shabba, I know that if I am ever blessed with more DC I will worry constantly about them when they are out of my sight. One of the things I always looked forward to about having my son was the idea that he would get up to things at school, or with his grandparents, that I would never quite know about. I thought about the magic of the fact that he would be a real little person, entire, with many many facets which nobody could see all at once. At the same time, I knew that one of the piquant difficulties of motherhood would be letting go of his hand to let those things happen. Little did I know how soon I would have to let go of that tiny hand. I hope Tom is having a wonderful time, and that he is indeed squashing marshmallows between biscuits as MrsKwazii suggests. You are doing a fantastic job every minute of the time you spend gritting your teeth and letting him be there.
matilda, I am sorry the consultants' appointment was an anti-climax, though I suppose I must confront the fact that this will always be true of anything other than a miraculous deal with the universe which will restore our children to our arms. Our appointment is on Tuesday, and I am really sick with nerves. I have been really struggling with all the 'what if' questions, wondering if anything might have saved our lovely boy. I am really scared that the results will concretise those, even though I know that it is a poisonous way of thinking in many ways, and I am most at peace when I remember all the joy and wonder we got from our son. I think my last few words hit the crux of the matter, though -- what we could get from him was never what having a child was all about for us. We wanted to give him all the love in the world, show him the sky, the sea, spiders and slugs, and to be there as he encountered all the rich details which are part of being alive. It breaks my heart that he couldn't have that, not even the chance to see those things once, and I am still here in a sunny room, with the wind in the trees outside my window.
Mia's, the drawn out and formal nature of an inquest feels like a terrifying thing to face, and so at odds somehow with the joyous life of your little girl, feeling her way through new adventures and discoveries in whatever form they might appear each day. I can't think of anything remotely wise or helpful to volunteer, and will say only that I am thinking of you with great sympathy.
chip, I want you to know that I have seen a lot of wild roses over the last couple of weeks, and always thought of your Sylvie-Rose.
Mecha, I am dreading the first time I have to answer the 'do you have children' question, and I think it's totally understandable that you responded the way you did. As others have explained perfecty, it is part of your protective love for him. Various of my more distant friends never knew I was pregnant, as my personal feeling was always that, for me, it was a quite private thing, and there were no certainties about what would happen. I was nonetheless looking forward to making an excited birth announcement when he was safely in our arms. That poses me a few difficulties now, as I feel they need to know about our terrible loss, but I find it hard to imagine that they will feel the full extent of it if they didn't know about him before. Did I do the wrong thing in not spreading the news far and wide that we were expecting him? I don't think so. It was my way of keeping him safe and loved in the dark and intimate time before birth. Hindsight doesn't change that. What I am struggling to say is that whatever we do for or about our children is always done out of love for them -- instinctively so. You love Dexter so much, that is beyond question, therefore I really think it is impossible for you to react in any way other than a way motivated by love, even if you can't immediately see quite how that works in each individual instance. Be kind to yourself and don't doubt the fierce and mysterious ways you can keep mothering him.
On the subject of the blankets, I knitted a couple of squares for Matilda's in the days between our son's cremation and interment of ashes. I had knitted for him all through my pregnancy. We never bought much stuff, but the knitting was part of a quiet, almost meditative way of making something which said 'we are waiting for you, we are carefully preparing the way'. When I look at those things now, they are material proof of how much I loved and wanted him, even when we didn't quite know who he was. After he was born, of course I couldn't knit for him any more. He didn't need clothes, would never need the 6 month sized striped jumper I had imagined starting, thinking he might wear it at Christmas. Knitting for the blanket felt like a selfish thing in some ways -- an opportunistic way to keep knitting, which was masquerading as a 'good deed'. My DH said that I was doing a good thing, and I rebutted him, saying I was really doing it for myself, so it wasn't. He pointed out the care with which I was doing it: checking the chart, learning a new design, unravelling it when I found imperfections. He said that, even if I couldn't feel the love, it was there in every stitch. I couldn't have done it if I didn't feel deeply, even if I was numb to the feelings somehow. I now believe this to be absolutely true. When I think about those blankets, I know each stitch and square has been crafted by other people from a unique position no more or less important than the story I have just told about my knitting. They are full of love, all streaming from a great constellation of donors and crafters towards the recipient in their own particular place of sadness. Matilda's is the first I've helped with, but I would hope that they provide tangible evidence of love at times when it is hard to see why life is worth living. Just knitting two squares gave me some sense of that.
I suppose there is an emerging theme to my post, or rather a realisation I have come to through writing it. Grief can numb us to our own feelings of love, protectiveness and kindness, but they are all still there working away, showing themselves in surprising moments. Love to all of you, to those on this thread I couldn't mention but are also in my thoughts, to Expat and Ailidh, and to parents everywhere who are suffering like us, wherever they are on the road.