Sheepish

Reading back the last section of my previous post has me feeling a little  . . . sheepish. Baa.

Despite the rather negative tone of much of this blog, I am (at heart) an irrepressible optimist.

I still hope that one day I will pull a positive pregnancy test out out of my hat (and heavens knows it has never been done in that way before, sans urine) and 'abracadabra' give birth to a baby, at term no less, who is born healthy, pink and screaming. I also expect this to help. I'm not sure if it will or not but I am . . optimistic.

I still seem to expect that, one day, the grief I feel over Georgina's death will simply evaporate.
That the impulse that drives me to write this blog will wither, keel over and expire.
That the sadness and loneliness that fuels this strange place will disappear.
That, one day, my three dreary posts will be replaced by post after post about bunny rabbits and unicorns and how wonderful and frabjous my life is.
How Georgina's death suddenly all makes perfect sense and I am at peace with it (actually, momentarily, this is indeed sometimes the case).
That I no longer cry.
That my career has magically got back to where it was.
That my marriage and my friendships have bounced back to their pre-ill-baby-dead-baby fiasco days.
That I will post one final post and sing 'So long, farewell, Auf Weidersehen, goodnight', marking my graduation from this part of my life. The dead baby blogging phase? Didn't see that one coming I have to say. But then I didn't even see the dead baby part looming on the horizon.

This (mad) expectation isn't going to be fulfilled. And I know it really, in my heart of hearts.
I am not going to get the person that I was back.
But I have got somebody back. Just not the person who I was expecting.

At the moment I feel like a sponge, over-saturated with grief and misery and bitterness. Just one little poke. Even the slightest touch. And I leak. Which sounds horrible.

It IS horrible actually. Not pretty to see. Not pretty to be. My new incarnation as a big, fat, leaky grief sponge.
And I blog about it too. Lucky old world.

Jessica, sadly, is going to have this more miserable, more unkempt, less financially well equipped, more disorganised, shyer and generally more rubbish version of me as a mother.
But I don't think that necessarily makes me a worse mother.
Strangely it might even make me a better one.

I think my insecurity about my writing stems from my own perceived lack of progress. That I seem to get to 'devastated' and never move along, never pass go, I never collect my £200.

I worry that the fact that I am still here, when others who lost their children at the same time as me have left this place, means that I am less competent, weaker.
Or that others who have been here longer seem to have a more interesting variety of stuff to say for themselves. To whit, more than my three posts.

But it isn't a race. There's no shame in still being here if I want to be. I am not forcing anyone to read my stupid, cyclical three posts.

Which are, for the record (and because Emma's Daddy claimed he couldn't identify them, kind isn't he?)
(i) my daughter died and I am sad (I would add an expletive in time honoured tradition but, having grown up with a father who turned the air blue, and having nearly got myself chucked out of pre-school for saying the F word when I dropped my milk, I tend not to swear a great deal)
(ii) my daughter died and I am sad but today I can remember how beautiful she was
(iii) I am cross because I can't seem to have another baby

Oh and a minor variant that pops up every so often

(iv) why have I been writing this darn blog for so long?
Have I been writing it for too long?
What if all the comments I write aren't the right words for the job?
What if I'm annoying the people that I would like to support?

So I am going to put this minor variant to bed, once and for all. Hopefully. Don't hold your breath though.
I have enough insecurities for three adults at least. Possibly four.

I, Catherine W, am going to write this blog and keep on plugging away with variants of my three posts for as long (or as short) as I damn well please.
If it makes me feel better, there is no shame in it.
And just because I've been writing it for so long that I've realised that my age on my profile is wrong and I'm not thirty, I'm thirty one now and I must change that description of myself because it is a lie, doesn't mean it's been too long.
Nobody has to read it.
Although it is nice if they do because I think we all like to be heard. I think we all like to be supported. As I said, no shame in that.

I don't have to finish this by a certain time. None of us do.
There isn't a deadline by which I have to tidy everything up and put it away.
If my husband thinks it is unhealthy that is his opinion. I don't have to agree with him. Heavens know, I don't see eye to eye with him on a bunch of stuff anyhow.

One day, I am going to have to tell my little girl that she had a twin sister and that her twin sister is dead. And I would like to have some people 'around' me who understand what I'm talking about when I have to do that. I don't think that topic is going to be a great conversation starter at mothers and toddlers somehow.

Equally, if I find that I no longer want to write anything, I can delete this blog. Sometimes I feel I would be ridding myself of a desperate embarrassment by hitting that delete key.
But deleting my blog or, not having anything left to say, or not wanting to write any longer, doesn't mean that I am forgetting Georgina or somehow 'moving on.'
I'm not giving up being sad for her, or grieving her, or loving her.
I simply would not be writing a blog about it any more.
I seem to have got those two issues a little confused in my pea size brain. This blog isn't Georgina. Or Georgina's memory or memorial. It's just a blog.

If I comment on other people's blogs and I sometimes say the wrong thing, it is an honest mistake. Nobody says exactly the right thing all the time surely? So it would be quite surprising if I did. Who do I think I am? Tact Woman - the superhero who will come up with the correct words, typed with no spelling mistakes or grammatical errors.

To say the wrong thing from time to time is only human. If I say 'loss' when people would prefer me to have said 'died', it doesn't matter. I'm trying my best. Hopefully they see that. If they don't, well, that isn't my fault. And words are only words. Most of my comments boil down to 'I'm sorry. I hear you.' anyways.

And if I have inadvertently made you incandescent with rage, just let me know.

So, having now shut down my minor variant post, please feel free to come back for your next helping of either (i), (ii) or (iii) when normal service is resumed.

Baaaa.