Telepathy

I want to be telepathic. I know all the science fiction stories reckon telepathy has down sides but it would certainly be useful. For example in the following situation which occurred earlier today whilst at work:

I was making myself a drink (yes that is my poor excuse for the photo) in the kitchen at work when a women who I know to say hello to only walked in. She doesn't work in my section and to be honest I am not entirely sure what she does or what her name is but I have chatted to her many times. I saw her for the first time since I came back to work today.

Women: "Hi, when did you get back?"

Me: "Last week."

Women: "How is it going?"

Me: "Oh, well ok, not too bad" (sounding glum)

At this point I think that somebody must have told her my situation. However I still would have appreciated a bit of telepathy.

Women: "Were you off for a year?"

Me: "No, six months"

Women: "The time went quick"

Now I am wondering if she knows after all. So I try and leave the kitchen with my drink. Better not to know.

Women: "Bet you feel like a different person now?"

Me: "Yes"

Now I really think she doesn't know but still am not entirely sure. This is where being telepathic would come in handy. Maybe she does know, after all I do feel like a different person?

Now I am at the doorway about to leave.

Women: "The trick is marrying up the person you are now with who you were before."

Me: "Yes"

By this point I really do not think she knows. But on the other hand I really couldn't say for sure. Maybe she is simply being philosophical or something? After all she didn't do what everybody normally does - she didn't ask about a baby. Being telepathic would have been very useful.

Still I was not taking the chance and just left heading in the opposite direction as quickly as I could. If she was just making idle chat I doubt very much she really wanted to know my story. Plus, more importantly it might be upsetting for me having to tell it.

So what do you think? Did she know?

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to all my readers from the US.

A post that made me think

Todays post is really simply a link to another blogger's post. A post that made me think:

http://aidanbabyofmine.blogspot.com/2010/10/dead-baby-math.html

The above post was made a while ago. It is all about comparisons. Comparisons I think all mothers who have lost babies might make occasionally. Comparing the loss of other women who have lost babies to their own loss.

The thrust of the post is that whilst all losses hurt are some worse than others? For example imagine the case of a women with no children and who struggles to conceive needing IVF. When she gets pregnant her baby is born with health issues and dies only weeks old in hospital. Well that is truly awful. So very unfair and I would say worse than a women who has no trouble conceiving, has several healthy full term babies and then has an early miscarriage and goes on to have another healthy happy baby afterwards.

I have found myself wondering how I would have reacted had we lost Orson when the doctors said we would at 21 weeks when my waters first broke instead of 10 weeks later when we had more hope. I would have still been devastated. I recall crying that first night in hospital so well. But would I have found it easier to cope?

Not as bad as it could have been

Work was fine after all. I didn't really come across anybody who didn't know what had happened which helped. Of course I had the last time I was here thoughts but it was fine. There were a few occasions when I was sad and could tell I was close to tears I didn't cry:

Occasion 1 - Towards the end of a meeting with my manager when I was trying to explain how I felt.

Occasion 2 - A colleague decided what I really needed was to see photos of him holding his new born grandson.

Occasion 3 - This was the closest I came to crying. I was going through my 500 e-mails and came across one sent to everyone in our section including me informing everyone that Orson had died. It was a very short e-mail just a sentence or two. What got me was my colleague used the exact words I used in an e-mail to her, ending with the words "...and he was perfect." it made me sad (even thinking of that e-mail makes me a little sad) but I am very glad she used those words.

Back to work

Image: br3akthru / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I go back to work tomorrow. My first day of work in 6 1/2 months. I have to admit I am a little concerned. Concerned I am not ready. I think I am but how can I be sure until I actually start back? My biggest fear is talking to people who ask why I have been off work for so long. What do I say? I think everybody in my section will be fine, after all they know what has happened but what about others who don't know? I still have difficulties telling people what happened to Orson. Once they know I can talk about him, but just telling them initially is hard.

My biggest fear is crying at work.

The last time I was in work was April 28th. I was 5 months pregnant. I had only told my colleagues about my pregnancy a couple weeks before although a few had guessed as I was showing. I left work that day anticipating a long weekend away with my family. That Friday evening my waters broke and 10 weeks later, well you know the story by now... So tomorrow will be a day of experiences where I will be able to (but of course won't) say "last time I did this I was pregnant."

Let's see how the day goes.

Everything feels a little bit better when the sun shines

Florence, November 2010

Sunshine makes me happier. I  am not someone who likes sunbathing but just being able to wear a t-shirt in the sun makes me happier. Right now it is raining heavily here. Yesterday was a mixture of heavy wind and rain. It has got colder. I had to go out and buy hats, scarves and gloves. The clocks have gone back so it starts to get dark earlier. It is almost four o'clock and getting dark already.

I miss the sunshine. A few weeks ago I had a lovely holiday in Italy and I loved the sun there. We went to Pisa (rainy), Florence (rainy / sunny) and Rome (sunny). Whilst we had fun in Pisa watching M jump up and down in puddles around the Leaning Tower everything seemed happier walking around the Colosseum in the sunshine.

Florence was a good example of how the weather does make a difference when you are on holiday with a two year old. One day it rained the whole day. Everywhere was packed with tourists all with umbrellas. I lost count with how many times I got hit in the head by somebody else's umbrella. We had a pushchair to push so just had raincoats and when I had my hood I couldn't see very much. Not that the views were that great in the heavy rain.

When it was sunny in Florence it was lovely, yes the streets were still busy but it didn't matter. We wore t-shirts (the locals still wore coats) and we climbed a hill and ended up in a park where we had a mini picnic. We could see the whole of Florence from the park (see the photo above taken from the park). We ate ice-cream without feeling silly. Everything seemed a bit better in the sunshine.

Multiple loss

The British singer Lily Allen recently lost her baby at six months pregnant two years after a miscarriage at around four months pregnant. The news is very sad. That anybody has to endure the pain of losing their baby twice is just hideous. I think it is the fear of every women pregnant after loss. The fear that the same thing will happen again.

Lily's story has been widely discussed on the news, see this article:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11704500.
According to the newspaper articles she was roughly six months pregnant and since here in the UK the term miscarriage is used up until 24 weeks the loss may have legally been a late miscarriage or a stillbirth / neonatal death, however most articles refer to it as a miscarriage and go on to discuss early miscarriages (1:4 pregnancies etc). This lack of understanding is frustrating, in fact I really hate how late miscarriages are called miscarriages at all but more on this in a future post.

Another blogger I follow (http://josephines-mom.blogspot.com) who previously lost a baby to pPROM recently announced she had suffered another loss. She was 7 weeks pregnant. To have lost another pregnancy is so unfair. I feel that women who have lost a baby should somehow be excused future pregnancies and just skip to bringing their baby home. Sadly that is not the case, we have to start from the beginning, fight to conceive, fight to not have a miscarriage and continue to fight for the whole pregnancy. I am not sure why I say fight as it gives the illusion we have control over future pregnancies when in reality we have little control. All pregnancy losses are sad but multiple loss is so much worse.