Good Enough Page 19

  Despite my best efforts at keeping things on an even keel during daylight hours, eventually Cella starts wondering if this crazy lady who talks and acts funny is quite possibly not really her mummy. I catch her looking at me quizzically, trying to work out who this impostor is and when the real McCoy is going to come back. This current situation is clearly not working. I tell Lee I need time alone to grieve properly, free of the fear of frightening anybody, so I fly to Noosa alone, and check into a hotel. An eerie calm washes over me at first as I walk into the hotel room and fling my bag onto the bed. Here, I am completely free. I don’t have to play mum, I don’t have to play wife – hell, I don’t even have to play sane citizen, and the feeling is intense. As soon as that realisation hits, my body instantaneously gives in to the grief that’s been threatening to tear me apart for the past couple of weeks . . . and it is bloody ugly. I spend the next few days screaming into endless cushions, beating mattresses with my fists and wailing incoherent, almost animalistic noises in a heap on the floor. Here, I don’t have to pretend I’m coping, or worry how everyone else around me is feeling. Here, I can be outwardly miserable and it doesn’t make a difference. And I’m so fucking angry. I hate new mothers and I hate babies. I walk past prams and I long to kick them onto the road and punch pregnant women as they walk past – I’m that unhinged. I hate how the sun shines like nothing bad has ever happened, how the shops still open and close as scheduled and the tide still rolls in. I hate that the rest of the world is unchanged and still moving on without my baby in it. In light of all these feelings, I’m glad I’m alone and when I get back home, I feel well enough to make an appointment with a psychologist because I’m thinking anyone who contemplates punching pregnant women clearly needs one.

  My social worker from the hospital (wisely) keeps in regular contact with me. ‘Perhaps you’ll benefit from the SIDS and Kids support group for bereaved parents,’ she suggests as she gives me their number. I don’t have any current friends who have had a miscarriage (or if they have, they certainly don’t talk about it) so getting that number feels like I’ve scored the lucky gold Willy Wonka ticket. Yes! I think, excited for the first time in weeks. Talking to other mums who have been through this, that’s an excellent idea! Except that it isn’t going to happen any time soon. ‘Sorry darl, our next group isn’t until 27 February,’ the SIDS and Kids counsellor tells me over the phone. ‘The end of February?’ I screech, incredulous at the information I’ve just been given. ‘But it’s only November – that means the next group isn’t for another three and half months!’ There’s a long silence before she responds. ‘Well, you know, Christmas is coming up and that . . .’ she says sheepishly. Christmas? Oh of course! Because we all know nothing bad ever happens over the Christmas period. ‘You’re most welcome to visit our forum if you’re looking to talk to other mums in your situation while you wait it out.’ I’m so disappointed I want to fall down in a heap and scream and cry, not that that’s anything new right now. I know everything stops over Christmas but I’ve never needed something so desperately in my life. Now what I am I going to do?

  Well, for one thing it looks like I’m going to need a few new friends because I’m perilously close to losing some of the old ones who are happily pregnant with their own healthy babies and I can no longer bear to see them. One of my closest friends, Justine, is pregnant with her second baby, who just happens to be due two weeks after I would have been delivering my little one – so every time I see her parading her lovely bump around it feels like a personal affront. I know it’s not her fault and I feel guilty for shutting her out of my life, but I feel so terrible when I see her that I don’t know any other way to cope. Occasionally if I feel brave enough, I’ll ask her a question about the baby such as, ‘Is the baby kicking yet?’ but the minute she says ‘Yes’ (no extra details from Justine because I know she’s sensitive to the hell I’m in), I fall apart. ‘Fuck you, you smug bitch!’ I want to scream as I shake her like a rag doll. ‘You think you’re so fucking wonderful having this live baby that kicks and everything, don’t you? I hope it kicks a hole right through your head.’ You’ll be pleased to know I don’t actually say any of this to her face. Instead I just manage a tight smile and change the subject before heading home to vomit and cry in my bathroom for a couple of hours. ‘I think she’ll understand if you tell her why you can’t see her for a while, honey,’ says Lee as he leans against the bathroom door. ‘She’s your friend, she knows you well enough to understand!’ ‘I can’t do that!’ I yell back. ‘She’s my friend, yes, so I should be supportive.’ And I’m trying to be, but nothing changes the fact that I still want her baby to kick a hole in her head. That can’t be a good thing, so it’s off to Doctor Blair I go.

  During one of the twice-weekly sessions in her clinic, we sit opposite each other in stylish chairs and I stare at my hands wondering for the umpteenth time how the hell I even got here. ‘So, Dilvin,’ she says as she reads over my notes, ‘I’m guessing you’re probably wondering “why me”, right?’ She says this in a soft, calm voice that’s no doubt meant to be soothing. ‘No, I don’t actually,’ I reply evenly, coolly. ‘I don’t think why me at all but rather why not me – I know I’m not so special as to avoid something like this.’ And so we go back and forward with this business of words. She asks me questions, I answer them, then she works at twisting my words around until she arrives at something I might have said, but did not. Yet strangely I find her comforting. We finish up our session and I head towards the door. Just as I reach the handle, I turn and ask her, ‘Do you close over the Christmas period?’ She looks at me with her eyebrows raised, more than a little surprised. ‘No, of course not! That’s our busiest time of the year!’ Thank God for that. I continue to book sessions.

  I don’t bring it up over any of our chats but there is one question I don’t ask Doctor Blair, that I don’t ask anyone – ‘Why?’ Not ‘Why me?’ or ‘Why not me?’, just plain old ‘Why?’ More than anything else I want someone to tell me the reason my baby died, even though logically I know no one can. The truth is, there’s very little women can do to influence miscarriage. I know we all want to pinpoint it to the suspect chicken we ate or that time we bumped our stomach on the corner of the table, but the vast majority of miscarriages actually occur due to embryonic abnormalities (most commonly of the chromosomes) at conception, or due to implantation problems. And the scary thing is at least 20 per cent of women will have no real clue they’re miscarrying, with little to no pain or bleeding, even if the embryo dies some weeks before. It’s out of our hands, for better or worse, but I take some comfort in the words of a leading obstetrician I interview for a story. ‘Most women have a sixth sense about their pregnancies and usually know when things are going wrong or about to go wrong,’ he says over the phone, politely ignoring my sobbing at the other end. ‘In the past thirty years I’ve learned to trust that when a woman says, “This feels different” or “This feels wrong”, it is likely to be the case.’ I can completely understand where he’s coming from. I knew there was something wrong with my pregnancy the minute I saw two lines come up on that pregnancy test but I had no idea why I felt that way. It’s hard to articulate but let’s just call it a sixth sense that I wouldn’t be coming home with a baby. Only a teddy bear.

  Six weeks later, I am pregnant again, and I manage to stay pregnant for a whole twelve weeks before I miscarry again. This time there’s no showbag or fanfare. I don’t even get an offer of a social worker. By now I feel like such an old hand at this, I check myself out of hospital, put on some red lipstick and head back to work the next day like I never missed a beat. I handle things differently this time around; I go to ground and pretend it never happened, refusing to talk about it at all. ‘Maybe you need to go back to see Doctor Blair,’ suggests Lee one evening, concerned at my plummeting weight and insistence on staying up all night finding random ways to occupy myself – like making collages. But he needn’t bother. I respond in a monotone, ‘I don’t want to talk abou
t it’ – subject closed. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. When my last pregnancy ended, I raged so hard against becoming the kind of woman who hid her miscarriage like it was some kind of dirty secret. I’d always hated how although it’s such a common phenomenon, it’s still hardly ever talked about, remaining one of the last untouchable topics in modern-day society. And so I talked about it endlessly. When I wasn’t in counselling, I was discussing it everywhere with everyone, figuring if I talked about it enough, perhaps other women might feel less uncomfortable and open up as well. And surely enough, it worked. One by one, women began to reveal their previous miscarriages to me, relieved at the opportunity to finally talk about their late daughters and their sons publicly and proudly.

  This time for some reason I feel like I’ve lost my power, my fight. I have become what I raged so hard against. But to be silent about miscarriage is to do a great disservice to other women, so eventually I pull myself out of my comfort zone and go on the offensive. Could there be anything worse than having a voice and a large platform on which to use it, but remain silent? I have to make some noise.

  I email the editor of a top-selling women’s magazine and pitch a feature idea based around the things no one ever tells you about miscarriage. When pushed, we might all be able to quote the odd stat or two, I write, but no one really knows you cry the first time you have an alcoholic beverage, or that every ‘first’ after the big day rips a hole through your heart. I say I will interview various experts and explore why some women’s miscarriages are excruciatingly painful while others’ are barely a blip on the radar. I will detail the physical difference between having a miscarriage at five weeks and a miscarriage at 12 weeks, and ask why it is that doctors still insist on using such horrible medical terms such as referring to your baby as ‘conception waste’. ‘This is a great idea!’ the editor writes back. ‘Give me 1600 words.’ So I go away and I interview several grief counsellors and obstetricians, pumping them for the gold that is sure to help put the 55,000 Australian women who miscarry every year at ease – if only a little bit. For the first time in months, I begin to feel a little joy in my life, thrilled that I’m making a positive contribution to my sisters everywhere, but when I hand my story in? ‘Actually, this isn’t quite right,’ I’m told. ‘Could you please rewrite it in first person and make it all about your personal experience rather than an expert-driven piece?’ As a reference they attach a UK article about a woman who has lost her mother and grieves so deeply she carries her ashes around everywhere she goes. It’s raw, deeply personal, and would be an absolute violation of a person’s trust unless the subject has written it of her own volition.

  Reading this email, I am fucking livid. I circle my computer like a shark as I try to think of an adequate response that’s a little more professional than FUUUUUUUCCCCKKKKK YOOOUUU! In the end it takes me three days to come up with something appropriate, if somewhat icy. ‘My private grief is not for the entertainment of your readership and I find your suggestion hurtful and insulting. This was not the original brief we discussed, please find my invoice attached.’ The response is as lacking in sympathy as it is in length: ‘Ok thanks.’ Now, I should point out this editor has recently had a baby – a live one, yes – but surely as a mother she should be able to understand the pain of having it ripped from her life? Whatever happened to the sisterhood?

  Time passes, things change. Justine gives birth to a gorgeous little girl in June. To muster up the courage to see her, I get wildly drunk (at 10 am), stagger over to the hospital with Lee and half crash through the door to her room. Justine is surprised to see me, pretending not to notice me slurring all over her baby. ‘Do you want to hold her?’ she asks rather bravely, considering I can barely speak in coherent sentences. ‘NO!’ I scream a little too loudly, convinced I’ll burn like money if I do. We stay for a few minutes, making our departure after presenting the obligatory miniature outfits.

  As we walk out of the hospital, Lee puts his arm around me and pulls me in close. ‘I’m really proud of you, honey,’ he says. ‘How could you possibly be proud of me?’ I slur back, tears streaming down my face, threatening to burst like a dam. ‘Well you didn’t try to “accidentally” smother the baby and that’s a huge step for you.’ Ah, he’s sweet like that. I smile back at him and we hug – in a way that resembles a wrestling take-down move. This man is my hero.

  Five months later, I am at Justine’s when her baby starts crying. Even though I have seen her little one almost every day, I still haven’t touched her because I can’t trust what will happen next. I look around and Justine is nowhere to be seen, having disappeared into one of the other rooms some time ago. I look back at the crying baby, wondering what to do. She seems so distressed that my heart breaks for her, so I reach over and pick her up – and then funniest thing happens. I don’t freeze and break into a million shards of glass like I feared I would. I feel the warmth of her skin and inhale that sweet milk breath and involuntarily smile. Well I’ll be damned!

  I’m not going to lie – you’re never the same person you were before you lost a baby; it shapes who you become. Well, over a year has passed since I lost my two little ones and although I’m pregnant again now, I still grieve for them deeply every day and I’m certain I always will. In the first days after losing my son, I remember crying to my social worker that I just wanted to be the person I used to be. ‘Oh my dear child,’ she said in a soothing Irish lilt as she reached over and handed me some tissues. ‘You need to forget such fanciful ideas – you’ll never be that person again. A version of? Absolutely. But the same? Never.’ And she was right.

  Nine things you should know about grieving after a miscarriage

  When Trudi Penrose-Starr lost her twin daughters Amie-Lee and Emily at 27 weeks’ gestation, she went on to found the Teddy Love Club, now known as Pregnancy Loss Australia (pregnancylossaustralia.org.au), a bereavement service that helps other mums who’ve lost their babies. The following are common, she says, but are by no means ‘the definitive list’ as the experience is different for every woman.

  1. There are many ways you’ll react to losing a baby, but the most common include: shock; disbelief; loneliness; being upset with your body for not keeping the baby safe; feeling that you’re the only one this has ever happened to; sadness; and disappointment.

  2. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise – a loss is a loss no matter the gestation. Whether you lost your baby at eight weeks or at 30 weeks, the loss still spells the end of a dream for you and your partner, and grief is grief.

  3. Talking and sharing with other bereaved mothers can help you more than you might realise. It can often be comforting to hear other women’s stories – to help you confirm within your heart that there was nothing else you could have done, and you’ve probably already done everything you could do.

  4. You don’t have to go through this alone – there are plenty of organisations specialising in pregnancy loss bereavement support. It’s important to note, however, that only some offer qualified bereavement support. Pregnancy Loss Australia provides professional services, including a free call bereavement support line, monthly support meetings, face-to-face counselling, online support, home and hospital visits, a national newsletter and memorial events.

  5. Bear in mind there will be a lot of ‘firsts’, which will be painful because they’re often a stark reminder of what could have/should have been. Dates to be particularly aware of include first due date, first anniversary, first Christmas, first birthday of your own when you had expected to be pregnant or have a new member of the family.

  6. There’s no right or wrong way to grieve: you need to do what’s right for you. Don’t conform to everyone else’s expectations or opinions on what you should be doing.

  7. Keep a journal. It can be helpful to write about what you’re feeling, needing and wanting. Your journal then becomes something to look back on – you’ll see that even though there have been times when the pain has been excruciating, there have at least
been some better days. This can give you hope that the good days will eventually outnumber the bad.

  8. People say silly things when they don’t know what to say. What people don’t realise is how hard it is not knowing – not having any cherished tangible memories to cling to and treasure. We’ll never know what our babies looked like, felt like, acted like – and that’s torture. What can you say to that?

  9. Miscarriage changes you fundamentally. No parent expects to have to bury their children and the loss can happen to anyone. Also, it has the capacity to strip away that wonderful naivety of pregnancy, so if you find yourself pregnant again in the future the experience will be bittersweet. Although you may feel a high level of anxiety during the pregnancy, you won’t take life for granted anymore. And when the day comes to bring your baby home safe and warm in your arms, you’ll realise how truly blessed you are.

  I take regular time out from my family

  Like most bad ideas, this one starts off with the best of intentions. Father’s Day is upon us and although Lee has hinted at everything from an iPad to a Kindle, Cella has decided she would love nothing more than to gift her dad with an original artwork she will draw herself. Me? I would love nothing more than to avoid the craziness of my local shopping centre, so I quickly organise a wide array of art supplies for her to demolish our house with.

  Cella sits down at her art table and begins drawing and I stare at my little Picasso full of love and wonder as she draws a man – her daddy – tucking her into bed. ‘He’s reading me a bedtime story, Mummy,’ she explains earnestly, looking up from her artwork. She continues drawing a house around this loving scene, complete with roof, doors and windows, and just as I think she’s about to sign off, she adds what looks like a harlot stumbling her way down the garden path into the street. Confused, I snatch the picture out of her hands and try to make sense of it. ‘Erm, who is this lady, Cella?’ I ask, both wanting to know and not wanting to know all at the same time. Cella looks up and gives my arm a squeeze. ‘Well, that’s Daddy, tucking me into bed at night, and that,’ she says, pointing to the bright-red figure with witch hair and a crazed smile, ‘is you going out to dinner with your friends in a nice dress and lipstick, Mama.’ There is no malice in her voice but her words crash over me violently, leaving me gasping for air. I stare at the drawing some more, then something clicks within me. It’s anger.