Hope & Cells

It is the eve of my little Tinker's first day of pre-school so I thought I'd pop in and update you instead of spending any more time fiddling nervously with her little backpack for tomorrow!

Yes I survived last week, and yes I know I owe you some tales and pictures from our fabulous trip. Alas, real life has the audacity to get in the way of my blog posts.

Someone who read last week's post sent me an email asking me about my miscarriage. They made the point that "in the first trimester it isn't really a baby" and suggested I think not of it as the death of our child but rather a mass of cells.

I appreciate the thought, I take it this particular reader thought their advice might console me in some way, however I couldn't help but share their thoughts with you all. Especially after receiving so many emails from other readers who had suffered similar losses and said they found little understanding from their friends and families.

Everybody is different, and if I am to share with you my feelings about this, it would be to point out that a loss is a loss. It is the sudden end to a lifetime of hopes and dreams for a special little person. Whether that little person resembles a salamander in a sac of a fluid or looks a lot like your Uncle Ned, it doesn't matter. An unborn baby represents hope. From the moment you are blessed with a pregnancy your heart fills with dreams for this little person. If the baby dies before he gets the chance to meet you, he takes all of those dreams with him.

In my case, I had put a lot of weight on the fact that our baby was due around the one year anniversary of my dear friend Alli's death. It warmed my heart knowing that our special little baby would bring so much joy and hope to everyone remembering Alli a year after her death. So for me, losing this baby represents a lot.

It comes at a time when some people are moving on with their lives without Alli and for others, the 6month mark has been a very sad one. I'm in the latter group and after this happening, I am feeling a kind of double-grief. Missing so much, my beloved friend and soul mate and missing also, the hope of this new little life that represented so much for so many of us.

Tomorrow

"Tomorrow can be a wonderful age."

That's what Walt Disney said when referring to Tomorrowland, one of the Magic Kingdom lands he created for his theme parks. We "did" the Hong Kong Disney on the first leg of our trip and then we finished off the Disney experience with a week at Disneyworld in Florida on the way home. Tinker is now Disney-mad.

In the photo above she is meeting Mickey for the first time. Would you believe she actually got tears in her eyes when she realised we were actually going to meet him for real? It was adorable.

The week before we left for Fiji we found out that little Tinker was to become a big sister in October. Such magical news. October will be one year since the passing of our dear Alli and what better way to brighten a tough month with the arrival of a new baby?

Sadly, it wasn't to be. I suffered some complications, a subchorionic hemorrhage that lasted a week and horribly ended in the passing of our dear little baby when we were in London. People are hesitant to talk about miscarriage. I'm not really sure why. I guess the term implies some sort of negligence. I miscarried my baby. I carried my baby badly so he died. That sort of idea? It's a stupid word isn't it- miscarriage? Anyway, I'm not one of those people. Death is part of life and it serves nobody to pretend it doesn't happen.

For me, tomorrow will be a tough day. It marks the 6th month since Alli's death and it is also the day we close the chapter on the pregnancy that wasn't to be because I am having to undergo a surgical removal. Graphic terms really, don't you think? Not as stupid as the term they used on my pre-admission form today - "retained products". What? Products of conception. Oh I see.

Nice.

Anyway, tomorrow IS a new day and tomorrow can be a wonderful age.

I'll be back. xx

Jetsetters

What kind of sneaky blogger says they are back and then vanishes for 6 weeks?
Me!

My husband left his job after 14 years and we decided to take the Fiji trip I mentioned in my last post. A week later, on a bit of a whim we booked a 5 week round the world trip. So that's where I've been. The three of us arrived home today, and gosh I have loads of stories and pictures to share.

Life returns to normal in two days time. My husband starts his new job and I'l be back to bang on about my nutty little life.

See you all then.