Life goes on

Another few days spent making stuff, more baking and cooking going on though that's calming down a bit.

My six year old's teacher had her last day teaching yesterday, before she's on maternity leave. Her baby is due six weeks before mine was.

I had bought this fabric to make a baby blanket gift for her a while before we found out about our baby, though I didn't get round to sewing it up right away. After our baby was born, at first I thought I wouldn't sew it up, but then it seemed okay to do.

So I did.

With a few tears, admittedly.

Because it seems like something I should be doing for our baby.

I made these too, to bring on her last day. She has been a lovely teacher and given Mr 6 a great introduction to school.

Life goes on.

Poem

I found this poem today, it fits perfectly right now.

My Stillborn Baby Son
I once had a son who now lives with God above, I never got to know him and I never knew his love, I once had a son whose heart beat close to mine, I never knew his beauty for I never got the time, For my son he was taken before the dawn could break, He's now sleeping in my heart where his share of love he takes. When I see my children who now walk here by my side, There's a sweet image of my son mirrored in their eyes, When I see a rose bud dropped to the ground too soon, It reminds me of my baby who was gone before he bloomed, If God should stand before me and grant me one last wish, I'd wish my baby in my arms to on his head bestow a kiss. I know I have my children who to me are very dear, But there's an empty place within my life for which I shed a tear, So I question God each day as to why he couldn't stay, Why my son was given to me then silently taken away, But I know I have to be patient and wait till I go home, Then within the grounds of God's heavenly home my son and I will roam
by Heather Pauwels of Calvary Chapel Perth

One of those moments

I had one of those moments last night when I just futilely wished that things were different. That things were not what they were right then.

Followed by a feeling of hopelessness that things will ever be 'right' again.

It's not great, knowing that time is the only thing that will lessen that feeling.

And in the rational corner of my mind, I do realise that things will be 'right' again sometime........... just that it will be a slightly different sort of right.

Eventually.

On the kitchen front, I have discovered my 'urge to cook' is more like a' compulsion to cook'. I find myself digging through my recipe folders to find that elusive whatever-it-is recipe that I must make right then.

Since my last post, I have made more broccoli soup, anzac biscuits, graham crackers in teddy bear shapes, a giant pot of butter chicken curry, chocolate syrup, lemon butter and this afternoon I'm set to make some bread sticks and dip, and a huge amount of mini meatballs for the freezer.

The kids don't even like meatballs.

And see what happens when you get distracted for a minute while making chocolate syrup?

Whoops.

The aftermath

Thank you to all those who have given words of support, encouragement and love, in person, as well as through this blog, through emails, cards and phone calls.

While emotionally I'm still up and down, physically I'm doing well. But it seems my body, or maybe my brain, doesn't realise I don't need to nest. Which is what I would have been be doing in these next weeks if our baby was still alive.

The kitchen is my nesting place of choice.

Recently I have made a version of these pizza puffs, bread rolls, my healthier version of chocolate crackles, gingerbread shapes, peppermint patties except I made them with honey and raspberry, cherry bites, a healthier version of cherry bites, broccoli and cashew soup, chicken stock, pizza for dinner, breakfast bars and fruit leather. Tonight I'm going to make raw cream caramels. And the kitchen is always cleaned once I'm finished....not normal.

I'm not eating most of it though, I'm going strict paleo for now. And I can't feed it all to my family at once either, so the freezer is starting to bulge.

Strange. I just have this urge to make food.

Nesting?

Or maybe it's something I'm doing to fill in the baby void.

Got to find a new hobby soon.

Our last goodbye

Today we said goodbye for the last time, and it felt so final. We had a wee service, not even that actually, just a priest there to give a blessing and say a few words. That tiny, white casket is the saddest thing I have ever, ever seen. Something I never thought we'd see in our little family. We each laid a flower on top and Mr 3 a drawing also. It was a drawing of inventions, he said, and he will give it to the postie to bring to baby L.T. in heaven so he could make the inventions.

It was a really tough goodbye. I didn't want to leave the little casket there, I wanted to gather it up in my arms and carry it away. Somewhere. That's my baby in there, my littlest boy.

I miss him so much.

What I imagined...

I had envisaged three little boys going off to Auskick and the under nine's.

Three little boys heading off to cricket on Saturday morning in the summer.

Three boys driving us crazy with their noise and mess.

Three big strapping boys crashing home after school or footy training and rummaging for food.

I saw me being The Queen of the Kitchen, feeding them and their mates really good food. Teenage boys think with their stomachs, don't they? I saw myself teaching them to cook.

Three of them.

Baby

This time last week I was in labour. It seems so hard to believe, it wasn't meant to happen that way at all. I woke up that morning with the slow realisation coming over me that it hadn't all been just an upsetting dream.

Labour was about 7 1/2 hours long, my shortest by a long way. Drug free.....do two panadol count? Baby L.T. was born, with a tiny bit of that 'oh wow' factor I've heard about in regards to a natural, drug free birth. All 320 grams of him. He never took a breath, we didn't expect him to. We spent an hour with him, the midwives took hand prints and footprints for us.

We said our hellos and goodbyes.

We cried.

Life after baby

Had a rough afternoon yesterday, too many tears, cranky at the kids, tired, short tempered. I've still got to get back to doing the school run, which hubby has been doing for me up till now. I dropped off this morning, but managed to escape without really speaking to anyone significant. Got to go back this afternoon. I'm just hanging out with my 3 year old for now and following his lead, he's been a bit neglected of late.

It was one week ago today I found out our baby had no heartbeat.

A week ago tomorrow that I gave birth to him.

My only natural, drug free birth.

My milk came in, but I've managed to keep that under control and it's going away again.

Not sleeping too well, I think my body is waking me up to feed the baby.

We live in a very supportive community, surrounded by many friends, acquaintances and well-wishers, but it's still really hard right now.