Misty breeze wraps about my shoulders, thinly clad. I shiver not, despite the coolness on my skin. Comfort, I now feel. Is it you my precious Angel?

[chipmonkey]

Starting a new thread for our angel babies
Sylvie-Rose 16/8/11 to 4/10/11 too short my love, too short.

DS has always been a rubbish sleeper, he appears to have inherited it from me. And even over here, has trouble dropping off to sleep.

And I must say, I had trouble dropping off to sleep on the flight back, but KLM has a great selection of audio books, and there's nothing like someone reading Anna Karanina to send you off to sleep! If that didn't work I was going to try someone reading Bleak House.

wow bleak house, that would work!

I often see little girl clothes and think 'oh that colour would look beautiful on DD' I had a thing for buying her clothes in a particular shade of light kind of aqua-duckegg blue because it was the exact colour of her eyes, and for a long time after she died I would still buy these things and keep them. wtf - it was like I had to keep clothes for her in case she would come back or something

when do you get to your sister's?

I used to live in a small area in south east london where everyone knows everyone it's kind of villagey. It was really hard being somewhere quite insular because everybody knew me, and her absence was obvious. I have to go there sometimes, and the guys in M&S still ask me how she is it's yeeears ago, I just say 'fine'. I like living somewhere cold and central now because I'm much more anonymous in a way

Anna Karenina in RP monotone was enough to send me off.

Aillidh had green eyes. And she loved to play with makeup. Was flipping through a magazine today and saw a special on makeup for various eye colours and burst out crying.

Both DS and DD2 have brown eyes.

What I find most troubling now is that Aillidh was the clingiest little soul. The one who most needed me. And now she'll never come back, never grow up, never wear any of the clothes I have sitting there.

And worse, that if all the world forgot her, it wouldn't make any difference.

the world can't forget her though, the people she met will always remember her somewhere. I now what you mean though it's quite evident most peple have forgotten DD or at least that their lives haven;t had even so much as a ripple of discontent at the news, life goes on, people whine about insignificant things and their own worlds and don't ever stop to acknowledge things like it. It must be especially gard because Aillidh was such a beautiful bright little girl and it is such an immense loss. To you and to the world. I knwo everyone thinks their kids ar egreat, but really, sometimes they really are amazing and Aillidh certainly was, so the hurt is even more profound because of the depth and isolation that that knowledge brings you. sORRY If I'm not making any sense! It will be no consolation, but the cells they have - that will make such a difference for research and may really help other children.

sorry for my typos, I'm not drunk I am using my bashed up ''ultrabook'' nothing ultra about it, so thin it has broken!

It's all really makes for feeling fucked off in between feeling bereft.

I'm also just NOT interested in being social here. I came here for DS and DD2.

you go to your sister's pretty soon, right? be totally antisocial if you can be. It's your christmas and you shouldn't have to put on a front for anyone else's comfort. If DS and DD2 are looked after then you take all the time you need out of the loop of festive politeness. I hope you can get some rest and some 'expat time'. Do you have outdoor space etc? I can't remember where you are but maybe could you slink off somewhere outdoorsy for a bit to clear your head and have some silence?

On Saturday. There's some big party on. I declined to go. Or to go socialising in larger groups later on. I got, 'They'll be disappointed'. I said, 'That's tough. Try being devestated and nigh on insane, absolutely bereft.'

Morning girls.

Expat - the first Xmas after Matts accident we went to Teneriffe. Nobody knew us and I felt safe but very weird and shaky without him. We took Danny (he was almost 11) to a kids disco(that sounds such an old fashioned word now!!) - he seemed glad to be with kids - happy, smiling kids.

I did OK, at first. For at least 10 minutes then the DJ played 'I wanna dance with somebody' by Whitney Houston. The dance floor filled up quickly. Matt loved Whitney Houston and used to try looking up her very short dress in the video!! He would lie on the floor looking up at the TV - he used to say 'Whoooooah she is sexy Mum!!'

All I heard was 'and when the night falls, my lonley heart calls.......' I set off running, I couldn't breathe and nobody even made eye contact with me. I bet they thought 'another drunken English woman on holiday' I sat on the floor and rocked.

Good morning ladies. We appear to have survived the apocalypse so far. Can't say I give a shit whether I live or die greatly! Our worlds as we know them have ended and we have to deal with each of our 'new dawns'.

I went to a big family dance last night in a local venue and I had fun, (not much need for small talk), but then I am having 'respite' from the last wave (tsunami) of grief and I feel numb. All was ok until someone I knew came up to say hello and I realised I had to tell her DS had died. I ended up in the toilets in tears. I think friends get worried when I cry but it really is just natural isn't it.

What scares me is how I can feel sort of ok when I know I am anything but. It does feel a bit like bipolar, this grief - wild and unpredictable. It really feels like suddenly acquiring a mental illness and I suppose it is.

Other people have indeed 'moved on' from DS's death. I really feel like I need to meet other parents who have lost children in 2013. There is a group starting in the summer - it seems a long way off.

Good luck with your days, wherever you are. Hugs from me xxx

I was kind of hoping the apocalypse would happen. But it didn't so there you go.
expat, don't go to any party you don't want to go to! "Disappointed" my arse. Tell them you're a lot more disappointed that your girl isn't here to spend Christmas with you!

SaintVera, I had to tell one of our contact lens suppliers about Sylvie-Rose yesterday, a year and two months after she died. Nowadays I just tell people as if I were telling them I'd lost my wallet. I try not to think too much about what I'm saying.

Afternoon everyone.

Hope everyone is coping with the Christmas preparations.

I have bought B a little Christmas tree and DS has put trimmings on it, we will take it to him tomorrow.

Sorry for my absence I have been trying to pretend I am not in this club. I have lurked a bit but I do not want to be a member, I'm afraid I always will be though won't I.

I want to join the "don't give a shit oblivious - of course babies, children and loved ones don't die club". But do you know whilst I a was a member of that club I really didn't appreciate how good I had it and what a great place it was.

I still find it difficult to tell people about B and the simplest question about how many children you have can strike me down.

Bs song is this one and it brings a tear to my eye whenever I hear it. DH had the cheek to put it on whilst I was in labour with DD2 and I growled at him to turn it off now.

Bluetinkerbell
Congratulations on the safe arrival of Lotta Beatrice. A home birth can be so lovely can't it.

Waves hi to all the familiar names and hello to all the new names, sorry to meet you like this.

XXX

So good to see you Charley - just wish it was on another thread. I think about you often. xxx

Hi Charleymouse! I know, the club no-one wants to join!
You have to do what you can to cope, to make it easier xx

Hi Charley

It would be nice to not be in the club, that's how I operate, denying it- but you're right when we weren't, did we appreciate what we had? I know I did as much as I could at the time, but not I had no idea how lucky I was.

expat I think you did the right thing saying that. I have been thinking 'all I want to do at christmas is be on my own/with DS I don't want to trek across the country to see my obnoxious insensitive clueless family, and why am I doing it it's only for their benefit' my ideal christmas would be, frankly, to not be bothered by anyone or have anything expected of me

this got on my tits the other day - colleague ''what do you want to specialise in'' me ''I don't know, I like emergency medicine/anaesthetics but what I really want to be is a paediatric intensivist or a consultant hepatologist, I have a special interst in GI/hep'' colleague: ''don't you think that's really unhealthy and you should just move on and do something completely unrealted to your daughter'' this is the only person on my course who knows what happened. aaaarrrrhh no, actually, I don't think I should 'just move on'

Charley thank you! :)

oh yes that question, how many... I've got the 'perfect' answer: I've got 2 girls to cuddle and 1 in my heart forever... But so often I get stuck at 2... :( some people just don't understand.

I think this is the club nobody realises it exists until it happens to you or someone close to you. if only membership could be declined!

Hi Shabs I think of you often as well as we are in a similar boat with a surviving multiple.

Thanks Chip and Blue, if you could just rescind my membership and refund my subscription I will be on my way.

Cafe lovely song, yea the old shouldn't you be over "this" by now scenario. FFS do these people have no compassion or understanding. The only thing is they don't, I know I didn't comprehend the half of it when I was in the other club. Even now I feel ill equipped to deal with people in the same situation as I am, even the simplest of questions ie do you have kids holds such complications.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh, stop the world I want to get off.

My survivor and his twin brother will be 31 just after Xmas!! how the hell that happened I have no idea.

I still post everyday on the multiples thread Charley - I know they would love to 'see' you on there. Trips keeps doing the register but we have dwindled considerably!!

xxxxxx

I bought a snow globe for Aillidh's grave. She had started collecting Christmas snow globes a couple of years ago.

You have some stunningly insensitive colleagues, cafe, but I'm a smart arse with a barbed tongue who worked with lawyers for years, would you like me to draft some responses to those who are too obtuse and socially inept to realise when they need to practice some decorum and learn the value of silence?

I think you'd make a wonderful paed intensivist. Aillidh had one, like your colleagues, had to be reminded, more than once, by me :o, of course, that while frankness is necessary, it needs to be communicated in a professional manner (as in, not in front of the patient). There was another for whom I spent a tortuous fortnight barely concealing my complete loathing, bordering on hatred, as he is a truly mean-spirited man.

I encountered him shortly after Aillidh's death. He said nothing but, 'Well, she's gone.' I told him, 'And I wish you every ill that can possibly befall a person in this life and the next. If there were a Hell, it would be too good for you, and if there were a God, I'd say God rot you,' and walked off.

Expat, I'd love to have seen the look on his face!

dd mesmerised me today, she when to see father christmas, he asked her what her name was and how old she was, then he said do you have any brothers or sisters, she replied i have a brother but he died.
the father christmas gave her a head tilt sympathy look, but didnt say sorry to hear that ot anything, then he started bumbling, and changing the subject looking so so awkward
and i just thought wow, my dd is only five yet shes full of sensitivity and compassion
and i thought i should use her as my inspiration on how to deal with things really

wow deep respect for you expat, for giving him what for

and do you mind if i bank the reply
'That's tough. Try being devestated and nigh on insane, absolutely bereft.'

i'd love to be stronger and stick up for myself more, that my aim for 2013

i'd love to hear some responses

'Expat, I'd love to have seen the look on his face!'

I couldn't be arsed to stick around. He deserves it. He's makes an arse look like a nice person. Fortunately we only saw him a couple of times because it was patently obvious that I didn't like him and wasn't there to obey every word that came from his black little mind out of his mouth, which I could never tire of slapping. I love our consultant, she liked me and she had, quite rightly, a lot of clout. He'd pass by the smoking area on his way in and sometimes see me, and I'd give him my most malevolent look.