Playing favourites

Within our family, there have always been fairly well-acknowledged 'favourites', special relationships between various members that just don't exist for others. I don't know if we are particularly unusual in this regard, it isn't something that I've discussed with many other people in real life for fear of opening a can of worms, somewhere along the lines of 'My parents never loved me, sob sob, they always loved my brother, Jim, more. I've been scarred for life . . . . '

I know, for instance, that I am not my father's favourite child. My younger sister is. I don't find this particularly upsetting, perhaps because it has always been out in the open. I know it. She knows it. My father will neither confirm or deny it but his refusal to say anything (when confronted about his supposed favouritism) along the lines of, "Pish, I love you both just the same" leads me to believe that my sister is, in fact, his favourite. And I can see his point of view, my sister is less neurotic, more athletic, taller, prettier and generally an improvement on me. If I were my father, I'm sure she'd be my favourite too.

My sister occasionally tries to make this up to me by claiming, hollowly, that I am our mother's favourite child. But we both know that this, although kindly intentioned, is laughable. I think our mother likes us both equally, I'm fairly sure my sister actually thinks the same. She's just trying to redress the balance.

My grandmother made no bones about the fact that she favoured the eldest child in each family, as she was the eldest child herself. But within this hierarchy of favourites, the 'eldest eldest', the first grandchild, ruled supreme. 

Amongst the grandchildren, it is recognised that some of us have so-called 'shining hero' status and, no matter how obnoxiously we behave or how badly we mess up, we will be excused if we are one of the 'special' ones. This operates separately from birth order and appears to be allocated at random. Just bad luck if you aren't selected. Thus cousin E complains about cousin J, "Hrumph, he can never do ANYTHING wrong JUST because HE. IS. J. Everyone in the family will always stick up for him simply because you all think he's SO great. No matter the evidence to the contrary."

But none of us are dead. I have no experience of this sort of interplay in a family where one of the siblings, or cousins, or grandchildren, is dead. Georgina is, in fact, the only infant death to have occurred in this, and the previous, generation. 

I do sometimes wonder what it will be like for Jessica and Reuben to grow up knowing that they had a sister who died. That, where there are two, there might be three. 

Perhaps they will take after their father and just won't be 'reflecting on what might have been' kind of people. 

Because I am someone who likes to conjure up problems that don't currently exist a good decade or so in advance, I have already had hypothetical fights with a teenage Jessica. These proceed along the usual lines (I hate you, I never asked to be born, but I WANT to stay out until 3 am, date this undesirable boy, drink three litres of cider) until the denouement of, "I bet you wish I had died instead of Georgina. I bet you wish that she was still alive and I was dead so you'd have your perfect daughter who you think is SO great." 

And yes, I do like to trouble trouble LONG before trouble troubles me. 

My relationship with all my children is, at the centre, the same. I love them. They head butt me, ignore me, vomit on me or they pull the ultimate act of defiance and die on me thus removing themselves from my sphere of influence forever. Still I love them.

It is hard not to imagine Georgina as something otherwordly. Sometimes I lose sight of the fact that she would have been a real, honest to goodness, human child had she survived. Burping. Filling up nappies. Saying "no, no, no, no", when asked if she loves me (Jessica's latest wheeze). 

As time passes, Georgina has become something purer. A spirit, a thin little ghost girl, ageless, wise, pure. Barely touching the earth. I feel the need to defend her, to keep mentioning her, just because nobody else will. 

Will her brother and sister think I love her more? 

That Georgina is, somehow, my favourite? 

Because she is dead? 

And, Reuben, whose birth was so far away from the absolute bomb shell of his older sisters'? Their birth feels like the epicentre of an earthquake. I watched Jessica hover between life and death for weeks at a time, so defenceless. During those early days it felt like I was walking into hell, every time I walked into that NICU. Every single day, I woke up and I had to walk back in again. To Jessica and her sister. And then just to Jessica. 

That experience did something to me. I will never, ever be the person that I was. Not ever again. And the girls were right there, with me, in the midst of it. 

My love for the twins has a desperate and despairing edge to it that my love for Reuben does not. Not more. Not less. Just different. My love for him in the immediate aftermath of his birth had a contentment and a peace that would have been inconceivable with the girls. How will he feel? Sharing the spotlight with a bona fide medical miracle? 

As my sister in law said, "Everyone thinks their children are special. But Jessica really is special."

She is. It is hard to reconcile that with a living, breathing, nearly three year old who can occasionally drive me to absolute distraction. Sometimes, mid telling off, I see that tiny, baby again. I hear the ventilator wheeze and the alarms beep. And a voice whispers in my ear, "She nearly died you know. How can you not let her soak her baby brother with the watering can / eat gravel / kick you in the shin / throw her toast on the floor?"

But Georgina is special. Reuben too.

They are all equally special to me. Although nobody will ever be shocked or amazed by the story of the beginning of Reuben's life. Or the beginning and end of Georgina's. Events took expected turns.

I don't think that there will be any favourites in this family. I hope they won't feel that there is.

I love them. My dear, dear three. 

And I can't imagine loving one any more than the others.

desiderium

desiderium - an ardent desire or wish; longing or wish, properly for a thing that you once possessed and now miss; a sense of loss. A material sister to the geographical nostalgia. The Latin word means longing, sense of want.  
Stolen from Philip Howard's 'lost words' column in today's Sunday Times.

I re-read some of the more recent posts on this blog. I'm mildly surprised at how angry I sound. I don't spend a great deal of time feeling angry these days. I would hate for some poor soul to stumble across this outpost of dead baby blog land and think, geesh, I'll still be THAT angry in three years time. Really?

I think I was so angered by the extract featured in my previous post because I am a former magical thinker myself. Reformed now obviously. And we all know who the most vehement anti smokers are? Usually the ex-smokers.

Yes, I confess. I once was one of those suckers who thought I could save my children from death with the power of my mind, with the strength of my love. I quite miss having those stupid, misguided thoughts. They made me feel safe. But, as Merry wrote, until you know, you don't KNOW. And I shouldn't be angry at people who don't know. That isn't fair. And as Monique commented, a pat on the head would be a better response than a whole lot of spleen venting.

Expressions of anger are unacceptable in day to day life so I tend to take them here. In the real world you have to do a lot of biting your tongue and swallowing. Which can make you a little acidic.And though I'm a little more snappish than I used to be, I am not as bad as I sound here. Promise. Or at least I hope I'm not.

I find that thoughts of Georgina, her small life and her death are a constant in my day. Like a trapped nerve or a pulse, a nystagmus. Pulse. Flick. Pulse. Flick. She died. She died. Her life permeates my own. Just a fact rather than something that drives me to extreme pitches of emotion. Like a sponge soaked in NICU machinery and small babies, I slop about on my day to day rounds. Obsessed with something I can hardly bear to think about.

Sometimes my hands extend like fleshy claws and I can see them, my hands, doing their thing. Driving the car, changing nappies, buttering toast, flicking pages. All at a distance. My life is peaceful but, sometimes, it feels very far away. As though it is happening to somebody else. Where that leaves me I just don't know.

I still cycle around the five stages of grief but these cycles have decreased in duration and emotional amplitude until I can deal with the whole process in less than a minute.
Denial - she isn't dead.
Yes, yes she is. Waste of time to pretend otherwise.
Anger - not fair.
Nobody ever said life was fair. Life is not a bowl of cherries. I never promised you a rose garden. It's nothing personal. None of this means anything. You aren't cursed or to blame. You just had bad luck. Waste of time to pretend otherwise. Go write on your blog.
Bargaining - if I have to lose her, please keep the others safe. Please take me instead. Please.
No takers. Waste of time to pretend otherwise
Depression - I am so sad.
Nobody cares. Waste of time to pretend otherwise.
Acceptance - Here I am again. But acceptance feels like a bit of a misnomer.

I find I can't take the process any further than the 'she died' part. I can accept having a pregnancy that ended abruptly, a daughter that died and another daughter that nearly died. In the abstract. I know that these things happen to people, I knew that before they happened to me. One of those things. Sending out ripples in concentric circles.
Very sad for me and my husband.
Very sad for Jessica and Reuben, although I hope they will not feel the loss as we, their parents, do.
Sad for our families.
Mildly sad for friends and acquaintances.
Not much of anything to anybody else.

Increasingly, I find the details unbearable to think about. So I don't.
I don't look at her photographs. I'm frightened of them. I am scared to see those blue eyes looking at me from all the time ago.

I can deal with the 'dead' part. Just not the rest.

Yet I can't leave it be. My eyes snag on the corner of that time. I cannot quite look away.

Long ago, I saw something horrible.
Long ago, I saw something wonderful.

So horrible and wonderful and strange and beautiful that I still stand here. Enchanted. Stupefied. Shocked. Still, after three years. I am in shock.

I cannot look away. I cannot look either.
So I just remain. Not angry or denying or depressed.
Just standing, staring at a point in the middle distance, at nothing.
Somewhere between August 2008 and here.

She was beautiful. That tiny baby. Georgie.
But I can't tell anyone that.
Because nobody else wants to hear it.
Except for you, here.
Because out there, in the real world, she is only dead.

But I miss her terribly. I love her.

I have a desiderium for golden days.

Did He Smoke?

My mother and I were discussing a mutual acquaintance the other day, a lady in her sixties. My mother said, "The sad thing about Mrs. X, is that she's still afraid of death. You mention in passing that a friend has died and she is hungry for details. She immediately asks, how old was he? Did he drink too much? Did he smoke? And then she'll pounce on the thing that did for poor old Mr. So and So."

Death will never happen to Mrs. X because she is coated in the death repellent Teflon of the righteous, of the non-smoking, of the tee-totaller, of the good woman. Death will try and grab her and those bony hands will just slide right off. And she will dance away, clicking her heels merrily into eternity.

Because if she can pin the blame on the poor unfortunate sod who died, if she can make death somebody's fault, then she can walk away free. Immortal. Untouchable. Forever.

Boy oh boy. Is she ever in for a surprise.

***

I've spent the last three days immersed in a book I've been looking forward to reading for a long time, Caitlin Moran's How To Be A Woman. In the interests of full disclosure, I should say that I love Caitlin Moran's writing and have done for a very long time. When I was a teenage, I had a scrapbook where I hoarded a few columns that she had written, clipped from my parents's newspapers.

And, as I expected I would, I loved her book. I laughed. At 4 in the morning. You have to be pretty funny to make me laugh at that time of day. And I laughed so much that poor old Reuben was hard pressed to keep hold of the nipple that he was trying to clamp on to for dear life.

But then I read this. About her own children.


I used to fear their deaths - The car! The dog! The sea! The germ! - until I realised it need never be a problem: on the trolley, on the way to the mortuary, I would put my hands into their ribs and take their hearts and swallow them, and give birth to them again, so that they never, ever end. I'll do anything for those girls.


Had she really thought this concept through? This intelligent, hysterically funny woman that I admire so much. And if she really thinks this, what does the rest of the world think? The stupider, less amusing majority.

Because I tell you what. I've got a new found respect for cars. And dogs. And the sea. And germs. And death. If you are not frightened of the deaths of your children, you are a bloody fool.

Because I know that you can only birth your children once. Just once. I know that in the marrow of my bones.
No matter how much you love them.
No matter how much you may believe your love matters.

I'm sorry but in the face of a car, a dog, the sea, germs, premature birth, leukaemia, sudden infant death syndrome or stillbirth, the feeling that you will do anything for your children means precisely jack shit.
I dearly wish it wasn't so.

But.

Your children can die. If they get too tangled up in any of the aforementioned I'm afraid that they will die.
None of this fancy, schmancy re-birthing crapola.

Believe me. I've seen one of my children die. And if I thought it would have made the slightest bit of difference I would have stuck my hands right into her ribs, taken her heart and swallowed it.

Against my better judgement and probably not without a slight wave of nausea I might add. But, Georgina my darling, I would have done anything. Even gut churning things like those suggested by Caitlin Moran. I would have cast any number of spells, sourced magical ingredients, prayed, pleaded or walked over the proverbial hot coals. For you. Anything.

But it doesn't work that way. To suggest it might, to even hint it might, makes me so angry.
So angry that I threw a book.
And I don't even like to break the spines of books as a general rule.

Still. I can thoroughly recommend the rest.

Apologies for my language. 
Being brought up by a father who frequently turned the air blue, I don't generally swear. 
But this issue, this peculiar denial, this belief that THEY live in some magical, protective anti Death bubble that carefully excluded me and Georgina. 
Well, that makes me as mad as a cut snake. And makes me swear a bit. Apparently.

Plucked from the brain of the sleep deprived

Those people who tell me that now I have concluded the matter properly and/or tell me how relieved I must be to have had a 'normal' pregnancy and childbirth don't understand that it is actually Reuben's birth that, to me, was the extraordinary one.

***

Serious conversation with a whining Jessica . .

"What noise does Jessica make?"
"Whinge . . whinge . . .whinge"
She laughs, knowing that I am imitating her.

"What noise does Baby Reuben make?"
"Wah, wah, wah . . WAH"
Giggles.

"What noise does Mummy make?"
"NO . . don't do this, don't do that . . NO!"
Faux stern waving of finger.
Bigger giggles.

And, inevitably, I think. Although I know that I should not. But whenever we do anything which involves counting family members, my mind goes to her.
I don't think that Georgina ever made a sound. Ever. Perhaps a gasp or two.

There, in the middle of a supermarket aisle, I would like to sit on the floor. Just for a minute.
To catch my breath.
Because that lack of sound seems so very sad all of a sudden.
Although it's been true for a long time, no big revelation.

***

Whilst watching Desperate Housewives (a major vice of mine but, to be fair, I do my ironing whilst watching) this little snippet of dialogue snags in my brain.

Bree to Gaby (of a mutual friend who has recently received a kidney transplant)
"Whatever topic you bring up, she (Susan) manages to steer it right back to kidneys."
"Tell me about it." Sigh.

And I realise that I am Susan.
And my children, dead and living, are my kidneys. The circumstances of their birth, Georgina's death, the NICU. The whole sorry thing.
It as though their births removed my flesh, my pith, leaving a hollow woman, only animated by discussion of them.
Of course I do talk about other things but, more often than not, I don't particularly care about whatever it is that I am supposedly discussing. I merely pretend to.
And I'm not even brave enough to bring my children into the conversations.
Instead my thoughts spin uselessly around and around them.

***

Perhaps my total and utter avoidance of anything resembling a birth plan or, indeed, any information entitled something along the lines of 'your labour - what to expect' was a little unwise.
The first part was pretty much exactly the same as, sadly and annoyingly, the cervix does not differentiate between babies of different gestations and opens to exactly the same amount, causing (in my experience) a fairly similar level of pain.
The pushing part was a little different. I had a while to reflect on just how different this pushing business was as Reuben was stuck for over two hours.
I had thought that giving birth would be terribly sad and remind me of the birth of the twins and have all these resonances. That I would think of my girls and wonder about my boy. That I would labour with tears running soulfully down my face.
But I had forgotten my wuss-ily low pain threshold which quickly put paid to any romantic or melodramatic notions I might have had.
In reality, I spent approximately 10% of the time screaming my head off, 10% of the time blacking out, 20% of the time thinking smugly to myself, "he he he, I am the sun and nothing can hurt me", 40% of the time thwarting the midwives' brave attempts to prise the gas and air from my hands (see the previous 20%) and the remaining 20% burbling away to my husband. Including the lines "Time is running backwards and he has already been born" and, apparently, thanking and apologising to everyone in the room multiple times.
Hmm, not my finest hour.
But, after his birth, those anticipated tears ran down my face.
Tears for him and for my girls who stood such a slight chance.
Who had such a different experience in the first few days of their lives.
No simple comforts of holding, feeding and looking for them.

It is only now that I know what I lost. What they lost.
What so many of us have lost, those of us who hang around in these parts.

And I wish that it could always be simple and happy and healthy.
For every mother and for every baby. Every single time.
I wish that with all of my heart.

***

If you have a slightly more complicated obstetric history you may wish to wear a laminated card around your neck explaining your situation prior to going into hospital to have a baby. Or due to staff shortages and shift changes you may end up having some rather surreal conversations.

"So, this is baby number four."
Umm, nope. Three. Ummm, one? Really? It's complicated. Try the lady labouring in the next room perhaps?

"You have very good stomach muscles for someone who's had twins."
Why thank you. I like you. A great deal. Do come around to this particular hospital bay again. Smug smile. Then remembers that the twins didn't really get a chance to bust my stomach muscles. Feel sheepish. Attempt to suck stomach in. Fail.

"Well you'll know all about that having breastfed your daughter."
Hmmm, not sure where you got that particular piece of information from but thanks for giving me a few maternal experience points. You should see me in action with a Medela and an NG tube.

At the registry office, registering Reuben's birth. . .

"Just the one baby? Not hiding a twin anywhere are you?"
She smiles, expectantly.

No.
Believe me.
That was the previous child.
She is the one with the hidden twin.
We're still hiding her, even now.

And of all the people who come into this registry office, you had to pick me to make this comment to?
Seriously?
I reply, "No, just him."

***

No matter how fast I run, how many books I read,  how many meals I prepare, how often I tell them that I love them, how many trips to the park we make, how much money I put into their savings accounts, how many times I get up in the night.
It isn't enough.
To thank them for living.
To compensate her for dying.
It will never, ever be enough.
I could wear myself down into dust trying to balance the books on that one.

Right where I am: somewhere between 2 years, 8 months, 29 days and 2 years, 9 months, 2 days

Posted as part of Angie's Right Where I Am project at Still Life with Circles

Where am I?

When I started writing this post, I didn't actually know. I had to work it out. I'm still not convinced that I have my sums right.

Where to start from?

From the births. Or from the death. Hard on the heels of one another and then there is that nastily direct line of causation. The death might not have occurred if it hadn't been for the birth. So horribly early.
I'm sure that I would have known instinctively which one was correct, births or death, months or weeks out in 2008.
Now I flounder between the two. Uncertainly. As the date does. The 28th.
Nearly the anniversary of Georgina's death, the 29th. But not quite.
There seems to be a bunch of 'not quite'-ness in my life lately.

When I started my calculation to locate my point on the map, the 28th didn't even produce a jolt of recognition. Perhaps that tells me everything I need to know.

Still, here I am. Apparently. Wry smile.

*

At my sister's wedding, earlier this month.
I'm at a distinct disadvantage, with doughy arms and sleepy eyes peering out.
I am wearing unfamiliar tall heels that make me feel as though I am teetering on stilts.
Where I am now, I again care about how I look. I didn't. Not for about the first two years.
I feel matronly and frumpy. All bingo wings and swollen ankles.
Caught between envious glances at, and joyful pride in, the beautiful young women that surround me.
Halfway between a competitor and a mother. Not quite a mother yet evidently. Not quite ready to lay down my weapons.

I am talking to someone much shorter than me.
I squint and lean towards them, feeling ungainly, wobbly.

"So, do you feel better now?"

I hesitate. Better from what?
Have I been stricken down with some mysterious illness and not even noticed?
Perhaps I looked ill earlier in the day? Pale?
I have recently given birth but people generally don't ask if you are 'feeling better' following the birth of a baby.
Or do they?
How the heck would I know. Nobody asked me very much at all after the birth of my first two children.

I lean downwards, precariously balanced. Feigning deafness.

She pipes again.

"So, do you feel better now? Now you've done it properly?"

Oh.
Do I feel better now I have completed a pregnancy that didn't end prematurely?
And in the death of 50% of the occupants?
Is that what she is asking?
Do I feel better?
Do I?
At least the very fact that she's asked this question, phrased in this way, doesn't make me want to scream as it would have done a while ago.
Perhaps I do feel better?

*

Right where I am.

Everything flickers.
I can happily occupy two diametrically opposed points of view and not bat an eyelid.
Contrary.

(a) I do feel better, everything is better, I am healed, grateful, happy. Because how could I not be?

(b) I actually feel precisely the same as the day she died, you don't come back from an experience like that. There is no 'feeling better.' Ever. Screw you, random wedding questioner and your proposed happy ending. I don't buy it and I don't want it.

(a) I have three children. And I'm not about to hide one of them away.

(b) Strike that. To save me and the questioner a whole bunch of awkwardness (mainly theirs) and heart ache (mainly mine) make that two.

(a) Perhaps I am over-egging the pudding a little when it comes to grief. It was, technically, a miscarriage. Here, in this community, I hang around the edges wondering if I should approach with my tiny daughter in my arms. So far from a baby. Such a long shot at life.
Perhaps Georgina's death has just become a convenient hook to hang my discontent upon?
Why am I still here, jibber jabbering away to myself?

(b) But it hurts. It hurts.
She might have lived. Just might.
I loved her. I love her.
The potential that was Georgina, my daughter, my first baby. And will never be.
And it seems like such a robbery, such a tragedy. So immense that my minds spins when I think about it for too long.
She was a person, a baby. A small baby. With blue eyes that looked about. Or appeared to.
With a small sprinkling of hair.
With limbs that stirred and jabbed the air.
I'm still here because . . . well, there simply isn't anywhere else. Not for her.

(a) I know absolutely nothing. I have brought another child into this world of chaos, where awful things are just waiting to strike at you and nothing makes any sense. Where we are all just temporarily suspended above a mighty abyss, waiting to fall endlessly.

(b) I know things that most people don't. Because this brief glimmer called life is all I have to offer. To anyone.
I held out my hands and tried to pull three people across. But one slipped.
We all slip in the end. But, in the meantime, we live.
I look at the sunlight moving across Reuben's face.
I hear Jessica proudly pronounce, "Ma-mee, Da-dee, Ooooo-ben" over her stick figures.
I feel my own blood pounding in my ears and look out at the world.
I feel stupid and I feel wise.

(a) I am miserable. How could I be happy whilst she is dead?

(b) I am happy. How could I be miserable whilst they are alive? Whilst I am alive?

My happiness isn't the same as it was before. It has teeth and claws. It is a strange, fierce happiness. Possessive. Jealous. Sharp. Toothy. It's spiky, carrying knuckle dusters. It is spoiling for a fight. Possibly with you, question popper at the wedding.

But here.
Where I am.
I am happy.
Happy in a way that I could not have imagined before.
Happy in a way that I would not have been had my daughters both lived.
I can only imagine that my happiness then would have been more placid. Flaccid.
More  . . . appropriate. More socially acceptable.

Not this wild, mad thing that feels indecent and improper. A betrayal.
It does not look like it could possibly belong to that slightly rotund young mother with dishevelled hair, carrying too many bags and frantically shouting at that toddler not to run into the road.
But it does.
It's mine.

And so is she.

Birth

Reuben George W arrived safely into this world on Wednesday 4th of May - Star Wars Day as my oldest nephew gleefully informed me, may the fourth be with you - after an induction at 38 weeks, 3 days. He weighed 8lbs 11oz.

His birth was fairly uneventful apart from the brief threat of an assisted delivery. This threatened assistance spurred us both on to one final effort as Reuben was born very shortly after the doctor entered the room waving scary looking medical bits and pieces about.

I've tried to write a little about his arrival but it does not feel as though I should post it here. Perhaps just not yet. This place is too firmly his sisters'.

I search his face for a trace of Georgina's. But she has not left one there for me to find. My wise girl.

We sit together. Four of us. Four and a half of us.
I'm tired and uncomfortable but so happy.
Jessica suddenly seems to have grown up. Her birth, her sister's birth. Aeons and worlds away.
I try to imagine another big sister standing next to her but find that, suddenly, I can't.

As I gather Reuben's warm body to mine, I ache.
Ache for how tiny a 1lb 10 oz body is.
Ache for how very short a span of time three days is.
Ache for a daughter who isn't coming home to me.
Perhaps it is only now that I begin to understand that.

Fat, treacherous tears roll down my face and into his hair.
For however much I would like his birth, his life, to be separate from everything that came before it, to be simple and joyful, it isn't.
It's more of a tangle.
But perhaps all the more beautiful for that.

Stretch

The elusive state of 'heavily' pregnant, that I seem to have been chasing for such a long time, makes me feel like a balloon.
A void with a thin scraping of me over the surface.
A hole filled with mysterious, shifting flesh. Digesting, fluttering, breathing, expanding.
Muscles that move and twitch without being directly instructed.
And another consciousness flickering. Those same fleshy processes repeating themselves inside.
Only a duplicate this time. Forget the initial over ambitious triplicate process and the other that never even got off the ground. Goodbye to all that.
As I get bigger, as this baby grows, I feel as though I am shrinking, thinning.
Nobody wants to know what I am thinking, not really. To admit to any doubt or fear at this point would be somewhat impolite. Shocking. Ungrateful. So I stretch my lips into a smile and discuss names, age gaps, Jessica's likely reaction. My mouth is not quite stretchy enough to wrap round the words 'birth plan' or 'everything will be fine this time', not quite yet.
Sometimes I feel that I have been stretching my lips upwards for so long that my smile might even be genuine.
If a little taut.

I'm not even sure that I feel frightened any longer, it all feels so very far beyond my control.
I hold my belly and I can feel this baby's movements. New and strange. I barely felt movement from the twins before they were born. My scrabbling fingers reach to try and hold him here, to stop him slipping away from me. But, despite only being separated by skin, he feels as distant as his sisters. One with her own existence, one without.
His limbs stretch. My skin stretches to accommodate them.
We both stretch together.

***

I was worried that when I became a mother, particularly a mother of twins, that I would forget who I was. I was very concerned that I would lose the things that defined me, that I was proud of.
I was worried that I would lose (in no particular order). . . . friends who did not have any children, my husband, my figure, my career, my ability to walk in five inch heels, time to apply an entire face full of make-up, time to read books and watch films, the time and place to drink myself into a semi-silly state, my ability to concentrate, my ability to earn money. . . .the list goes on. All of these seem fairly stupid and trivial in the light of what I did lose, which was all of the above and then some.

To be honest, people who had children used to irritate me. They seemed smug, with their 'oh you'll feel differently when you have your own' and their 'you can't understand x, y or z until you've had children of your own' as though, by failing to reproduce myself, I had also failed some test of emotional intelligence or humanity. That I couldn't possible understand them with their mighty depths and their wondrous insights into the inner workings of the universe. Because they'd managed to do something as mundane and everyday as have children? Hrrumph. As I said. Irritating. I didn't appreciate being told that I simply couldn't understand them with their children. It hurt my pride.

But, as it turns out, there are a huge number of things that I cannot understand. Higher maths, other people, religion, the meaning of life, biology, death. If it is any consolation to me, at least I can say I'm not the only one.

I still don't understand those wise parents who told me that everything would become clear when I had children of my own. That I would be glad I hadn't taken that promotion, or a risk with a larger mortgage, or gone back to university. Because, at last, I would understand.

But, when my children were born, I understood less than I ever did. Big gaps opened up in the meagre little pile o' knowledge that I believed I had accumulated.
I became less like those parents I knew, less like anyone that I knew.
Other people's motivations and lives became even more incoherent and strange, not less.
An experience I thought would bond me to people, to my family . . . didn't. It just left me stranded, in a weird no man's land, where the only people I feel understand live inside my computer.

Sometimes when I look at Jessica, I am not entirely sure which one of us is, in fact, me. Perhaps it comes of trying to anticipate her, trying to understand her, spending so much time with someone who I can't really communicate a great deal with by way of the spoken word. Spending so long staring into those eyes and listening to those sounds. I press my nose into the back of her neck and, momentarily, want to merge us back together. Part of me wants to be her. I feel consumed. Perhaps all parents feel this way? All her life, I have watched Jessica. From outside an incubator, from across our living room floor. Watching. I spent hours every day for months simply watching Jessica because it was all I could do.

But, another part of me, is desperately trying to maintain a similar relationship with a child who is dead. Georgina consumes me just as much. It is hard to try and inhabit the consciousness of someone who is dead, who hardly lived, who I scarcely know. To understand my other daughter. To try and forge something from such a short space of time, without the feedback that we get from the living. Georgina will never smile or stamp her feet at me.
But I can't bring myself to let go of the threads that stretch between us. Be they all in my imagination or not. Perhaps they don't stretch to anywhere at all, simply loop towards me and bury themselves in my back.
But I know where I want them to go. To my child.