Starting all over again...

And so the journey begins again...

We spoke in counselling last night about the feeling of being stuck in a place, of not feeling able to move forward in my grief, of still being in this place of non-specific anger and irritability with the world that I was two weeks ago. We then spoke about how being stuck can be a self-protective measure, as allowing yourself to get stuck in a comfortable place (or more comfortable than some of the alternatives) means that you no longer need risk facing the pain, anger, grief, whatever that moving on might mean you have to face. But all this is marvelously vague, and I need a little more direction, so I'm to start at the beginning again.

When Zoe died, Nicole took it very hard, and while I was able to grieve with her to a point, I also took on the role of protective husband, provider of needs. This was, perhaps, a necessary thing, to allow Nicole the time and space to grieve as she needed to without worrying about mundane details like where food was coming from. Necessary for me too, a protective measure from the intensity of the emotion of those first few days. And it has served its purpose - Nicole has, with the help of wonderful friends in both growth-groups, fellow bloggers and the denizens of the SANDS forum, been able to process much of the grief and anger and is taking steps down the road to wholeness again. I have remained in my role of protector and provider, which does not allow much space for my own grieving - I have not demanded it, nor, if I'm honest, even sought it terribly hard, once again a way of protecting myself. And yet, as Ali pointed out, in the long term, what is now a protection, will ultimately be the death of me, what I pass of as gallant and heroic, will one day destroy that which I hope to save - to be the husband and father that I desire to be, I must care for and nurture myself as much as I do those I love.

So I go back to the beginning - to try and relive (to some measure or other) the days after Zoe was taken away, the feelings and emotions, the stresses and anxieties. Much of this won't be published here, but I hope to be able to post some of what I learn, if nothing else.

Wish me luck

Autopsy results

As I had sort of expected, there was no obvious cause for Zoe's death - although there was a surprise in the blood-work that they did on Nicole after Zoe was delivered. She may be positive for antiphospholipid syndrome - one of the blood conditions that I have been monitored for the last 3 or 4 years as St George's (the one that predisposes me toward clotting). For us both to have it is unusual, to say the least. The consultant said that, while this was not a cause per se, in cases where the mother has this syndrome, there is an increased incidence of cases of stillbirth. She was quick to emphasise that, even if this was the case and we had known about it beforehand, there was nothing to say that things wouldn't have happened in the same way. Even if we had induced Zoe earlier and she had been delivered safely, there was nothing to say that she would have survuived. It's pointless playing the "if" game in any event - there are too many...

I found it really odd to think that Nicole and I might have this same unusual blood condition, and even though I knew it was impossible, I felt fleetingly responsible for what had happened to Zoe. They had to re-do the test, as the pregnancy could have caused a false positive, so Nicole sat and waited for hours while I went to work. Another three weeks to wait now before we'll know, one way or 'tuther.

On the way back to the College, I stopped in at St Margeret's church, in the grounds of Westminster Abbey, where I would quite often come at lunchtime to be quiet and talk to God, but I found I couldn't sit still and grew quickly agitated and angry and left again.

Work was a mixture of a welcome distraction (we had visitors that needed to be introduced to the work of the department) and a pain in the whatsit - I don't think I accomplished a great deal. Tomorrow will be the seventh aniversary of the day that I started at the College - as a proper employee, not in the kitchen, and I'm marking the occasion by going to the all-you-can eat Chinese buffet to stuff myself.

The diet starts the day after tomorrow.

So quickly forgotten?

St Thomas' (the hospital where both Janel and Zoe were delivered) organises a memorial service twice a year, for parents who have lost children there, and we'd been invited to today's service. We'd not been very organised, as we'd only managed to find babysitters at the last minute, so had not RSVP'd and sent the name of our child ahead like they asked us to. So when we arrived, we weren't on the list!!

No problem, they said, we'll just add your child's name - what is it?

Janel Broster-Masureik we said...

It was only when we were filling in a card to be tied to a "tree of life" by the alter that we realised that we'd given the wrong name. As if we only had one daughter's name to give.

So we started the service in tears. And cried most of the way through it. The service itself was a hymn, a few prayers, some poems, a short address, silence to remember, lighting of candles, some more prayers and another song. Fairly bland, non-controversial, to allow those of all faiths and none to commemorate their loved ones. This one poem hit me the hardest:

Cold Saturday

I wrote, Your name in the damp sand
Using the toe of my boot
Then stood watching
The sea nudge it away

I shouted, Your name to the sky
While the wind knifed my body
But the vast beach deadened the sound.
Then - because you will never know
And I had to tell someone -
I yelled, To the whole great emptiness
That I loved you, loved you, Loved you -

If anyone saw a fat woman
In suede boots, eyes puffy from crying
Walking blindly by the sea
Shouting I love you at the screaming gulls
Thank you for ignoring me

Anne Lewis-Smith

I had a good (nay, great) friend in Cape Town that tried to commit suicide. Part of the therapy that followed involved shouting - and so we used to go down to the sea near Hout Bay, find a cove where we could be alone, and shout at the waves. In her case, this was a lot about releasing the anger, but there was a freedom in being able to shout your heart out, knowing that no-one else could hear. I feel that I would shout a great deal if I had the space to do so, the confidence that I would be ignored. A lot of the time my grief, when I have the space to express it, is wordless, and this makes it hard, when people ask how I'm doing, to know how to respond.

Tomorrow we meet the consultant for a review of the autopsy results. I really don't know whether I want there to be a reason or not - if no reason has been discovered, then it means that no one (neither the doctors nor ourselves) is to blame for Zoe's death, no one could have done something different to prevent it; but at the same time, we will always wonder "Why?", and when we fall pregnant again, we will worry the whole time. If there is a reason, then the opposite is true, we will have a name to put on this and will be fore-warned for the next time, but the question of whether we or the medical team could have done something that would have saved her will linger. All in all, not a happy place to be. We did have the option of not having an autopsy at all, but I think that would have been even worse than either of the two options above - just an emptiness, a vacuum.

Also tomorrow, my next session of counselling - after last week where I took a side road down other personal issues, we return to Zoe, so I'm not expecting to enjoy it, but it is the only real outlet I have at the moment, so I need to take advantage of it while we're still in London.

Time for Nellie to have her bedtime story...

Remembering Zoe

This is a post I made on a message board that I belong to, a few days after Zoe was delivered - I'm not sure I can bring myself to re-word it... I will add more posts soon enough, but this will do for starters...

How quickly everything changes.

There I was on Friday, sitting in a meeting with colleagues from other related bodies, drinking coffee and chatting about the impending birth of our second daughter. My wife was 37 weeks pregnant, having survived two scares during the time first when she was sent to hospital with suspected heart/circulation problems at 24 weeks, and then when she started having contractions at 33 weeks while I was home in South Africa. Our first child had been born at 33 weeks and had assorted complications as a result, although she is now a beautiful, healthy toddler (thank God), so we had been really worried that there would be problems this time round as well.

We set ourselves the goal of getting to 37 weeks, because then Pixie could have the water birth that she'd been dreaming of, and had been mightily relieved when that milestone had been reached on the Wednesday. Doubly so, because the baby had moved on Monday, and we were worried that it was now lying transverse, which would have meant that we would have had to have had a C-section instead of a natural birth. The midwife couldn't be sure by feeling, so Pixie had been to the hospital for a scan, and everything had been good - the head was down, the spine in the correct orientation, a good heartbeat. Things were looking up. Pixie was feeling big and sore, and we joked that it would be a good thing if she could be born this weekend, as my mother was on holiday the next week, but my father would only be on holiday the week after, so she (my mom) would be free to come and stay with us to help look after us, our toddler and the new bairn.

On Thursday evening, Pixie mentioned that she couldn't remember feeling the baby move that day, so I said that she should call the doctor if she was worried. She said she'd think about it and we went to sleep.

But back to Friday - there were several mothers amongst the group, and they all assured me that second pregnancies were MUCH easier than first time around. "Like shelling peas from a pod" one lady said. The meeting started, and we got lost in the details of what tactics were best to get Councils and Committees to give out money for unglamorous projects like upgrading switches and firewalls. Lunchtime came and there was a call on my mobile (always by my side after the 33 week scare):

"Where are you?"
"Still at the meeting - how are you doing?"
"I'm at the hospital"
"..."
"They can't find a heartbeat"

I'm surprised I didn't knock anyone down as I ran from the building to the bus stop. It was the most frustrating journey down Regent Street, with Westminster Palace in view (we were booked into St Thomas', just across the Thames), and traffic going nowhere. When I got there, it took me some time to find the right reception area to go to, and then (being British) I had to wait my turn to be seen and told where my wife was. The consultant arrived shortly after I did and confirmed what we feared the most - our baby was dead, there was no heartbeat to be found.

We left to collect our daughter from her daycare and to call our parents. And to weep.

We went in the next morning (my parents came up to babysit) and had a frustrating wait while the NHS deigned to notice our existence. From then on, however, the care we received was excellent. Pixie's waters were broken and contractions began. It is Nature's ultimate act of cruelty, to make a mother go through labour when there is nothing to look forward to at the end of it all. Fortunately, the mothers had been right, the labour was much easier, and, because we no longer had to worry about the health of the baby , we had access to stronger painkillers. Five hours in total and there she was...

She looked exactly like her big sister did at birth - uncannily so. She weighed 2.78kg (6lb 2oz) and was 52cm long. She has blue eyes, curly ginger-blond hair and is perfect in every way. The midwife left her with us and we held her close and wept some more. Our pastor and his wife came and prayed with us, blessed and named her. Zoe means "life" apparantly - not that I'd been aware of that when we'd settled on the name, not that it makes a difference - the name fitted her when we saw her, and Zoe she is and will be forever.

And then you leave her, and go back to a house that should contain four of you and only has three. And hold your daughter, who should be enough and just isn't anymore. And weep without really knowing who you're crying for. And think about going back to the mundane world of work and friends and wonder if you'll ever be able to face them again.

The autopsy will be happening today or tomorrow, but they won't have the final results for 6 to 8 weeks - but the initial results don't look too promising, and we have to prepare ourselves for the possibility that there will be no answers. About 5 babies for every thousand live births die without any apparant reason - sort of like cot death I suppose. In some ways, that would actually be easier to deal with, no way to blame ourselves (if only we'd gone for the scan on Thurs instead of waiting) or anyone else (why didn't they pick up that something was wrong). We could blame God I suppose, since He's supposed to be in charge of our lives. Why He would let her survuive the first scares only to take her away at the last minute makes no sense to me, but then very little relating to God does at the moment.

And there it is - two days from heartbeat to dead.

Go hug your kids now.
Grim