The End

December

I had planned on asking for my wedding ring to be re-dipped and cleaned for Christmas. I don't like to admit that I'm superstitious but it was beginning to look a little dull and disheartened and my gut feeling was that it reflected how things were going. The last few years had been a hard slog to say the least. The recent move a set back instead of the step forward we had hoped. Life had been on hold for too long. We needed a fresh start. It was time to start moving again. 

I'm in the kitchen and the dreaded words are like a haze.

"I think we might need counselling."

I scoff " Counselling is a sign of last resort. Surely we should try first...Surely you think we can get past this." 

He sits on a nearby stool and stares at the floor.

My voice rises. Squeaks "Do you think we're at the last resort stage already? Do you think we need a...."

I stop myself.

He finishes.

"I don't love you anymore. I haven't for a long time."

It's over.

The Time I can Never Get Back

We sold the crib, the travel cot, and the stroller today. It triggered something I thought I had addressed and accepted but clearly I still needed to grieve.

I have never been one to go goo-ey and coo-ey when a newborn is in the room.

There has only been one who, once I got over the fear that I might break her, I couldn’t get enough of holding, engaging with, smiling at, watching her during tummy time, or dozing away in her pack and play.  I cheered as I watched her hit her milestones and cried tears of joy the first time she waved to me. I still love to watch videos of her, whether it’s when she was so tiny she’s nothing more than a puffalump on her mother’s knee or when she’s singing her own version of a Christmas carol. This girl has made my heart light up since the very first time I laid eyes on her. Including those newborn days I was luckily enough to share with her.

This little girl is my beautiful, hilarious, spunky little niece. I love her to bits.

I did not get this with my daughter.

When the midwives caught my baby girl and handed her over, I was overcome with emotion and in awe of the miracle of life.  I loved her from the very beginning.

But I still felt nothing.

_______________________________

“Make the most of every moment, cherish it, and enjoy it, as they’re only this age once and it will be done before you know it,” a stranger said as I was standing in the baby section of a department store, just barely holding myself together. I knew nothing about how to be a mom. I was convinced that I would kill my baby by shear incompetence if not from some subconscious action in an attempt to stop the dark thoughts from flooding through my head. I was hating motherhood, sure I had made a drastic mistake, and absolutely overwhelmed by the fact that I had no other greater responsibility than to make sure I didn’t fuck this baby up, and worried that I might have already done so.

I blinked back tears and focused on the various maternity tights I found myself in front of as the woman continued talking.

“The first two years are the most important….” I switched off.  It was all I could do not to just hand her my baby girl and walk away.  Surely she knew better than I did.  Based on the streams of “You’re so lucky”, “You must be in heaven”,  “Life must seem so wonderful with her around”, “You must be enjoying your time together” I’d been hearing, everyone seemed to know how to do this better than me.  I couldn’t understand if everyone else enjoyed it, why couldn’t I?  What was wrong with me that I couldn’t adjust to the new role like everyone around me had?

So I waited for it to get better. I played the “fake it till you make it” role to the extreme, parenting by the book, hoping that one day I’d get up and I’d do something just because it felt right.  I didn’t feel one iota of mother’s instinct.  If I hadn’t had the Baby Whisperer, I would have been in ruins.

____________________________

Those two years have been and gone.  I learned that I had an illness and it wasn’t down to bad mothering. I got help. I took medication. I attended appointments. I wrote. I got better. I continue to heal.  I enjoy my daughter’s company sometimes. (Do normal moms enjoy their kids’ company all the time?)

But the fact remains that my daughter isn’t a baby and never will be again.  I will never ever get that time back.  I hate that I will never hold my little baby girl in my arms and not want to put her down. I won’t know what it feels like to stare at her face for hours and enjoy every minute of it.  My chest never filled with pride the first time she rolled over or sat on her own. The only hope I have is that someday I will look at the millions of pictures we have of her baby days and I will cry the tears of joy I should have when those moments happened. 

I missed my baby. 

That will forever break my heart.

The Call

It’s 7:30am.  The phone rings and I answer.  It’s my Grandfather, sounding serious, asking for my Dad.  He’s outside shovelling snow so I take over and he goes into the phone.  Too much time passes and, even with my little kid’s shovel, I manage to finish before my Dad returns.  When I get inside mom and dad are sitting at the table looking serious.

This is the first time I hear the world death.   

Although that part is singed into my memory, I can’t remember who it was.  My memory seems to have repeated it as well.  In my head, this happened multiple times, but I know some calls came in the summer. I know I didn’t always answer the phone.  One thing is for certain. 

Calls before breakfast are never good news.  

Healing

When I had reconstructive surgery on my knee, I woke up to find a machine gently bending and straightening my leg, starting rehabilitation as early as possible. When the time came to remove the brace, I was amazed that, despite regular physio appointments and strapping myself into that machine for eight hours a day, my leg was a mere shadow of what it used to be.  My calf muscle so lax I could practically wrap it around my shin.  When my physical therapist told me to walk the whole five feet between the door and the medical table, I laughed.  Then I tried.  My brain had forgotten how to work my leg all together.  I resembled a baby giraffe trying to figure out its lanky limbs. (with half the male soccer team there to witness it!  Arrgh!)

The surgery was just part one.  I was a world better than I’d been but it would be a long hard slog before I was fully recovered. If I walked too fast or up stairs, I limped.  If I walked too far, I was in agony.  With my body concentrating on rebuilding that part of my body, my immune system forgot how to work. I got raging headaches and had a constant run of sore throats.  I was dead tired all the time.  The pain killers made it hard to think straight but without them the pain made me throw up. I ran several miles a few days before the surgery so I thought I was taking baby steps when my first run was the block.  I was heaving with exhaustion before making it to the end of the street.

Dealing with postnatal depression has left me feeling like that sorry excuse for a leg with the flaccid calf muscle.  I’m longing to stretch my boundaries and be me again but I just can't seem to manage it.  I get ill easier as my body fights off this horrendous illness. Daily challenges that I could have dealt with easily now practically paralyze me.  My chest tightens and the anxiety creeps in with the tiniest bit of normal life stress.  I continue to live and try to heal in this world that really isn’t all that nice.  I search for things to keep me living from moment to moment as the healing process is so slow I rarely notice it.

I do know the worst of it is over.  Last summer was a battle I hope to never have to fight again.  I made it through but it has left me ill-equipped to deal with the world the way I once could.  

I’ve been assured I am doing all the right things and, if I keep doing them, I will get better with time.  Until then, they tell me the safety net is still firmly in place.  I can’t see the net but I’m doing my best to stay strong and believe them.  Each step makes me wonder if I’ll miss something and tumble back into that deep dark hole again.  I know I’ve got more tools to fight it this time but I don’t want to have to use them.

It would be nice if life would just back the fuck off for a while so I could get better but that’s not going to happen.  I’ve been assured I’m strong enough to do this battle while living with all the normal people but I am not always convinced myself.  I am learning to walk again and I stumble. A lot.

Somewhere in the midst of an emotional weekend, I subconsciously shut off my feelings and returned to the protective feeling of numbness.  It’s not a warm cosy feeling.  It is dark and cold.  Lonely and alienating.  I speak of illness, of death, of loved ones I've lost, like I’m talking about the weather. I want my emotions back.  They are the glimpse I have that I am getting better. 

Sometimes, after a long bought of illness, we get a little over zealous, head back to work just that one day too soon and end up back in bed again.

When I was convinced my knee was well and truly recovered, I did a flying leap and came down on a still much weaker leg. It gave out and within seconds my other knee was wrecked as well. 

Most of the time I feel like I have been forced back into the thick of it too early.  Those stupid demons lurk in the shadows, just waiting to capitalize on life’s latest hurdles. However, there is nothing to do but do my best and hope I can continue to handle it. 

So far so good but I could use a more visible safety net.  And perhaps a good cry.