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Dear Dot,
Hello baby. I only knew you for one week. One week you were in my life, but you have been in my mind and heart for nearly a year now. You, my little Dot, you showed up when I was in the bathroom at work. I looked down into my underwear and there you were, about the size of a 50 cent piece. Although you were so small, this was a huge moment for me. I was robbed of breath and clear thinking. I knew it when I saw you. This was not implantation bleeding and your life beginning; this was your life ending. Seeing you there meant the end of your life and the end of the hopes, dreams, plans and prayers I had invested in you. It broke me. Apparently, there was something wrong with my body. That something meant you couldn’t grow within me. The place that was meant to keep you safe, well, it didn’t. My body didn’t fight for you, it fought against you. I wanted to house you and I think you wanted to be housed within me for nine months. I don’t think you wanted to leave me, but my body couldn’t keep you safe. And, for that, I am so incredibly sorry. I didn’t know what to do when I saw you. You weren’t meant to be there, a mark in my underwear; that wasn’t how your life was meant to end. I was working in a new place; somewhere I hadn’t yet gotten close enough to trust and confide in many people. There was loneliness within my body and heart, knowing you were no longer there, but I also felt socially alone. Fortunately, there was one person, my saving grace, who helped me take my next steps when the truth was just too unbearable to process. I sat in my manager’s office and called your dad. “I think I’m having a miscarriage.” As the words left my lips and I desperately hoped I was wrong. He got there as quickly as he could and as soon as he walked in, I finally allowed myself to feel everything. I broke. All I could say was “sorry”. I said sorry to him for losing you, but I think I was saying sorry for everything I thought I couldn’t carry anymore. I was saying sorry for losing you; sorry that my body wasn’t good enough or strong enough; sorry that I couldn’t protect our baby. Sorry for the last baby I let go of. Sorry for all the mistakes I had made. Sorry to all of the people I had hurt so that I could heal. Sorry to all the people I had abandoned so that I could find myself. Sorry that I wasn’t good enough then. Sorry that I wasn’t good enough now. Sorry that I had let him down, me down, you down, Alexis down. You, little Dot, had given us both hope and my body had taken it away from both of us. We had both been through so much and maybe I put too much pressure on you, but I wanted you to be the hope we hadn’t had for such a long time. Was it too much for you? Was it too much pressure to put on such a little life? Little Dot, I still yearn for your life. I know where you are though; you are with your sibling in heaven. You have company up there. You are not alone. You paved the way for your brother to come into the world, and even though I miss you and I still so desperately want to meet you, I am so grateful that your brother is next to me right now. And as confusing as it feels, I’m so glad your sibling has you in heaven. I want all four of you here. I want Alexis; Solomon; you, little Dot; and my baby who I will never be able to give a name to. Four pregnancies, two beautiful lives, and two angel babes. My Mother’s heart will always long for all of you. Sometimes I don’t know how to balance my feelings. How can I be so grateful that Solomon is in my life, but also miss you so much? How do I miss you so dearly, knowing that if you were here, he wouldn’t be? How do I find peace with that? Two feeling in one heart. No matter how confused my feelings are, I won’t stay silent about you. I won’t keep you a secret, your life means more to me than that. Did you know, little Dot, that 1 in 4 women miscarry? 1 in 4. 1 in 4 and for some reason I didn’t think I would ever be the 1. Off the top of my head, I can think of 10 other strong and beautiful women whose babies are with you in heaven. I think we don’t talk about it enough because it’s too hard for mummas to come to terms with. The job were designed to do, we weren’t able to. For me, it was the shame. The shame of my body failing to do what it was made to do. The shame that I felt so broken after only knowing about you for a week. I felt like it wasn’t long enough. I felt like I didn’t have the right to be so sad, to grieve so strongly. In my mind, I felt like I was overreacting. In my heart, I was breaking. My heart would crack a little more every time I looked down and saw more blood and more clots exit my body. More tears would pierce my lips. I just wanted the outpouring of blood and tears to cease. For all of my heartbreak, though, you gave so much to me. Dot, I want to thank you for giving me hope. For allowing me to hope. You helped me realise that, as humans, hope is our natural response, our natural reflex, our intuitive way of thinking. I never walk through life expecting the worst. Yes, the worst happens, but I think we have a tendency to subconsciously lean toward hope. Such is the grace of God. Losing you felt so different to when I lost your sibling. I long for both of you, but in such different ways. I grieved for both of you, but for different reasons. It is a very different form of grief when the decision is made for you compared to when you make the decision. The love I had for you; your sibling had deserved too. So, when I lost you, I wasn’t just overcome with sadness, but also guilt. Your sibling deserved the same outpouring of love that I had for you. It deserved my prayers, just like you, Alexis and Solomon. Baby Dot, you also taught me that I was capable of great love. I didn’t feel like I could ever love another the way I love Alexis. You showed me I could. You taught me that my heart was still a fighter and a lover of all of my babies. Thank you. I didn’t get to know you. But I know the hopes I had for you and they were beautiful. I look forward to the day that I get to meet you in heaven and hold both of you in my arms. No, we don’t get to spend this life together but we have eternity on our side. I love you, my Dot. And I love your brother or sister who is up there with you. And I love your sister and brother who are down here with me. You all have your own space in my heart, and even though I couldn’t keep you all safe in my body, you are all kept and all safe within my heart. Xx
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Alexis,
In movies, when a woman does a pregnancy test, they wee on the stick and then turn a timer on. They always make it seem like it takes the full 3 – 5 minutes for the result to show up. It doesn’t always work like that. In real life, or at least when I was pregnant with you, I didn’t even have the chance to blink before those 2 pink lines showed up. And they weren’t faint pink lines, they were bold and bright. Exactly like you. The next 20 tests did the same thing. I’m not sure why it took so many tests to convince me. Shock maybe? I’m sure I kept the pregnancy test industry in business for about 4 months with the number of tests I purchased. The second I found out about you, I prayed for you daily. But I didn’t just pray for the baby in my tummy, I prayed for the son in there. Yes, I thought you were a boy. I was convinced you were. In saying that, I also believed you were missing a limb. I’m not sure why. When the 20-week scan rolled around, I was surprised that you were a girl but I was also relieved that you had 10 fingers, 10 toes, 2 arms and 2 legs. For my whole pregnancy, I was deeply worried about you. I was worried about your health, worried that you wouldn’t survive. I think my worry took away some of the joy of being pregnant. It was true that this was unchartered territory for me, but I also think my worry proved where my mind and heart were at. I never felt maternal or like I would be a good mother. Sure, I played with dolls growing up but, the older I grew, the less I thought about it. Some people are natural mothers; I didn’t believe my heart could love someone like that. You proved me wrong. My pregnancy and birth with you were both beautiful. You made pregnancy easy. My only issue was retaining water everywhere. I looked like a puffy balloon by the end of my pregnancy. And, as I’ve mentioned many times before, your birth was straight forward. I remember the moment you engaged and dropped. I was walking through a school after a breakfast program and, suddenly, walking wasn’t an option, I had to waddle. My first contraction with you was at 3.20am on Friday 10th August 2012. You entered the world at 12.29am on Saturday 11th August. I expected to be a terrible mother. I expected to break you. I expected that I wouldn’t know how to love you or how to give you a life worth living. I expected that I would ruin your life, and that you would alter mine in ways I wouldn’t want. I expected that I would lose myself, my self-worth and my self-identity. I expected that I wouldn’t survive it. I thought that I was never going to be good enough, loving enough or maternal enough. Alexis, I need to thank you. Thank you for proving me wrong. This next bit is hard to write – please don’t lose sight of how much I love you when you read this. Something people don’t talk about much is that there are times when mothers don’t connect with their babies straight away. They know in their head that they love their baby but their heart doesn’t agree. Their heart needs time to catch up. This was you and me. I think the fact that I so deeply believed that I wasn’t good enough to be your mum created a massive disconnect between us. Alexis, you helped me get through that disconnect. You were a little two-week-old baby. It was during a feed, in the middle of the night. I started crying. I realised that I was in love. A deep, unshakeable love. A love I didn’t know my heart could handle. I didn’t expect the love I had for you to wash over me so quickly and so deeply. I didn’t expect that it would spill out of my eyes. I didn’t expect a two-week-old to change me. I didn’t expect that I would lose myself, only to find myself. I didn’t expect all the walls that I had built to crash down. I didn’t expect that I would like the person I would become so much more than the person I had been. Alexis, you taught me to love in a way I didn’t know I could. You taught me to give. You taught me to stop and reflect. You taught me how to protect. You stole the person I was. You stole my thoughts and feelings; you turned black and white to colour and you made my world brighter. I didn’t expect that you and I would grow together. You grew physically, while I grew emotionally, mentally and spiritually. Your brother will never know or understand this but he should thank you too. The mum I am today and the depth of love I give him is because of you. I’m not a perfect mum but everything good in my parenting is from what I have learnt from you. I’m sorry that I am forever learning with you but I’m grateful that we learn together. I carry a lot of guilt about how different your early experiences were compared to Solomon’s. The guilt is overwhelming if I think about it too much, because I always think you deserved and will always deserve better. The beginning of our journey was rocky but, because of you, the beginning of Solomon’s journey has been much easier. You came to the hospital after your brother was born. Seeing you put me at ease. When you saw Solomon, you had pure joy on your face. The way you have adjusted, your resilience, your love for your brother, has made our transition into a family of four so easy. I underestimated you. I always do, I always have. Not because I don’t think you’re capable, but because I don’t want to put too much pressure on you to perform a certain way. The truth is that I expected it to be more of a struggle for you. Once again, I should learn to let go of my expectations because you always have, and I suspect that you always will, exceed them. Alexis, let go of expectations in life. Let go of what you think might happen, should happen, will happen, and go with the flow. Enjoy what it is happening. I’m not saying you should be passive or reactive in your journey, just don’t let failing expectations destroy your view of the world. Alexis, I didn’t expect to be writing this to you with blonde hair dye in my hair, hoping it will take. I didn’t expect to go to Kmart today and feel so much anxiety because of this pandemic, another thing we never expected. I never expected to get a divorce. I never expected to want to kill myself. I never expected to love someone again. I never expected that I would self-harm. That I would have an abortion. Or a miscarriage. That I would go to India. Or that I would miss a stupid yellow car after crashing it. I never expected that I would run a marathon. Or an ultra-marathon. That I would be considering breeding bunnies. That the last 3 weeks would be the most I have attended church in the past 3 years. I never expected any of this. But all of this leads me to this moment, to right now. And I love everything happening right now, even with this bloody virus dictating the way we live. If all those things didn’t happen, if those unexpected moments hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t be here. This wouldn’t be my existence; this wouldn’t be my life. And I’m grateful for this Life. Don’t let the unexpected shock you, let it delight you. You know, Lex, you too were unexpected. You were my perfect, beautiful, fun, amazing surprise. You are my favourite ‘unexpected’ surprise. Because of you, I love the unexpected. Dear Alexis, Towards the end of pregnancy with your baby brother, I was required to have weekly check-ups. Every check-up would take an hour or more as I was strapped to a CTG monitor. Being there so long and so often meant that I was able to build friendships with some of the midwives. During one particular check-up, I was talking to the most beautiful midwife. Her name was Angela. We were talking about your birth and she asked if I would like to go over the birth notes. Of course, I agreed. It was such a special moment as she read out what had happened during your birth. I wish I could get my hands on them to keep them forever. As she read, I cried. I cried for many reasons; I felt sad for you, coming into the world with past me as your mother. I cried because of what I knew would take place over the few years since that day. I cried because of how fragile I was. Most of my tears, though, were for you. Reflecting on your birth enabled me to reflect on your life and I cried because I had no idea how much joy you would bring me every day. I had no idea how much I would love you; how much you would expand my heart and capacity to love. I cried because God gave you to me. Perfectly. He knew that you and I would be a perfect, albeit riddled with flaws, duo. I cried because you were the greatest gift that I ever received. The mid-wife went on to the next file. I don’t remember what the day was, but the year was 2015. I asked her not to open it. Your brother or sister is recorded in that file. The ending of their short existence is written down there. And I couldn’t, can’t, bear to think about it. As she spoke and read out the details of your birth, I couldn’t help but realise that, when I was pregnant with you, I really had no idea what to expect from labour or your birth. All I wanted at the end of my labour was a mum and a baby who were both healthy and okay. And I got it. I know I’ve spoken about it so many times before, but I need to write about it here too. I sat on the toilet and I could hear Jurassic Park playing in the background. The timer was on the screen of my phone and I was doubled over, counting to 60 and waiting for each contraction to pass. The only expectation I had of labour was that it would hurt. I went to the classes, and read about it and talked about it but, upon reflection, there was nothing that could prepare me for your birth. It was a good labour, a beautiful labour. You came early and naturally, though a ventouse had been attached to your head to help you enter the world. You wanted out and I wanted you out. 9 days before your due date, you entered the world as a 7 pound and 8 ounce dark-haired baby girl. With your brother though, I had all the expectations. In the lead up to his birth, I had been told so many times that because it would be my second labour, it would be faster and easier. I was told that it should take half the amount of time. Therefore, as your birth was 12 hours, he should be out in 6… if not less. Bullshit. It was all bullshit. I should have known there was a chance that labour and birth wouldn’t have been as easy the second time around. My pregnancy with you was a breeze; with your brother there was a lot more pain. Was it better or worse? No. It was just different. I went into spontaneous labour with you; because of the pain, decreased movements and the worry about your brother’s size, I was induced with him. I had no idea what to expect with being induced. No matter what they said or how many times we went over it, I still found it overwhelming. And what they told me about being induced, was not what happened. My expectation of your brother’s birth looked a little like this… I expected to be induced, to sleep over night, for them to put in a drip or balloon to start contractions. Music would be playing in the background and, all going according to plan, I would be in a bath, or at the very least in the shower. Alex would be there, the lights would be dimmed and my strength, my mind, and my body would take control as I rode the waves of contractions. It would be a relaxed and calm environment, full of soft and soothing voices. I would use gas if I needed it but I didn’t want any other pain relief. I expected your baby brother to be out in a few hours. It would be full of beautiful emotions as your baby brother cried for the first time, lying on my chest. What beautiful expectations I had. Instead, I started cramping as soon as they inserted the hormone gel. It was a surprise as I had expected a full night’s rest and a drip to be placed in my arm the next morning to kickstart the contractions. However, within a few hours, I was in labour, meaning they would remove the strip well before the next morning. By the time 10pm rolled around, they had removed it. By 11pm, I was throwing up because of the pain. 11.15pm rolled around and I was calling Alex to get back to the hospital. I expected Alex to be back at the hospital in 15 minutes. I didn’t expect him to lose the car keys (they were behind the bathroom door), delaying him by about 30 minutes.  Contraction timer You know, I think when we expect too much of ourselves, others and the situation at hand, we have the potential to set ourselves and those around us up for failure and disappointment. Looking back, I don’t know how I made it through your brother’s birth. I didn’t expect for my contractions to ramp up so damn quickly or for Alex to be delayed. I didn’t expect that the second I saw him I would say, “I can’t do this! I need an epidural!” Being induced meant that I went from not being in labour to being in active labour in a short space of time. I didn’t expect that an epidural would take 3 fucking hours to be administered. I thought it would happen quickly, that within 30 minutes I would no longer be in pain. I couldn’t understand why they weren’t as stressed about my pain as I was! I didn’t expect that I would have to lay dead still as they poked needles into my back, even during contractions. I was exhausted, falling asleep in between contractions, unable to keep my eyes open. I couldn’t hold the gas mouth piece in my mouth because of the pain. It was too much. I didn’t expect to sound like a dying animal as I moaned through contractions. It was like an out of body experience; I was in so much pain that I was thinking to myself, “what is that disgusting noise I’m making?” I didn’t expect that at 5am they would say I was fully dilated but still not allowed to push. It turns out that being 10cm dilated isn’t enough, babies need to move into a certain position too. When I felt the urge to push, I was told that it wasn’t time yet, that he wasn’t ready, that I had to wait until 7.15am. I didn’t know that could happen. When I finally started pushing, I did not expect to be pushing for an hour and a half. Nor did I expect to shit myself with every push. I didn’t expect that after the midwife changed over to a new midwife, she would explain to me that to get Solomon out I would need assistance. I so badly wanted him out and I wanted to be able to do it with my own strength, but there came a point when they told me to push that I just didn’t have the physical strength to do so. I was exhausted. I didn’t expect to feel like I had failed, but I did. I’m a big believer that no matter how a bubba comes into the world, birth is amazing and the mother is a badass. But I did not feel that way in this moment. It was too much. The epidural had started to wear off and the contractions, which I hadn’t been feeling before, were coming on in full force. The pain caused me to throw up violently. The force of it causing your brother to poo inside me. I knew this wasn’t meant to happen; that it wasn’t a good sign. And then they told me that his heart rate wasn’t rising as quickly as it should after every contraction. Two things happened. Firstly, I prayed silently, over and over. And secondly, probably to the annoyance of everyone, I constantly asked if he was okay. I so badly wanted to get him out on my own, but I just couldn’t anymore. My mind and body had failed your brother and myself. Before I knew it, Alex was in scrubs, my piercings were covered with tape and an orderly named Petey was wheeling me to a theatre. They dosed me up through the epidural again and got me through the door into the actual theatre. They moved me from one bed to another. I pleaded with God; please let him be okay, please let him come out, please let this be over with soon. The dimmed room with soft music that I had imagined had turned into a room of bright lights, where doctors and midwives talked about the best course of action. I did not expect my body to be completely numb, my legs in stirrups. I did not expect my vagina to be on display for everyone in there. I did not expect them to use the ventouse, sticking a vacuum to your brother’s head like they had done with you seven years prior. The doctor pulled him out of me with great strain on their face (Alex’s recount, not mine - my eyes were closed as I pushed). I did not imagine that the cord would be wrapped behind his little shoulder and head, holding him in place as I strained for what seemed like hours to get him out. I did not expect them to cut the cord so quickly, not allowing the final blood from the placenta to flow into him. I did not imagine that your brother would only be placed on my chest for a minute before they took him over to the doctor to make sure he was okay. I did not imagine him not crying, instead only making a tiny noise, and me responding with “On One Born Every Minute, if they don’t cry it means something is wrong.” None of that was in my plan. But it’s okay that nothing went to plan. When they finally placed that little life on my chest, I didn’t care what had happened. I forgot about feeling like a failure, I forgot about the pain. All of my expectations fell to the floor. They didn’t matter at all. All that mattered was that moment. I thought about him and I thought about you; I thought about how I must be the most blessed mamma in the whole world. Now I realise that maybe we shouldn’t expect too much. Not to make it less disappointing when things don’t work out the way we thought they would, but so that when things do work out in the end, we appreciate them for what they are, without taking any of the beauty away from it. There are so many roads you can take to get to a destination. Each one will have different challenges, different views, different twists and turns, but you will still get there in the end. I think I’m learning to expect less, so that I appreciate more. Expecting less meant that the hemoriods the size of planets coming out of my arse didn’t make having a new born any less beautiful. It meant that bleeding and cracked nipples which caused toe curling pain didn’t make breastfeeding any less enjoyable. Expecting less meant the six weeks of bleeding and getting my period a week later didn’t bother me too much. The three rounds of mastitis, the antibiotics leading to Solomon having stomach pains and the tears from me which have woken you up have not detracted from what an amazing journey this is. Baby, keep this in mind, just because your expectations may fail you, it doesn’t mean that life has failed you, nor have you failed life. A different outcome isn’t the wrong outcome. |
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