Done having children. It’s not easy.

When I was thirteen weeks pregnant with Emersyn I decided I was going to get my tubes tied when I had my scheduled cesarean.  By that point I had experienced four pregnancy losses and two anxiety ridden pregnancies, I knew I couldn’t put myself – and more importantly, my children – through another anxiety filled nine months or the heartbreak and depression that comes with a loss.  The high risk ob I was seeing (due to my epilepsy) was very hesitant to do this – telling me I was young and I might ‘meet someone’ and want more babies – because she clearly knew me better than I knew myself.  I stood my ground and when she asked me moments after I heard Emersyn crying for the first time, if I still wanted my tubes tied, I confidently told her yes.

And I did want them done.  I knew there were no more babies in my future, that there were no more pregnancies in my future.  I had two healthy children and that was enough for me.

Four and a half years on I am still 100% confident in my decision – but sometimes the knowledge I won’t add to my family can be a little overwhelming – and upsetting.

As little girls we dream of the day we will have our own babies.  As teenagers we try to do what we can to prevent that happening.  Then we reach the exciting, much anticipated time of our lives when we can throw away the birth control and make those baby dreams a reality.  We dream about what our babies will look like, begin compiling lists of names, pay attention to the latest in baby related furniture and on-the-go equipment, from the first day of our period we are buzzing with excitement because this month might be the month.

You have your baby.  Maybe you have another one.  Maybe you have three or four more.  Maybe more.

Then you decide you are done.  No more babies.  No more pregnancies.  That part of your life is over.

The metaphorical tumbleweeds tumble past and there are echos.

Just like that a huge part of your life is over.

So long as the decision was made because it was really what you wanted you move on with your life.  You take great joy out of the child or children you have, they grow, they change, they become their own little person – and then their own big person – they amaze you, your heart bursts with love on a daily basis.  Life is GOOD.

That is how my life is 99% of the time.  I love watching our children growing up and seeing how they change in the space of a year.  I love being able to take them places and do things that I know they will enjoy or appreciate now they are a little older.  I like that they sleep through the night, that there are no 2, 3, 4, 5am nappy changes, I like that I don’t have to sit like a zombie and feed a baby when I really need to be sleeping.  I like that they are becoming more independent the older they get.  I love seeing what they accomplish, all the new milestones they reach – especially at school – reading, spelling, doing times tables, representing their school in sports.

Everyday there is another reason to be proud of the four fantastic children we are raising.

But sometimes something switches in my brain and I feel sad that there won’t be anymore babies, that there won’t be another baby bump, that there won’t be the excited anticipation that comes with pregnancy.  Will it be a boy or a girl?  How big will he or she be?  Who will he or she look like?  What will he or she look like?  What will the birth be like?  Will she or he be a good sleeper?  What about a good eater?  When will he or she start sleeping through?  Get his or her first teeth?  Crawl?  Walk?

When my brain makes that switch I find it very hard to look at pregnant women or to look at newborns.  Each little baby I see when my brain is in this stage is like a knife through the heart.  I start to mourn the little boy or girl who won’t be entering our lives, I grieve for the pregnancy that could have started but never did.  I yearn for those first days with a new baby, I dream about experiencing all the firsts again; the first smile, the first laugh, the first time rolling over, the first time they get on their hands and knees, the first time they crawl, walk, talk.

It’s a confusing thing.  Deep down you know you are happy with the way things are, that you don’t really want another baby… but another part of you remembers all the lovely things that come with having a new baby, a new little member to your family.  You know the joy they bring, the awe you feel when you look at them, the way they continue to surprise you and surpass all your expectations.

Nothing prepares you for the myriad of emotions that come after the decision to not have anymore children or the fact these emotions can sneak up on you years later and unexpectedly.  A walk past the baby section of a store can be full of ‘aw, how cute!’ one day and a painful pang of sorrow the next… sometimes it is just too damn hard to walk past that section of the store.  It’s the same with babies, one day you see a tiny baby and  again it’s a case of ‘awwwww, how cute!’, the next day the sight of the same baby brings tears to your eyes and you have to look away.

I know we are done having babies.  I know we are both happy with that decision and know it’s right for us… but sometimes that part of the brain we have no control over switches and our maternal instincts go into overdrive.  Perhaps it’s evolutionary, perhaps it’s just another of the joys of being a woman; either way I hope that at some point along the way that switch in my brain stops flicking.

A new project in the works…

This blog post could be long and drawn out, but instead I will make it short and sweet[ish].

Because October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month, I thought it was a good time to make something in memory of my four angel babies.  I hate that I don’t have anything physical to hold on to (until recently anyway, Lauriel bought me a few little items because that is how awesome she is!) and I thought it might be nice to make a blanket in memory of each of them.  Nothing too extreme or big, just something simple that I can put away and take out when I feel the need to be ‘close’ to my babies.

I am going to do individual granny square blankets for each of my angels and perhaps a little hat for each.  I know a lot of people probably find the idea a little over the top, perhaps even plain ol’ weird, but it is what I feel I need to do to remember my babies.

I will, of course, post update photos along the way… my aim is to get the blankets all finished in October, hopefully it is manageable with exams to study for!

I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to my babies…

We have a pet Axolotl.  He is dying.  Yesterday I thought he had finally gone up to that big Axolotl swamp in the sky, but no… he was just pretending to be dead, or perhaps he did die and came back to life.  I don’t know.  Either way he was lifeless but then magically started moving around.

Between the ‘oh crap he is dead’ and the ‘oh crap he is alive’ were a lot of tears.

From me.  No one else, just me.

Yeap, the 31 year old was crying, while the 4, 7, 7 & 10 year olds were not crying.

Upon realising he was ‘dead’ I began to plan his Axolotl funeral in my head.  Where would I bury him?  What plant would I buy to put on top of him?  I don’t have much luck with normal plants so maybe something non-planty would be better?  Perhaps just a homemade wooden cross with his name on it?  Perhaps one of those cute flowers on a stick that you can put in the garden?  A little figurine?  I imagined digging the hole, I imagined placing the Zaxolotl (his name is Zac, aka Zaxolotl) in the hole and saying a couple of silent words before covering him with dirt and a plant/or something else/etc.

But then I was crying for a whole different reason.

My four babies I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to.  Two babies that were classified as ‘medical waste’ and two that were flushed down the toilet in amongst the mess that comes with a miscarriage.  Jayden, Micah, Zhavier and Addison.  The four babies that were with me for incredibly short amounts of time (10w4d, 5w4d, 8w0d & 6w1d respectively) but left a lifelong mark on my soul.

I have always felt I didn’t get closure from any of my losses because I didn’t have a proper chance to say goodbye.  I didn’t have a chance to put any to rest in a meaningful way.

Micah and Addison were lost to early miscarriages… I think I saw both of them on the toilet paper but cannot really be sure.  If you have had an early miscarriage you will understand why.  I did silently say goodbye both times I thought I was looking at the under-developed baby on the toilet paper… but then I flushed the toilet paper down the toilet.  Something that has always made me feel guilty.

Jayden was lost to abortion at 10w4d.  Prior to my procedure the doctor asked if I would like the ‘products of conception’ to take home with me and I told them yes, yes I did.  I was too weak to stand up for myself and bring my baby into the world, the least I could do was put him to rest.  I had no idea how I would do it, but I would.  After my procedure the doctor came to talk to me and when I asked where my baby was he looked a me unsympathetically and shrugged “Oh sorry,” he said “I forgot you wanted the POC to take home.”.  Yes.  I did want my baby to take home with me.  The way the doctor shrugged it off broke my heart.  He didn’t care.  Then again, he also told me that after my abortion I would feel ‘a sense of relief’ and ‘life could go on as normal’.  Oh, how wrong that man was.

Zhavier was lost at 8w0d, five days before Gabrielle’s first birthday, through an ectopic pregnancy.  After what could only be called shoddy care by my LMC (in the way she didn’t even consider ectopic pregnancy, when everything pointed to that) I ended up at my GP for spotting.  I was sent up to the hospital for an anti-D shot (I am rhesus negative), they did a blood test, I had to come back the next day for a scan and another blood test, then the next day for another blood test and possible ‘exploratory surgery’.  I ended up having that exploratory surgery, the result of which was the removal of my right fallopian tube, and my baby.  Again I had asked to be given the ‘POC’ as they so medically referred to my baby.  Again they ‘forgot’.

And now here I am, close to seven years on from my last loss, still grieving for the babies I never had a chance to say goodbye to.  I know that my grieving for four babies lost in the first trimester probably seems over the top, perhaps a bit stupid, but I cannot control how I am, I cannot control how my brain works.  I am an emotional person by nature and no matter how hard I try to stop these feelings they never completely disappear.  I would love to have a place to go to ‘be with’ my babies.  A little plant to sit in front of.  A cross to sit in front of.  A tiny little corner of the garden where I could go to  contemplate, to think, to reflect, to miss my babies.

Closure.  I need closure, and I don’t know that I will ever get the complete closure I need.  There will always be that tiny part of me that can’t get over the fact two of my babies were seen as mere ‘medical waste’ and were disposed of.  It seems so wrong.