What if?

I couldn't sleep last night.

I had exceeded my usual alcohol limit of one drink. I had drunk a whole two and a half glasses of wine (TWO AND A HALF I hear you gasp!) which must have upset my sleep as I had some pretty strange dreams. Jessica woke up at 4am and started to cry. I stumbled into her room and dragged her back to our bed, where I lay in a strange, possibly still semi-drunken, contemplative state*. My husband's breathing and occasional snoring, Jessica's incomprehensible mutterings and slurping on her drink, the quiet murmuring of the BBC World Service all blended into one.

I was thinking about questions, the questions that I usually sit up and ask myself in the wee small hours of the morning. I've always been one to toss and turn in the early morning, grappling with things that seem to grow bigger, hairier, fiercer and toothier between the hours of 3 and 5 am . Even feeble, insignificant things stalk across my mental landscape like giants at that particular time of day. Even more so since the early birth of my daughters and Georgina's death.

I had puzzled and puzzled over the latest community poem at Still Life 365. Because I have asked myself so many questions since August 2008 and I was sure I must have hit upon a perfectly apposite one liner. But, as usual, I took far too long to think about it and ended up submitting nothing.

I've been reading a number of amazing posts for Project IF which I am slowly making my way through. So many of them catch at my heart and leave me struggling for breath.

So I lay in bed, waiting for Jessica to drop off so I could pop her back in her cot, thinking about questions in a fairly incoherent way. The questions I have asked myself so many, many times since I became a mother far sooner than I had anticipated. And, as my eyelids drooped, they started to drift into my brain in a strange 'reversal' of their usual format.

What if my pride and happiness during my pregnancy were understandable, not something I have to hate myself for, not something to feel foolish about?
What if this would have happened no matter how humble, or how boastful, I was?
What if my day 21 blood test shows that I am ovulating normally?
What if I am not such a terrible person really?
What if there is no payback for being a terrible person anyhow?
What if there is no giant bean counter in the sky holding things against me?
What if life is random, cruel and doesn't make any sense?
What if I didn't cause this?
What if I didn't feel guilty for somehow letting this happen?
What if losing her twin sister doesn't ruin Jessica's life?
What if it is a sad beginning but still, only a beginning?
What if Jessica doesn't hate me for losing her sister?
What if Jessica is going to catch up and be just fine in the end?
What if we never have an argument where Jessica screams at me that perhaps I wish Georgina had lived instead?
What if it wasn't weakness that made me fall apart so comprehensively after she died?
What if there are only a finite number of ways to react to these particular circumstances and that simply happened to be the way that I reacted?
What if devastation is, in fact, an entirely appropriate response?
What if it was nothing to do with hair dye, caffeine, drinking too much alcohol beforehand or not enough water afterwards?
What if it was entirely unpreventable?
What if I could never have known that she was so ill?
What if I did everything that I possibly could to help her?
What if, no matter how many branches and forks I add to the paths that I took and no matter which combination of choices I make, she still dies?
What if there is no need to reproach myself for feeling happy?
What if there is no need to reproach myself for feeling sad?
What if there is no need to feel as though I am falling behind?
What if I made the right decision to carry on with her medical treatment whilst there was still a chance?
What if I made the right decision to stop her medical treatment when there was no longer a chance?
What if she didn't feel horrendous pain, just the fever dream of her short life and the presence of those who loved her?
What if her brain was too immature to experience anything as I might imagine it, anything that I can ever hope to understand?
What if she knew me at the end?
What if I knew her?

I hope so. Somehow, even allowing for that possibility made me feel happy. That I just might have known Georgina and that she just might have known me. For that brief span of days.
Strange that it has taken me nearly two years to think of these questions in a different light.
Perhaps I should drink more wine.

* I feel I should say that Jessica has slept in our bed fairly frequently ever since she was born. I needed to hold her so much initially that I found it incredibly difficult to let go of her so I used to sit in bed with her, oxygen and all, for hours as she slept. I generally managed to sneak her back into the moses basket before I drifted off but my plan was not 100% foolproof. I acknowledge that is incredibly irresponsible of me and obviously when she was younger, I was not drinking the mahoosive amounts of wine that I did last night. Nary a drop as I was still breastfeeding at the time.

I am unable to let Jessica cry at night. I will always go and see her and usually end up bringing her back to our bed to soothe her and then, later, take her back to her cot. Yes. Rod. For. Own. Back. I've heard it all before. But I simply can't bear to hear her cry.

Not sensible but my husband and I muddle along as best we can and we love her. Apologies if I've upset anyone.