In memory of my beloved Fraser and all our children.Little buds sown on earth to bloom in heaven

[frasersmummy]

A new haven for us all to say exactly what is in our heart or on our minds knowing that everyone understands and wont judge

Awww Caz how amazing - you are going to be a grown up bridesmaid....so chuffed for you. xxxx

Tonight - out of the blue - one of the multiple mums thread girls texted me and told me she was in our area. She came to my house to visit - it was wonderful to see her. I have 'known' her for a couple of years...she brought cakes!!!!!!!!!

At first I panicked and thought OMG tidy up everybody - one of her twins has been very ill and he is recovering rapidly. He is doing great and is almost back to normal.

It has been a lovely day xxx

its lovely to hear everyones good news, big hugs cazem on lovely news of been a bridesmaid, my dd1 was once one when she was 3 years old, never forget it refused to go in wedding car,laid on floor and screamed, god it was embarrasing, i can laugh now but at time i couldntx

caz so pleased for you, being a bridesmaid, you are obviously a very close family it is something good for you to look forward to. It does seem strange that the world keeps turning when we seem stuck in the same place but hopefully one day we will see it differently.

I can't believe that after our great day yesterday I have woken up in tears thinking 'oh god its so sad those boys will never see their dad again'. I must pull myself together before they wake up. They do not seem to want to talk about Richard in depth, just mentioning him in conversation, I think it may be too soon. The younger one is following his Grandad around, wanting to help with picking veg from the garden and he helped to prepare beans (and ate them!), I think all we can do is give them a good time and lots of love and attention. It is so nice to have a 'houseful' again. I shall try to make the most of it. xx

Morning ladies,

Caz - what lovely news - wil you get to choose your dress or will it be chosen for you d'you think?

Lavandes - i know what you mean about having a houseful - i tend to stop thinking when theres lots of people here. Manshape says when i'm on my own i think, and that's dangerous...

Shabbs - i admit, my first thought would be 'OMG, I need to tidy up!!' too

Morning girls xx

Lavandes I'm so glad you're having a lovely time with your grandchildren. :)

Yes we are a close family - when I got married I made my brother master of ceremonies, because I really wanted him to have an important job!

Dee - I'm sure I'll have input into the dress, last night I was being asked about colours! But I think the final say should be down to my new SIL - it is afterall her day! I know she won't put us in anything other than lovely though anyway!!

Hazy - that sounds very funny. :o

I'm up and about to get ready for church. However, this morning (warning about to be TMI) I'm bleeding. Its more than spotting but not full on flow either. Got period pains too but I'm half way through this months Pill... so the people who've had babies before is this normal? I've never started bleeding when not supposed to on Pill before, so I'm just wondering if its a post-birth thing? Should I be contacting nurse/doctor tomorrow?

Hmm..it could well be breakthrough bleeding Caz though, having said that, how long did you bleed for postpartum?

If it carries on overnight i might be inclined to make an appointment with doctor tomorrow.

Postpartum - was back on pill after a week and half, but bled for just over 5 weeks, then what I thought was first period at just over 6 weeks. Next one expecting next weekend - but of course these are "pill" perdios...

I'll see how the day goes then... Thanks Dee

Hmm.. love that's very quick to be back on the pill - who told you to do that? IME you finish your pp bleed then go onto the pill.

Hope you're ok?

Morning all xx

Woke up feeling totally bleak - seem to be having a very down week with much weeping. Yesterday I went to the cemetry 4 times, and made a new posy for the grave. I seem to have developed a compulsive disorder around buying flowers - it sort of looks like a florist stall now but I don't seem able to stop

I can't imagine having a nice time doing a fun thing. I mean, I sometimes feel calmer (making a wreath for example or visting the grave or talking to another bereaved mum) but the idea of going out to do a fun activity seems remote. The closest I have come is going out for dinner with DH, but we will generally talk about C and I wouldn't describe it as a lovely occassion, iyswim.

I even find going into the centre of town difficult - all those people excited about the festival - all happy. I just hate it. It actually makes me feel agitated.

My oldest friend is getting married in Nov overseas, and I don't even want to go - let alone feel excited about it. And DH and I are just dreading every up-coming event (xmas, birthdays etc). MIL & FIL want to come at the end of the month for DH's b'day, and he is freaking, cos he hates the idea of observing it at all.

I'm starting to wonder if there's something really wrong with me that I'm in such a mess. People do things like suggest going to the festival stuff and ask if we are going on holiday and so on... so I assume that others don't think I should be so glum 4 months after Catherine died.

She is constantly in my thoughts. I get in the bath - I think about her hassling me to get in too. (I never got to have a bath in peace). I go supermarket shopping - I see her favourite foods. It is constant. Can't imagine enjoying anything ever again without her.

Oh Sassy, there's nowt i can say that will make it in any way better or easier. I just want to give you a huge huge cwtch.

Of course you have every right to be down - your daughter has just died. People are generally crap. Because it didn't happen to them they think they have a right to tell you how you should be feeling - they think it's easy to imagine how you're feeling and they think that they'd be feeling 'better' by now, so they think you should be. But it doesn't bloody work like that at all.

WRT to your DH birthday - can you tell his parents that you don't feel like celebrating at all? And with Christmas... what about going away for a while?

Sassy - there is no right or wrong with grief... everyone is different. There is nothing wrong with you at all. At the moment I either seem to be really up or really low - I can't seem to find a normal middle ground.

Dee - I asked to go back on it. GP just said ok. He said that the old advice used to be to wait for first period, but now they will let you straight after birth... TBH, I was expecting to be told to wait a bit, but wasn't going to argue when he said ok! Was terrified that if we got up to anything I'd end up with a surprise. I don't feel strong enough for a surprise. Infact there has been hardly any of that, because even with the pill or anything else I'm scared it will fail. I'm so not ready...

Sassy I read your post and then sat here trying to find the right words....but, of course, there are no right words. I searched through my bookcase for a book that may have a poem in that would help....but of course there are no such poems. I bet there isin't a person on this thread that hasn't had these feelings....even after many years go by the raw, painful, bewildering emotions are still in my soul. The only difference is that those emotions are now softened.

I think Dee's idea of going 'away' for Christmas is a really good one. The first Christmas after we lost Matty myself, my DH and Danny went to Teneriffe. Of course we had many tearful moments but it meant that we could be anonymous at Christmas. I dont think I told anybody what had happened to my family in the Spring of that year. We didn't have to write cards, or cook a big Christmas dinner that no one would want to eat. We, quite simply, sat on the beach on Christmas Day and enjoyed each others company. xxx

Thanks everyone - DH did tell his parents he didn't want to celebrate, but they have decided they want to come up anyway to see he is ok. To be fair, they are very good - turned up the day after Catherine died, and MIL took over the kitchen, and she came up for Catherine's b'day too - and did the same. However, MIL is nearly 80 and not in the best of health, so I do feel I should get off my bum and take care of them this time. I think I can just about manage some cooking - but it does feel like a bit effort.

I think I'm going to not go to my friend's wedding. I haven't really thought about xmas. People ask, and I sort of think - well, maybe xmas won't come - after all, it didn't for Catherine. I know that sounds a bit morbid - and just to be clear, I'm not thinking about killing myself(!!) I'm more thinking, illness and natural disasters. If a tidal wave hit Edinburgh now, I don't think I'd be overly surprised.

Went to church this morning, and a Mum I know slightly bounded over and asked "How's your little boy?" and I had to say:
"She's a girl - and she died".
Then I was talking to someone I knew and someone joined us - how do you know each other? So the other mum said "Sassy's daughter and blah used to go to nursery together" "How lovely" says the other mum, then we had to tell her.

Have you also noticed how everyone then goes onto tell you about all the children they ever knew who died? But to be fair, everyone was very kind.

Have been thinking about weddings. My first cousin got married 7 weeks to the day after Catherine's funeral. We got the invitation amongst the sympathy cards - no acknowledgement that my daugther had died or anything... just a standard invite. In fact, it had white lilies on it, so I remember being really confused about it - as my head couldn't take it in that it wasn't a sympathy card.

My mother phoned me up - it would have been about 3 weeks after Catherine was buried - to ask whether I was going. Not how are you - but are you going to this bloody wedding. There is no way I could have gone to a wedding less than 2 months after my daughter's funeral. I was actually quite surprised that my mother wanted to go. I asked her (sarcastically) had she thought about an outfit, and as my mother doesnt' do irony, she merrily started to tell me what she was planning to wear.

I was just aghast - but perhaps lots of people would have been able to go and it is me that is weird. Anyway, my mother went to my cousin's wedding, and stayed in Ireland for the week - completely ignoring Catherine's birthday. I don't understand how she could be interested in what f**king hat to wear for her nephew's wedding, but not in putting a flower on her only grandaughter's grave on her 4th birthday, just 7 1/2 weeks after she'd been buried there.

My dad had been working toward filing for divorce - he's been separated from my mum for 6 years - but says it doesn't seem important at the moment. We had joked (half serious) about him eventually marrying his DP - they've been together since he left my mum, and Catherine being a bridesmaid. I would hate him to marry his NP now (not because I don't like her - I do) but Catherine would not be there - and I can't think of anything more miserable than a wedding without my daughter.

Sorry -that was a bit of a rant.

rant away sassy if you can't do it here where can you? There do not seem to be any answers at the moment but I can tell you that no matter what I am doing Richard is in my head all the time. It must be normal and you are not going mad. xx

Hey Sassy I'm not surprised you feel the way you do re weddings in general.... any (birthdays, anniversaries, christmas) occasion where others are experiencing joy just didn't feel the same for me following gregor's death until just very very recently. What you are experiencing is sadly a normal part of grief and too many of us here have experienced the rawness that you articulate only too well - and grief is just so individual xx

x-posts lavandes - btw if you're going mad Sassy there will be a good few of us coming with you!! All normal in my experience xx Friends often say to me 'oh it must be hard doing xyz as that will remind you of gregor' nope is my usual answer - every day i am 'reminded' of gregor just as everyone with living children think of their children in their waking moments as do i - and i wouldn't have it any other way.

my mil has just said..god decided Fraser wasnt meant to be...

I know she thinks this but after 6 f**N years doesnt she know that I dont agree with this point of view

Sorry for the language ... but honestly I have told her sooooo many times I dont agree with this point of view

If I had miscarried in the early days I could maybe subscribe to this theeory but not at 39 weeks and 5 days

aibu?? sorry wrong topic just had to have this rant.. surely by now she should know how I feel and not keeping sayin thing that she knows will upset me

Sassy - big hugs to you. I wish I knew what to say to you. As ppm said its all so individual.

And I think same senario, different times also makes us react differently. Cousins wedding, I had a meltdown at, was a disaster - I shouldn't have gone... I'm dreading my MILs wedding next weekend - I don't want to go, it'll be 2 months since Belle was born and she was supposed to be there, I'm not looking forward to my friends next April - but there just seems to be something about my only brother getting married I can do happy and excited about. It would be unfair on them for me to be any other way, but of course, I'm very upset that the wedding is minus the flowergirl there should've been. I suppose there will be times like this my whole life now, grieving for things that never were.

Our circumstances are so different - you experience pain every day for the things you miss doing with your daughter, you miss her just being there, you grieve for the should've been things in the future, I experience pain for things that have never been, but should've been... Difference of circumstance makes people cope differently too I guess. Grief as ppm is unique, I'm learning that now - don't compare how you're dealing with things to anyone else. I'm not making sense but I think what I'm trying to say is - You are not at all weird, not at all. x x x

FM - that expression pisses me off more by the day. If God had decided our children weren't meant to be he have never have left them be created in the first place... I much prefer to think our children were so special he needed them to be angels. They are meant to be the angels they are. But I suppose that depends on what you believe. You are not being unreasonable at all.

Talking of God, not sure what I thought of church today. I felt weepy at one point in the service, in a touched sort of way I guess. But the church was huge. No-one spoke to us as new faces, so I think we were just a face in the crowd - I think its somewhere you'd easily get lost and not missed if you weren't there - no-one would notice if you were there or not.... See how I feel about going again.. Or find somewhere else.

caz If you are not sure if you will be able to cope with the wedding but you decide to go anyway make sure that you have a 'get out' plan, maybe book a taxi for a couple of hours after arrival, cancel it if you feel able to stay, that is what we did last week for a friend's evening do, I know totally different from a family wedding but it made me feel 'safe', we did stay till end but it was just friends not family. You must only do what you feel comfortable with, you are the people who are suffering and you must only do what you can cope with. I think you and your husband are brilliant, obviously such a great, loving and close couple, you will have a long and happy future and your Belle will always be a part of thatxx

sassy I feel it is far too soon to even be thinking about Christmas. FFS it is only a few days, If you decide to go away you don't need to think about that now. Forget it for now, don't even 'go there'. Coping on a daily basis is bad enough without worrying about Christmas, just say 'WE DON'T KNOW YET' end of discussion. If people don't understand then they should, just worry about you and your husband, you are the only important one's, if our son does not come home for Christmas we are only going to make plans for us, and not now, we will decide when we are ready, everyone else must just get on with it. I can barely cope with 'now' let alone a few days in Decedmber!!!!!!!!!!!xx

shabs how many sleeps? xx