triggers...

In the early days after losing Mikaila there were SO MANY triggers for my grief.

Leaving her alone in the hospital room and getting into our car to go home was the first... the car that had the capsule installed ready to take her home in.

Her nursery was set up ready for her to come home to - and she never did. It was a constant reminder of what SHOULD have been and never would.

Pregnant women at the shopping centre and newborn babies seemed to be EVERYWHERE!!!

My brother-in-law and sister-in-law had their first baby a few months later - it was a genuine struggle for me to attend the baby's christening... one of the hardest days of my life.

Gradually I noticed that things triggered my emotions less often, nor as deeply. Sometimes a song, or a photo would send me plummeting, but it became easier to manage.

Realising that the name we had chosen for our second child - James - means The Supplanter, or 'He who replaces another', was a massive trigger and even now it gives me goose bumps to think that we chose THAT name before knowing what it meant.

NOW...
There are still triggers...

Looking through photographs of the day Mikaila was born and noticing the extreme pain on the faces in those pictures makes me relive that same pain.

Seeing Mikaila's roses blooming, white butterflies, and reading/hearing of other people's stories are all things that make me feel that empty ache...

Christmas is a big one - and although Mikaila is included every year in some way, it is never ever going to be what it could have been...

My birthday has a much bigger impact.

That was the day I went into labour and Mikaila was born the following day.
That was the day the Doctor told me all was going just fine (even though her heartbeat was 'too fast to count'!!!) and sent me home with a kick-chart to begin filling out.
That was the day I made the decision to start filling it out the following day.
That was the day I made the choice to stay at home for the majority of my labour.
That is the day I have often wished I could relive over again and do differently...

Obviously Mikaila's birthday is a trigger. Each year these are probably the hardest two days of the year... these are the days I am acutely aware of what time it is and where I was on that day in 1998.

But even these days have become easier and less painful over the years and instead of being completely paralysed with grief at these times I am now able to spend them in quiet reflection and I sit with the pain a lot more easily. I am ok with the pain. It is less intense, more of a dull ache, a longing and nostalgia, rather than debilitating agony.

Those who know me and spend time with me on these days are probably aware that I am a little quiet, but anyone who has never known my story would probably not even notice my grief on these days anymore.

Catching up on Capture Your Grief - Days 5 to 10...

Day 5 - memory... All I have of Mikaila are memories. I remember the way she kicked under my ribs as I sat in the car every day at the same time on the way home from work, how her hair felt so soft against my lips, her smell, and the softness of her skin... I have her blanket that she was wrapped in for the 12 hours that i held her after she was born and now - almost 15yrs later - I can still put it against my face and feel her there with me again... Memories are so so important... They are what we hold on to and keep with us every day that our babies are not!

 

Day 6 - Ritual...
Every year on January 29... The day after my own birthday.... We celebrate Mikaila's birthday by baking a cake, decorating it, lighting candles and singing Happy Biirthday. All the kids blow out her candles for her and cut the cake together.
She is a member of our family and her birthday is just as important as all the others.
She also receives (or I do on her behalf) a gift... A charm for my bracelet, a flower, an ornament - something small that is representative of her, her time with us, or where she would be in her life at that stage or age.
Rituals are an important part of remembering and keeping our babies spirits alive within us

 

 

 

Day 7 - You Now... (I am catching up from being away for the long weekend!)
If I had to only choose 1 word to describe me now it would be RESILIENT...
To describe who I am now would take so much more than a word.... I could probably write a whole book... But that one word is really what is most important about my journey as a mother of 6 (I have focused on the loss of Mikaila during this but I also lost my 4th baby early in my pregnancy - at about 8/9weeks who I named Joey) so I am a mother of 6!

Day 8 - Colour...
Mikaila's lips when she was born were a deep rose pink. Over the 12 hours I spent with her they gradually turned a dark ruby red and by the time of her funeral a week later they were black. When I think of her colour I think of those deep rose pink lips - and the flower that was brought into hospital for her.

Day 9 - Music... Dante's Prayer by Loreena McKennitt is the song we played at Mikaila's funeral and one that still makes my heart ache... There is absolutely no doubt that I will ALWAYS remember you my angel xx

 Day 10 - Beliefs...
I have never been a 'religious' person, but I have ALWAYS been a spiritual person and I cannot accept that death is the end.
To me the Divine, God, Universal Energy are all one and the same - and EVERYTHING is made from this same source.
Whether I am looking at a tree, or a bird, or the clouds in the sky, a butterfly or a flower I know that Mikaila is alive. How can she not be? Her body may not be here on this earth anymore, but the energy, the life-force, the spirit that she is continues to live... she is a part of everything as much as any of us are.
The rose in the photo is the latest one to bloom on the rose bush that was given to her Dad and I on the day of her funeral... To me it symbolises just how she continues to live... and grow... and shine... and also that beautiful things not only 'can' but DO flourish among the thorns of life!!!
I thank Mikaila for coming into my life and sharing her spirit with me so intimately and for the personal growth and awareness that comes from the journey I continue to travel...

Capture Your Grief - Day 4: Legacy

A legacy is "something handed down or received from an ancestor or predecessor"...

Mikaila was with us for 9 months - I carried her within my body for 9 months. I felt her grow. I felt her move. I heard her heart beating and watched her wriggle during ultrasounds. I have ultrasound images of her as she grew. I have photographs of her just after her birth. I have her special blanket knitted for her by her grandmother and a 'treasure chest' of other keepsakes and memories.

The physical legacies left include all these things... as well as the changed body I now have - also a legacy of my other babies I have carried and nurtured and grown... and something that I am unashamedly proud of... It is a miracle to grow children within you and to bear the daily reminders of such a miracle is something we should all be proud of.

Mikaila made a big impact in such a short time for so many of my family and friends. Her legacy to them has been something that cannot be captured in a photograph. It has been a connection to what is most precious in life - which is different for all of us. Her legacy has been an awareness that life is valuable and fleeting, and should be grasped with both hands and lived fully, because there is never any way to tell when and how it will be changed forever!

Perhaps the MOST IMPORTANT legacy that has been left by Mikaila has been a result of her leaving us... for had she stayed, life would have played out very differently and her brothers and sisters probably would not have arrived when they did or become the people they are... They each have their own special connection with the big sister they never met here on earth or in this lifetime... but the connection is there. Mikaila is talked about by each of them, she has been included in drawings of their family and she is very much alive to all of us!

Thank you for your brothers and sisters Mikaila... without you, they may not be here... and I cannot imagine a life without any of you.

Capture Your Grief - Day 3: Myths

There are so many myths surrounding grief - some are myths perpetuated by society and those around us offering their own perspective on what grief 'SHOULD' look like... but many are myths we create ourselves which may or may not be helpful to our journey. I could try to list them... that there is a specific process and stages you will experience, that it will take a certain amount of time for you to 'bounce back', that you shouldn't smile or find humour in any aspect of life during the grieving process, that if you fail to remember your baby EVERY waking moment there is something wrong with you..... I could go on and on and on... but the truth is that GRIEF is different for every single person and what my experience of grief is will be very different from yours, although we may share some common feelings.

One of my own personal myths - created by my own perceptions and ideals - has been that I needed to remember every little detail about that single moment in time when Mikaila was born. I needed to remember every single detail about her.

But the truth is TIME DOES NOT STAND STILL... time is fluid and flowing and continues to move regardless of what we are feeling or doing or being.

What I have come to realise over the years is that memory fades. Those moments in time that have tremendous impact on us will stay with us and remain much clearer and stronger than many others, but they do fade... and that's ok. I still remember the most important parts of that moment. The love and heartbreak, the anticipation, the hope and the utter devastation and emptiness that followed...

The details are no longer so important to me... Mikaila lives in my heart, she always will, just as my 4 living children do. Time - no matter how much of it passes - will never change THAT detail.

Capture Your Grief - Day 2: Identity

The dictionary defines Identity as "the individual characteristics by which a person or thing is recognised"...

My memories of Mikaila are what I hold in my mind as her Identity... her masses of dark, soft hair... her pale skin and her dark ruby lips... her long, thin arms and legs, and long fingers with tiny fingernails...

Had she survived, these would no longer be her Identity...

She would have grown, learned, changed over time, and would now be a young woman making her own individual mark on the world.

I often wonder what she would be like. What would she look like? Would she still have the dark hair she had at birth or would it have changed? Would she be outgoing, confident or sporty? Or would she be a quiet, studious and academically minded young lady?

Given that her brothers and sisters all have their own unique looks and personalities that, although at times hold glimpses of their siblings, are usually all very individual, it is difficult to tell whether Mikaila would be like any of them.

I only have my imagination to create an Identity for who I think she might have become... There is no way to tell whether I am right in my guessing.

This figurine represents the Unknown Identity of who Mikaila might have grown into... a young lady, but without defined features or personality... leaving these things purely to imagination and personal assumptions. But a divine being who holds the essence of all things within them.