Blue

For some of us, life throws us a massive curve ball and it comes completely unexpected and divides our life: the version of you before the event, and the person you have become since.

Life before Blue was very ordinary. I met my husband at a time when I felt fulfilled in my life that I wasn’t looking for anything or anyone in particular. Sounds cliché but I was genuinely having a great time and I felt a sense of freedom I hadn’t done in my 20s. We met and were married within 18 months of meeting. When you know, you know. I found out I was expecting Blue a few days after I received a promotion at work. The thing about grief is that you pick apart scenarios thinking it could have changed the outcome. I celebrated a lot after my promotion and the guilt of that is still a small voice in my heart.

After a fairly smooth pregnancy, we were playing the waiting game for her to arrive. My bump by 38 weeks looked like a deflated balloon, but all was well according to my chart. Blue was born suddenly at home at 41 weeks. She was unresponsive and grey. But the moment didn’t land for me until we reached the hospital. I remember the few minutes I had with her alone in my bath, where I kissed her on her lips. I remember the feeling of the placenta falling out and seeing the cord turn white. I’ve often heard friends and family express how scared I must have been. To be honest, the contractions were so intense I didn’t have time to think. Blue very nearly ended up being a toilet baby as I felt the urge to poo but then quickly changed my mind and went back in the bath. Everything was instinctual in how I gave birth. The way I moved, the way I needed to stand at the point of her birth. The feeling of birth did feel euphoric for a second. I knew something wasn’t right when I saw her. She had the amniotic sack over her face and so it made her look a little strange.

For the first time in my life, my body did what it needed to do and my mind was a bystander. I am forever grateful that it didn’t lead to another emergency for me.

After Blue died, I was searching for answers. I googled, researched, read. I had to fulfil my intellectual part of brain to find the solution, the why us, why her. I came across an old story printed in Ireland of a woman who also gave birth suddenly.  Her baby died 5 days later and she gave birth in the hospital. I guess I took this as validation that the same outcome may have happened if I was already in the hospital? Who knows.

How do you process grieving a child? I don’t know, but I still remember the 1st hour where I wasn’t sad and consumed by my loss. It was after a work colleague suggested I take PT lessons with her other half. I remember walking into that gym the first time, wearing my pre pregnancy gym wear, which absolutely did not fit. I don’t know who I was kidding. I got straight into doing movements, and lifting weights. It didn’t feel like I was bypassing, but my mind had to focus on something else, something in the present. I walked out, and I noticed – hey that was the first time I hadn’t thought about Blue. The guilt soon followed of course.

I was privileged enough to have private healthcare and an onsight psychologist at work. For 6 months, I had weekly therapy and then started EMDR. This type of therapy was life changing, and I could see how my mind was starting to take the charge out of the graphic memories into more manageable thoughts.

Grief comes in waves and there are times, even now, 7 years in, I will miss the life I should have had. I watch my two girls play, and I imagine what Blue would have looked like playing alongside them. Their big sister.

I know she is watching over them and will do so until we are all together. I don’t have the answers on how to live around such a momentous and tragic event. But I do know that I didn’t do this alone. I couldn’t have done this alone. Everyone who has thought of us, reached out, came over to see us, shared their love, brought food, brought jokes, – we received it all. You guys all helped build us back up.

The future now is a bit uncertain. But what I have learnt is that I have a deeper sense of love and empathy, I wasn’t so conscious of before. I feel sudden death so deeply, and especially if its of a child. I often think of the mothers in Palestine, Congo and Sudan not being able to protect their babies whilst I am lucky enough to tuck them into a warm bed. It is a privilege being the mother of Blue. But the real honour is using my grief and her loss to fuel love and empathy. This is my why, and why I do the work I do.