The sadness of my happiness

I know it's normal, but I am confused by how I feel these days. The shock has worn off now, I can start to process how I think and feel, and somedays I even forget how sad I am. It never lasts long though, until I feel sad that I'm not back there, in the time before we found out, or in the time when we were still agonising over the right decision. Some days I wish I could go back to the first few weeks, when I could howl and cry, and I would feel...released for a time, that my internal emotional state was available to the air around me. Almost five months later, I should have a 3 week old baby here. But I don't. My life has changed, I am a Mother now, but I can't understand what a mother does when her child can't be cared for. I feel a need to carry a child withing my body, my pregnancy is a project left unfinished, my womb needs a baby to grow, and continue growing, and be born at full term, alive.

I want to sit beneath a roof of yellow roses, and think of you.

We have a difficult garden. The block is very large, but the space we have for a garden is tiny. I wanted to have a beautiful garden full of fruits and vegies to wander through, and pick snacks as we went, but all we have so far is a disappointing vegie patch, and lots of fruit trees in pots. I wanted to take my little girl into the garden, hang a little hammock for her to sleep in, as I worked on the vegies, but she isn't here now. I wanted her to toddle through the plants, seeing insects, and food in her life, always. Now, she isn't here.
I'm planning to makeover our pitiful patch, into a small, but beauiful place to think of her. I Want a few fruit trees at the edges, maybe tall, ballerina apples, so slender and straight, and a miniature fruit tree or two. On either side of the gate, I will plant the spek's yellow roses I bought at a garden show, lightly fragranced, but so beautiful. I want to pave a central area, in the shape of an 'O', with one of those lovely iron gazebos, climbing yellow roses, heavily scented, and jasmine woven over the top. I want to plant daisies, and liliums and nerines, to pop their heads up and blind me with their colour. I want to see bees and butterflies, lady bugs and tiny wasps, all inhabiting our little patch. In the shady corner, I will build a frog pond, and fill it with lillies, with a little fountain in the middle. If I am lucky I will imagine the sound of her giggle, as the water softly spurts up and back, onto the pond.
I want the flowers in Olidea's garden to look their most beautiful twice a year - at Christmas, when we said goodbye, and Easter, when we should have said hello.

The Beginning

Wow..this is it. My first post. It has been almost five months since I gave birth to my little girl, knowing as we drove to the hospital, that the squirming, wriggly being alive in my belly would not be going home with us. I have struggled to put my pain into words, but now I am beginning to find them. I keep repeating what happened, maybe the words will sink in and I will be able to accept them as the truth.
Olidea Cara was born at 2.24am on Saturday, 20th December 2008. I was 24 weeks and 3 days pregnant. Although it broke our hearts, we chose to induce her birth, after an ultrasound scan at 19 weeks revealed that inside her tiny body, her spine had not developed normally, along with her diaphragm, heart and lungs. We saw as many specialist as we could, in the hope that the amazing technology available today could save our daughter. Unfortunately, due to the number of abnormalities present, and the severity of them, nothing could be done to prevent her death immediately after birth. The part that really screws me up was that she was safe within my womb. Her heart and lungs were utterly insufficient to oxygenate her blood, and pump it around her little body, but until she was expelled from my body, I could supply all of her needs. I had to choose the day that my daughter died. I know that my options were severely limited, but I feel like I killed her, by choosing to birth her before full term.
I know our options were limited. I know it wasn't my fault. But ultimately, it was my body that created and nurtured her, and all that I could give her was my continuing care of her until she was ready to enter the world. I feel so very, very guilty that I couldn't supply her with the right DNA or the right nutrients to allow her to live outside of me. And I will never be able to accept that I rejected my daughter, withdrew from my side of the bargain when I took the medication that began my labour, 15 weeks and 5 days before she was expected. I keep repeating the details, everything that has happened has left me trapped just outsside of the real world. Nothing feels real, I keep hoping to wake up and realise that none of this ever happened.