Viability (again)

Thank you so much for all your kind words about my last post. I hesitated over hitting the publish post button for quite some time after I had finished writing. I find it very painful to remember the times when Jessica was so ill and I am reluctant to admit, even to myself, that there was ever a time that I wished she would be left in peace to die.

Thank you also for putting up with my rather prosaic dreams. I read about the fascinating dreams of other bloggers with envy. Apart from when they are frightening then I'm actually quite relieved that mine are generally mundane. Seriously, anyone who ever had to psychoanalyse my dreams would be left extremely bored.

It turns out that I still have yet more demons to exorcise when it comes to viability so here is yet another post on the topic.

One thing I have noticed, both through my own experience and through reading those of other bloggers is that, should your child not reach the point of viability or full term, you are somehow entitled to 'less' grief.

As though grief could be distributed in a nice, neat proportional manner.

I knew I could manage to wangle a graph on to this blog sooner or later. You can take me away from my job but you can't take my graphs away.

Thus . .

where variable x represents gestation and variable y grief.

If your baby scores more highly on variable x, the world at large will give you more slack on variable y and k is some weird constant decided by mutual agreement between old ladies, doctors and busy bodies.

If your child only makes it to point x1 gestationally then I am afraid you are only entitled to the level of grief defined by y1 on the grief scale. If you exceed this predefined limit people are probably going to be having words with you.

On the other hand, if your child makes it all the way to x3 gestationally then congratulations. You are now entitled to grief levels all the way up to the heady heights of y3. Come on down.

Oh and by the way please make sure you've tidied up all your grief after four weeks. We don't like things messy around these parts.

Oh and shut the door on your way out won't you?

(And I'm going to have to ignore point x4,y4 because I'm not sure quite sure how to interpret it in the context of the example that I've set up. If your baby has a negative gestational age you are also entitled to happiness? Nope. Doesn't make any sense at all. So please ignore that bit of the graph. The stupid thing seems to be back firing on me now.)

Here I am going to edit my original post to add an excellent point made by Tracey in the comments on this post - 'the other key factor in this societal 'grieving allowance' is if you have other living children. If you have other living children, take the square root of your grieving allowance, and then people want you to move on'. So true, thank you Tracey.

If Jessica had died, many people would have tried to tell me that I had a miscarriage. People don't usually say that to me because miscarriages don't generally result in living children. But if I didn't have Jessica, I know that is how the birth of my twin girls would be described, as a miscarriage.

I don't have anything against that word in particular but I don't like the implications of that phrase. It feels as though other people are trying to imply that my daughters were in some way not people, not real. Only a figment of my fevered imagination. But Georgina was a person. A real, honest to goodness person. Not a medical or biological process. Not an aberration that simply wasn't meant to be. She was a person. My life isn't better or happier without her in it.

Perhaps it is a lack of the correct words to describe grief in all its different textures and forms?
Perhaps we are so uncomfortable with death and the emotions associated with it that society just decides to lump every single feeling following a death into a big jumbled pile, stick a label on that says 'grief' and then run away?
And perhaps sort it into stages, denial, anger, acceptance, whatever. And then still run away.

It seems to be considered a finite process, one that will reach a conclusion prior to the death of the person doing the grieving. There are limits and time frames applied using rules that I cannot begin to comprehend. Some actions are unseemly. Some bits must be conducted in the privacy of your own home. It must all be finished with by the second Wednesday of the month following the death.

I hope that I will never, ever imply that somehow a person is not entitled to grieve.
I've only ever experienced one situation, the loss of a twin who was born prematurely.
I've never lost a child at 12 weeks gestation.
I've never lost a child at 40 weeks gestation.
I've never given birth to a baby who never took a breath.
I've never mourned for children who never existed, who never will exist.
I've never lost a child of ten.
I've never lost my husband or one of my parents.
I've never grieved for a sibling.
I can't really understand any of these situations. I can try but I'm only imagining. I haven't lived it.

But I hope that I never, never, ever, say to anybody, no matter what the circumstances . .
What you feel isn't valid.
What you feel should be squashed down and denied.
What you feel is excessive and strange or, equally, what you feel is insufficient.
You should pull yourself together and get 'over it' and get on with your life.
Life is for the living.

Your loved one didn't matter. They certainly don't matter now that they are dead.

Because isn't that what an uncomfortableness with grief actually says?
That this person, this human being, be they young or old, born dead or alive or even if they only exist in fond imagings.
This particular person, who is so special to you, doesn't count for anything with us?