Being a Mom without a Mom

This piece should probably be called being a person without your person, because I don’t think missing Mom has been harder since Finley arrived. If anything he has helped. By becoming a new person in my world he has made the gaping hole she left just that little bit smaller. This piece may ring true to some of you who have lost a person though; maybe you have felt similar or maybe you have felt differently but for some reason I decided that now is the time to share my first experience of loss.

My Mom died of a heart attack in December 2001. I went to my Saturday job that morning, my Dad arrived to it in the afternoon and had to tell me that his wife, my mother, was dead. He had to do that five times in total, to each of my four siblings, one of whom was pregnant. I remember walking out of the shop into the street decorated for Christmas and I couldn’t breath. The wind had been knocked right out of me and would take a long time to return.

Before I continue my Dad is more of a hero than you even think he is right now and so I know he won’t feel left out in this piece because he knows what I think of him. He has been Mom and Dad for 15 years, he even used to buy sanitary products for me and sister in the weekly shop (thanks Dad), He did everything possible to ease the loss and ease it he did. He has now taken up the role of being Grandad and Nanny and is doing so with aplomb.

So Mom. I keep starting a sentence with when she died and then deleting it because…well what about when she died? When she died so did the future that I had been planning. When she died I lost the chance of just being 18, of just being 19, of just having my twenties. Death had knocked on my door and left it ajar. I was acutely aware that life can end, with one missed beat of a heart it can stop. It’s very hard to live in the moment when you know that that moment may be the very last you have.

As strange as it may sound I have had to work hard to accept that I would probably see the night, and the morning, and I would probably see the weekend. I had to relearn how to make plans expecting to keep them. Your brain, or at least my brain, tried to protect me from the shock I suffered with her death but in doing so it prepared me for everyone’s death, that’s a pretty exhausting way to go about your day. It’s also exhausting to be the partner of someone who lives like this. If my now husband didn’t return a call quick enough I would get anxious and I would be angry at him for making me wait. To this day when I get a call from a family member that I am not expecting for a brief second I am scared to answer. It’s unfair and it sucks for all involved, it’s hard to ask someone to buy a litre of milk when they are talking to you as if you might be the grim reaper.

When Mom died I suffered from fits which damaged the nerve in my right arm and meant I could no longer write like an adult should, I would write maybe two or three words at a time and then my arm would freeze and I could do no more. Every time I tried to write I cursed her and so in the months following her death I missed her, I hated her, I grieved for her, I begged for one more moment with her and I blamed her for not letting me have it. When she died I spent some portion of every day sitting and thinking about her face and her voice because I was so scared of forgetting them. When she died I felt her face with my eyes closed so that I could store it to memory. When she died I wondered what the hell was I meant to do now?

For those of you who never met her she had beautiful cheekbones. Her whole makeup regime involved only black eyeliner and mascara. She washed her face with soap and used Vaseline as her moisturiser and she was glorious. She always took her glasses off for pictures even though she really couldn’t see without them. She organised a holiday every summer that would take us all around Ireland, once to Wales and once to France where my brother was made sleep in a separate tent including on a night that a storm arrived and he almost got washed away. God how we laughed, my poor brother. She made memories for us without knowing that we would spend most of our life reliving them without her.

Men loved my Mom. She was funny and beautiful, she was a great flirt (sorry Dad!) but I don’t think she knew she was. A few weeks after she died the oil man arrived, when we told him she died he had to come in for tea with sugar, he was devastated. Imagine when you die that your impact is so great even the oil man is in mourning. My Mom was a treasure and I didn’t even know it. As it turns out I want to be the kind of Mother that she was, I think that would probably give her a knowing laugh.

When Finley arrived I discovered how much she loved me. God that regret of never knowing or appreciating it. Of course she told me she loved me but hey I was 18, what did I care? A few weeks after Finley was born I was really sick and I was tired, and I cried so hard for her. Where the hell was she? How could she not stay to meet my baby, to meet the father of my baby. And the hardest thing of all is that I know, wherever she is, she’s asking herself the same questions.

So being a Mom without a Mom, being a person without your person? If you’ve never lost someone close then the experience of it is far more encompassing than you think. It affects more parts of your life for longer than you can probably appreciate. You may not need to hear that but it might help with the level of empathy you give someone, and for how long you give it. When you wake up ready for your day I wake up ready for mine missing Mom. Every day feels like it starts with a -1 and while we may both end up with a +10 for an awesome day I’ve worked that little bit harder to get there. Every death, and every knock that follows hits hard because the foundation is already a little shaky. That’s what it feels like to me. Somedays I realise it, some days I don’t, but every day I remember she died. For every time you get a message, or a call from your Mom I don’t. For every coffee you have with her, for every dinner she makes you, for every smile she has given you I have not had this. And mostly now for every kiss she gives your baby, mine has received none.

How has it affected my parenting? I’m not sure because I guess I have nothing to compare it to. I know that it has affected every part of me and therefore it affects me as a mother. I know I’m anxious about getting pictures with him because I want to make sure he has them if I die. I write down how much I love him so that he knows how wanted he was if I die. Life becomes a little more about death than it should be. I accept that as Finley grows he will be interested in his Nanny but she’ll always be an abstract concept. I know that’s not his fault and I will need to not blame him for it. She will always be a part of my life but she will have never been a real part of his. Kids know what they can see, I have to learn to accept this.

I also know that I bathe in the glory of motherhood. I know that I haven’t fought with my husband as much, or he with me, because we are just so grateful to have this happiness. The joy Finley has brought us feels like a relief or maybe more accurately it feels like a release. Death is a leech, it hangs on trying to ruin your finest moments but the life of a baby is far more powerful. Finally something more powerful than death. In many ways life feels lighter and easier since he arrived, I can welcome back use of the word Mom now. It’s a small word when often used but it echoes loudly when left unsaid.

This piece feels very self absorbed and pitying, lets be honest that’s because it is. I’m writing this one for me, and for everyone who has lost a person and tries so hard to just get on with it. Perhaps Mothers Day inspired me. Also I’m interested in human experience, especially ones I have not gone through and so some of you may be interested to read this having never felt able to ask the questions.

And I want to appreciate that I’m here writing it because I was surrounded by wonderful people when it happened. The evening of Moms funeral my friends brought me back to one of their family homes and put on Shrek. I think they were probably worried that Shrek was a terrible movie choice but it has given me my  single happy memory from that time. They were only 18 too and yet how they reacted to me from then to now was perfect. The first thing my sister did was to ask if I was ok, she too had just lost Mom but in that moment she cared more about me. My sister in law sat beside me when the coffin was brought into the house, and my brother held me as my fits took hold. I like to think that each of us has protected each other and I hope this is Moms legacy, she created a family to love each other and that we do.

Hmm how do you finish a piece like this? I want to finish it by telling you to love your Mom or your person more, to tell them that you do, to listen to them when they say it back, to create memories with them, to let arguments go and not waste time but I’m saying all of that because I still live as if I will die tomorrow….maybe though instead of that being a curse it is actually a blessing?

I’ve written my healthy husbands eulogy

This title is going to have you believe that I am suffering greatly from severe pregnancy hormones and have decided to move to a female only camp and dance in the rain. Aha! That is not the case at all….well not 99% of the time.

I was inspired to put this down in words while I am still getting enough sleep to appreciate how much I love my husband. Ugh isn’t this post gross? I’m pregnant, happy and love my husband, that is anti Jeremy Kyle right there. I’m sorry. However I promise I do deserve this and I only know this because of all the times those options seemed so far from my reach.

I’ve been at a number of funerals. Some I attended to support the person grieving but many of them were because I was the person grieving. If you have read my other blog posts (although I appreciate I’m mainly talking to myself) you will see that I lost my own Mom when I was 18.  I met my husband 7 months later and was welcomed into the warm embrace of his mother soon after. Four years ago we also lost her; this came 5 months after the sudden death of a good friend. 6 months ago I then miscarried, losing our first baby at 12 weeks. Each loss chips away, sometimes you can build yourself back up but for me there are still chinks in my foundations.

But what I hope you see is that I really do deserve the pregnant, happy and love my husband moment, however I don’t take for granted that you don’t always get what you deserve.

So the eulogy.

It’s weird and I know it, however I think it is partly a response to the loss of my Mother. She died 10 days before Christmas from a heart attack. She had been fluey during the week and was going to the doctor on the Saturday. I rang the house on my lunchbreak from work to check in on her but no-one answered, I didn’t think too much about that. Three hours later my Dad arrived to my workplace, took me to a quiet room and told me Mum was dead. She went to the GP, was sent to the hospital and died right there on the bed just after she had arrived. There would be no goodbye hug or kiss; no I love you, no more chances to feel her skin warm. She was dead.

Since that day I am in an endless and sometimes exhausting battle with myself to not over react to real life. I spent some time afterwards not wanting to get close to anyone, then letting myself fall in love and subsequently fighting all my urges to wrap the people I love in cotton wool and try to never let them hurt or get sick. This is not healthy for me, but mostly it’s not healthy for them. A cold really is just a cold.

It’s this fear of loss, especially of sudden death, that has me thinking about my husband’s eulogy. I hate funerals but I also find great comfort in them. What I hate most is that of all the days in your life to be alive your funeral  really is the one. People talk about you with such love and compassion. They show how much they miss you in tears, in silence, in shock. They remember the greatest days of your life with humour and sadness. They forgive your bad days, and question why they ever felt anger towards you.

I have survived losses and sad days. I have suffered from seizures brought on by grief which took me years to learn how to prevent. I learnt to write again when those seizures damaged the nerves in my arm, and, I stood on the alter and spoke about my mother when I was 18 years old and absolutely broken. I know grief, I know loss, I know survival.

However then there is my husband and when I think of him (on those loving days) I do worry about how I can survive without him and what I need to do in life to ensure I will not regret upon death.

This is when I think of his eulogy; strangely it usually comes upon me when driving. I recall to myself the last thing we said to each other. The last touch we had. I remember the strength of his character, the gentleness in which he approaches our love and the loyalty that he gives to it. I think of how he cared for his Mom when she was ill, of his tears when our friend died and how he works to keep her memory alive. I think of stories from drunken nights, the dances we have together and the faces he pulls that make me laugh so hard I want to pee myself.

I think of when I told him we were pregnant with our first baby, how his beautiful magical face lit up. Then I think of how he treated me when the baby was lost. When I told him he should be with someone who can grow a healthy child, he told me there was no point having a child with someone else; it was only my child that he wanted to be a father to. I remember how he talks about our growing child now, how he sings to it and speaks to it and I’m pretty sure will also make this baby laugh until it pees.

I think of his long gorgeous body, his big eyes that I fall into and his juicy lips that I know so well. I think of how his hair feels when I rub it, how he smells and the sound of his voice which is like music to my ears. I think of seeing him when I get home, and then I think of what would happen if I didn’t. My heart quickens up and my breath burns. Of course I cry, every time I cry.

Then I go home and I tell him I love him and why, and I make another memory to add to my list. Most importantly though, I have reminded myself how much I love him and why. I appreciate what I have, I gain perspective into my life and what is important to me. It calms me to know that I have found a great love, that whatever the future holds I will have known a love that hurts to live without.

I hope to never walk a day on this earth without my husband, and he without I. Ideally old age will take us together, holding hands and slipping into sleep. However, what's important to me now is to know that he will have felt the force of my love, and that my words of love for him are not spoken to another without first being spoken to him.

Eulogies are a beautiful tradition but to my mind they are always said too late.

And then there were 2

First off if you feel people overshare on the internet this blog post is not for you. This is all about sharing. If you tend to roll your eyes and wish people could keep private information private then please close the page and return to your day. You are not welcome here.

If however you came about this page because, like me, you need to read about the pain, fear and isolation that miscarriage brings then I hope you get something from this. I hope at the very least you feel connected to someone else who has experienced your journey.

If you are pregnant try not be scared by my story. Look around you, look at all the people who once were babies. All the numbers point to your pregnancy being wonderful, healthy and ending with the greatest joy in your new child. This is for those of us who sadly did not get the same ending and the people who will be supporting us through it.

 Now that the introduction is over here is my story.

My Silent Miscarriage

The Emotional Truth

On Friday 28th August my husband and I went for a 10 week scan at a private scanning facility in Dublin. Leaving the house the last thing my husband said was 'Let's go see our baby'. I'll never forget that sentence, the reason I mention it is because that is where our frame of mind was. We were going to see our baby. We had booked a 10 week scan because we couldn't another 2 weeks to see our little future. 

During the scan it became apparent to me quite quickly that we were not seeing what we should be seeing. I saw my uterus, I saw the gestational sac but where my baby should have been, there was just vacuous space. I asked the sonographer where my baby was and why I couldn't see it. I didn't need her to answer. As I climbed off the bed and she wrote notes I looked at my husband. I clicked my fingers, banged my foot and really quietly said shit. What I wanted to do was peel off my skin, break open my ribcage and allow my heart to explode into pieces. That is no exaggeration, I felt the pain of restricting my heart from breaking as it wanted to break. 

We drove into Holles Street, my husband and I. The only sentence that touched the silence was 'I'm sorry' which we said to each other multiple times. Sorry for the pain each other was feeling, sorry that we had dared to believe, sorry that in our own pain we couldn't take away each others. Upon arrival in hospital we dodged the glances of the happier people, they also looked away as would I. When you are in that high it is too hard to be reminded that there can possibly be such a low. 

We met a nurse, I remember looking at her and feeling like I was a young child. I tried so hard not to cry, I tried to answer questions and to not to ruin her day by sobbing. At that moment in time all I wanted was the pregnancy to be out of me. I couldn't bare to be carrying around such a lie. My body had tricked me for weeks, made a fool of me and I wanted control back. I needed to just lie down, have it sorted out and wake up at a future date when we could smile again. I wanted control back.

Unfortunately that was not to be which I'll explain more of below. We were sent home to return the following Monday. As you can imagine sleep did not come that Friday night. I lay awake searching for answers, what would happen next. I wanted to read about the pain I was feeling, I didn't want to know that there would be other pregnancies, that 1 in 4 end like this. I wanted to know that it really was the end of the world. That people knew this was my 1 in 1, my 100%, I had lost the only pregnancy, the only baby I ever had and that it was not ok. I was looking for comfort in other peoples pain, maybe I'm weird or maybe that was just the depths of my grief.

The weekend that followed was sad. It was endless hours of shock and sadness but broken with the support and love of other people. We had told some family and friends about the pregnancy and let all our nearest and dearest know about the miscarriage. I cannot recommend this enough. You may be better at dealing with things in private and of course that is the best way for you, but if you are unsure, and if you have people who love you I would recommend sharing it with them. I felt very broken in the days that followed our news, I was unable to put on a brave face or keep up appearances and so in order for me to deal with what was happening I needed people to know. I needed them to expect nothing from me and to know that I wasn't being rude, distant or prickly, I was just grieving and all my energy was going to that.

Monday arrived and we met a lovely midwife who mothered us, something we greatly appreciated having both lost our mothers in years previous. She told me I was going to be angry with her but I would have to return a week later for another scan and then I would receive my options. This procedure is to give the pregnancy a chance which unfortunately for me was not needed, however it is a legal procedure which they must adhere to. The scan showed two sacs and one embryo, perhaps it had been a twin pregnancy but we won't know. She saw that some bleeding had started internally and so I may miscarry naturally. Again I was sent home with a longer wait ahead but with more information for me to process which helped.

The term silent miscarriage is because my body had continued to believe it was pregnant even though the pregnancy was not developing. I was told it was a good sign that my body really wanted to be pregnant. I did not feel that. Finding out at our scan felt cruel, I felt like a fraud, all those weeks acting pregnant when I wasn't. I wondered if maybe it was all in my head, had I made up the symptoms? Should I have known? I couldn't touch my stomach, I couldn't look at my body. It had fooled me so cruelly, I couldn't bare to be attached to the lie. Those feelings subsided, thankfully, I never blamed myself for the miscarriage but I still do struggle every so often with the feeling that I didn't know what was going on. Honestly I felt a tinge of embarrassment. How could I be so stupid and not notice? It was my body, surely I know when there is a baby growing and when there is not? Medically though my body did think it was pregnant, I try to remind myself of that. These were feelings my husband has been trying to help me with. He has been more than I could have wanted through all of this. I may write again about our partnership through this, I have been lucky to have a man that loves me, wants a family with me and so shooed away any regret I had for him being married to a woman who thought she was pregnant. 

The Physical Truth

I feel like this is important because we were sent home from the hospital on Friday with no information on what was to come. I know that the two things that could happen were a medical or natural miscarriage. The only way this could end would be in miscarriage however I had no idea/ have no idea what to expect from it. In my exhausted emotional state I started to really fear the physical side of this. 

I was worried about what we were meant to do if it started. How much blood loss was too much? How much pain was too much? What pain should occur? What pain is a sign that something is going wrong? The weekend seemed endless in time but thankfully I did not miscarry during it. We met the midwife Monday morning and she answered some questions below. I am sharing them with you incase you also have them.

The first thing she said was 'It will hurt, and you will bleed. You will need ibuprofen and paracetamol and very thick pads'. That helped, at least it gave me the information I needed to prepare for what was to come.

I asked if it starts at home should I come back in?

She replied that it was best to let it happen at home however if I had a moment of doubt or questions I was of course welcome to come back.

I asked how much blood loss would be too much?

She told me more than one pad soaked in 30 minutes. If I bleed more than that it would be worth returning.

Those two points of information calmed me greatly, small points but yet incredibly important. They told me I would not die, that pain was normal but either way I was welcome to return. 

Words 

Perhaps you are reading this because you know someone who is going through a miscarriage. For me personally I have not been offended by anything a person has said to help so please try not worry about the words you say. You are there, that is a big deal. I appreciate that their words have been said in kindness and by even wanting to speak with me they are putting themselves into a vulnerable position. Below are some things that I didn't really want to hear...but again that's just me and also I was not offended to hear them, it may give you insight into the thought process of the person you are speaking with.

That:

Miscarriages happen alot.

Man this feels like the end of the world right now, the fact they are common feels heartbreaking but really does not help me feel better, This was our baby, our pregnancy, March was our month to become a family. Statistics are meaningless at this moment in time. I want my pregnancy back.

You will go on to have a healthy baby

I do believe this is true however right now I had so many plans for this child I can't think of giving them to another. My first pregnancy ended without giving me my child, I'll never get that back no matter how many children I have. However I do know that we will be parents and I appreciated that people were just trying to help me see past this awful time. If someone is scared that their miscarriage means they can't carry a pregnancy soothe them with the truth that most people who experience miscarriage do go on to have healthy pregnancies and children.

What did help

When family and friends told me that it was awful; that they couldn't believe it was happening to us, that they couldn't imagine our heartbreak that really helped! For others to acknowledge the pain we were in felt so comforting. In those first few hours and days its hard to think past that specific moment in time and thoughts of the future are too much. Any words that acknowledged the loss genuinely helped make me stronger, I knew people weren't waiting for me to be back to my normal self, they were happy to be with me at my lowest time and would wait for me to return.

And now...

I am still at home waiting to miscarry, my next appointment is this week. Waiting to miscarry has been tormenting. I feel like I am under imminent threat, whether rightly or wrongly I have felt slightly trapped at home, worried to leave incase something should happen. Equally it is true that I have no great ambitions to leave the house. The whole process is cruel, its the only word I can think of that sits right. Miscarriage is cruel, waiting to miscarry is cruel. It does not discriminate, it does not give you answers but only questions. It tests your resolve to the extremes. As a woman it expects you to be both physically and emotionally strong enough to deal with it, it leaves no choices.

I never believed I would have one. For some reason I thought I would be spared which perhaps has added to the shock. Of course there is no reason I should have thought that. Getting pregnant is a miracle, it took us months and so why I should think I would be so lucky twice, to get pregnant and to keep it, I do not know. I do however have hope that next time will be different.

I plan to continue to write about my experience. In my opinion there is not enough information publicly available on miscarriages. Its hard to find out what really happens, how people really feel and I personally needed that. If you have questions about my experience please feel free to contact me, lets be honest no-one wants to be in the miscarriage community but in reality thousands of us are. We may as well help each other out.