Unpublished

Posted on August 7, 2011 by fern

How would you feel if you entire backlog of drafts (and don’t lie, I know you’ve got them!) were posted without your knowledge. Just one blip and everything that you didn’t feel fit for publishing was laid bare for all of the Interwebs to see?

It happened to me yesterday, at least I thought I did, some WordPress blip caused part of my (published) archive to be sent to my RSS fed with no explanation. I was flcking through google reader and noticed that MummyBlog had eleven unread posts – when it should have only had one.

For some reasons I instantly assumed that my drafts had all gone live. I panicked.

Not like broke a nail panic. I mean someone is sitting on my chest, hysterical sobbing and my hands vibrating as I navigate to the site to try and delete my never meant to be shared thoughts from the internet.

I have 32 drafts sitting in that folder. They’re not unpublished because they’re not good enough (over the last 12 years of blogging (holycrud I’m old) I have learned that there is no such thing as “not good enough”), just incomplete thoughts or posts that were finished but just too raw to share with the world.

Most of the drafts were written during my hiatus, and about five of them were probably just incomplete thoughts, the rest were full fledged posts. I’d write them about once a month, all ready to announce my come back to the online world, which, to be perfectly honest, is far kinder to me than the real world, and it was just all too much. I wrote the post, designated it as a draft forever more and decided that I’d just try again next week.

So when I thought my drafts had gone live, and my soul exposed without my permission, I freaked out and had a little bit of a meltdown.

The kind of meltdown where I’m screeching at Dan “WHY DID YOU PUBLISH MY DRAFTS!!!?” like a mad banshee and demanding the internet go faster so that I can delete any shred of evidence that those thoughts ever existed.

Of course, it was just a kooky WP blip, and I logged on to see my 32 drafts sitting safe and sound, probably wondering what all the drama was about.

My reaction honestly surprised me, and got me wondering what other bloggers had hidden in their drafts? Is it writings not “good enough” to be published (and if so, put those puppies up!), incomplete thoughts, your deepest darkest writings or something else? And do you think you’ll ever publish them?

Categories: Me Me Me, Mental | 4 Comments

My Baby Died Yesterday

Posted on July 20, 2011 by fern

No, not Robyn, although some days it feels like it.

Not the wee one that hung around for just a few weeks, just long enough to ease the pain of Robyn’s first birthday and then left without ever really making a mark.

This is the new one, dubbed “Hercules” by its biggest brother. And as I sat in the doctor’s room, after several failed doppler searches for a heartbeat that was so strong just a few weeks ago, waiting for the Doctor to get out of surgery so he could do an ultrasound, I started kicking myself.

Not literally, as I was already probably looking a bit batshit at this point, what with the hand wringing and the foot tapping and the ring twisting and everything else that mad women do when they think there’s going to be something else to send them a little bit more nuts. Plus about five minutes before I’d done a basic sanity test and the midwife had suggested I up my anti-depressants a increase my visits to my (ever patient) shrink… or maybe, you know, just move in with him.

I started kicking myself because this baby had no blip on the world. A few people had been told, just last week I’d announced it on the book of face, it had spread slowly through the family, and of course, our parents had know for several weeks, but in the grand scheme of things, Herc had no blip.

I ran screaming away from this blog sixteen months ago because it had become Robyn’s blip. Writing anything else here seemed tantamount to heresy, a black mark on her memory, how in the hell could I write anything else here and still have a shred of respect for the box of ashes that hangs out on the shelves in our lounge room, in between the Top Gear piggy bank and the box of receipts that need to be filed.

Then my new baby died and had no blip, he didn’t even have a shred of what I’d given Robyn. My miscarriage in March had been given the same treatment.

Then I realised that my sons had lost their blip for eighteen months. Declan has moved from a hyperactive 3 year old to a sweet little boy (sometimes!) who is preparing for school next year. Connor spent two weeks in hospital and six weeks in a cast that went from his chest to his ankles (and I was interviewed for suspected child abuse, perfect blog fodder!) and had to learn to walk for the second time in his life, and there is no blip there. I haven’t even taken photos of them since the beginning of the year, because I was so upset that I had no photos of Robyn, why do they deserve gigs and gigs of photos, when she only got 27 low res shots with a point and shoot.

In an attempt to pay respect to my dead baby, I have disrespected my living ones, including the one that had been renting my womb for the past 15 weeks.

I guess I forgot that the internet is forever. Thirty five thousand people have read Robyn’s birth story. I receive an email every fortnight or so thanking me for putting up my story, women who have either found solace in their own stillbirth experience, or just feel the need to say something. I’ll log in once a month and find new links from mummy forums or birth groups linking to that post, always saying the same thing “I just couldn’t do that” – you could, because you have to. I could have written daily in here about what my nutty children are up to and I don’t think anything would even come close to hiding that post, no amount of anecdotes of toilet training and spiral fractures is going to cause it to vanish.

The lack of heartbeat in my new babe made me want to breathe life back into my old internet home.

The doctor waltzed in, still in scrubs, asked me to lay down and put the ultrasound wand on my belly.

Hercules waved back.

I don’t think he realised the fuss he had caused, because I swear, even on the black and white fuzzy image you could see him looking just a bit perplexed when the every occupant of that room exhaled at the same time, I think even the walls breathed a sigh of relief.

And I cried.

And cried.

Then got in the car and cried some more.

I decided that I love my daughter with every last piece of me.

But I need to reclaim my online home as my own once again.

Categories: Hercules, Me Me Me, Mental | 16 Comments

Saturday Consisted Of…

Posted on July 31, 2010 by fern

Showers

Showers, and me concluding that Declan is part amphibian. Connor, on the other hand, will spend the entire time daring himself to actually go under the stream of water instead of just putting his hands and feet into it.

Baking

Baking, with thanks to Woman’s Weekly, the northern hemisphere is seriously missing out on this one, I have yet to experience a recipe fail from one of their cookbooks.

Sewing

And sewing, and trying my hardest to remember to add my new labels to everything as I sew it.

Hope that everyone else is having an enjoyable weekend!

Categories: Crafty Mama, Me Me Me, Snapshots, Susie Homemaker | 9 Comments

Sewing For The Weekend

Posted on July 28, 2010 by fern

This weekend is my second time at the Port Macquarie Artist’s Market. I’m feeling a lot more confident about it this time around, I have a clearer idea of what people are looking for and can prepare for that accordingly.

New babygrows! Squee!

I stitched up some animal themed babygrows/onesies/rompers/whatever you want to call them, yesterday, they’re crazy cute, and I’d be lying if I said that playing with newborn clothes didn’t make me cluckier than Octomum looking at her benefits cheque. Is it August yet?

They’re not up in the store yet (they will be on Sunday night), but you can keep up with new things going into the store via the Aisling Milis facebook page.

Categories: Crafty Mama | 2 Comments

Fire, Fire!

Posted on July 24, 2010 by fern

Firefighter championships

The boys and I spent the morning at the Firefighter Championships, climbing on old fire engines, watching fire demos and idolising the firemen that were all around us. I’m not sure what it is about firemen that gets little boys so excited, but the boys loved it, Declan has been telling me all of his plans to grow up and be a fireman, just like his “Gar gar”, Dan’s dad.

Firefighter championships

Four years and five days ago I sat on this same fire engine on my way to our wedding, I think I looked probably about as nervous as Conman looks up there, there aren’t seatbelts on that thing, and I had visions of falling off it onto the road, just my legs, uncomfortable shoes and knickers sticking up from a pile of tulle and satin.

Firefighter championships

We watched a demo of what happens when you throw water onto an oil fire – just 100ml of water caused this huge explosion.

Back when I was working in my Dad’s restaurant, one of the staff had a brain snap and poured a saucepan of water into the oil of the deep fat fryer, it wasn’t hot enough to explode (the oil in the picture was actually on fire) but it caused the hot oil to geezer right up to the ceiling. Scary as hell.

Firefighter championships
Unfortunately, that’s the end of any fun for the next fourty eight hours. This weekend has been dubbed, “The Weekend Of Doom”, I am spending it giving the house a thorough clean, and Dan is spending it doing his taxes, I might even make the kids eat vegetables this weekend just so they don’t feel left out.

Categories: Bedey Boy, Motherhood, Snapshots, The Conman | 1 Comment

Babies

Posted on July 13, 2010 by fern

First meeting!

Earlier this week as I tucked Declan into bed he looked intently at me and asked:

“Mummy, are you going to have a baby?”

I floundered, my brain did the mental equivalent of rolling over and playing dead whilst I racked my brain for an appropriate answer that he would understand and at the same time wouldn’t cause me to become an emotional wreck.

“Not anytime soon buddy”

“You need to have a baby with Declan!”

“That’s not how it works, Mummies only have babies with Daddies”

“Nope… Daddy is just far too tired for that.”

O.o

——————-

Babies will be soon, August the 19th marks the magical 6 month mark that I was given to wait until I even started trying to get knocked up. I still have to do some tests, and personally I don’t really see it actually happening any time soon as my cycle is completely shot to shit still. I’ve been playing crosshair bingo on fertility friend… you know the one, where you delete various temperatures until they tell you that you’ve ovulated. That’s probably the less scientific way to “take charge” of my fertility, but it makes me feel better and slightly less broken when a stupid website tells me that my uterus isn’t completely b0rked.

I started packing away the size one and size three clothes yesterday. Dan delights in each and every milestone, whereas I just want to squish them up and make little bonsai babies that I can hang on to. How dare they grow up without my permission.

Categories: Bedey Boy, Motherhood, The Conman | 6 Comments

The (Virtual) Pages Of My Life

Posted on July 12, 2010 by fern

Earlier this morning I was reading a friend’s livejournal, when Connor snatched the mouse from me, clicked some random buttons and brought me to my own livejournal, in particular the “just plain weird” category of my own LJ. I haven’t used LJ regularly for years, the most recent post was from November of 2006 complaining because my heavily pregnant belly was in the way of any lady garden shaving attempts.

I flicked through the posts, there was an intense hatred of Bobby Flynn (that’s still there, just typing his name makes me want to go out and stamp on bugs just to release the rage), there were silly conversations I recalled with my husband and my coworkers, there were posts written by newly married, newly pregnant 20 year old whose primary concern was the fact that someone with stupid hair and more than a passing resemblance to Eric Stolz in Mask was a favourite to win Australian Idol.

I said fuck and didn’t worry about offending my mother, I posted pitures of myself instead of hiding behind the camera – I was hot and pregnant and everyone needed to see it, I wrote posts in the ten minutes between arriving at the office and the clock ticking over to nine and receiving a glare from my boss indicating that I had to start working immediately.

At some point, and not just since Robyn, that confidence has started to dwindle, it made a steady progression downwards until taking a nosedive of Ricki-Lee proportions on the nineteenth of February when I discovered I was about to give birth to a dead baby.

Posts now sit half written in my browser for two weeks just because I couldn’t find the right image to go with them. Declan repeats something funny to me and I stop myself from posting it because it seems disrespectful to write about how funny my kids are when one of them is dead. Connor (finally!) started walking and I never even mentioned it… because Robyn never will.

Dan and I said within days of her birth that we can’t let this define who we are, it’s far easier said than done. I don’t cry about it often any more, but it’s still there, this constant nagging feeling that I should be watching my daughter roll over around now, I should be buying ridiculous amounts of size 00 clothes in purple and I definitely shouldn’t have enough free time to be working on a new business and attending markets at the weekends.

Today is a fresh start, I don’t think I’m going to ever get back to the care free 20 year old (particularly now that Aus Idol’s gone to shit!) but I would like to get back her blogging style. The one without obligation, the one where I don’t linger over posts for weeks and most importantly, one that actually represents who I am right now at this moment in my life, because although at times I’m paddling madly under the water, sometimes I’m hanging out on the sand and just enjoying my kids and the positives that I have in my life. THAT is what I need to remember when I look back at this in five years from now, not how overwhelming the sadness can be.

I think a new shiny blog layout is called for :)

Categories: Me Me Me, Mental | 9 Comments

I’ve had this post sitting in my browser for three days now while I try and come up with a title. I am now admitting defeat, and you get this stupidly long title that is going to screw with my formatting.

Posted on June 6, 2010 by fern

My first appointment with the psychologist was amazing, I walked out of his office feeling about fifty pounds lighter. There was no lying on the couch discussing my parent’s failings, there was no awkward silence as I flounder around trying to work out what to say.

We sat at his desk, drank a cup of tea and he told me that it’s okay to be really fucking angry the hand I have been dealt.

We laughed, a lot, I had this vision of me spending an hour sobbing, but he only made me cry once. We laughed over pretty much anything, we discussed how much last minute changes wind us up. How when you’re set up to have toast for breakfast, but the bread is mouldy, so you have to have cereal… how it throws you for the rest of the day, you’re pissed off about the last minute changes, finding it hard to focus and next thing you know you don’t know what to have for lunch.

We talked about my issues with transitions, he asked me how I’d gone through this particular transition. He said it better than I ever could, my baby died… and now I don’t know what to have for lunch.

Most importantly he told me I was normal. That the anger, the sadness, the guilt, the resentment, they were all normal.

I wish I’d have done it months ago.

Categories: Uncategorized | 14 Comments

Only Words

Posted on May 31, 2010 by fern

Last week I bit the bullet and got a referral from our GP to go and speak to a Psychologist. He gave me a referral to who I had requested (Declan’s pysch, who announces on his card that he “does big kids too!”), but not before making me do the dreaded “How Close Are You To Jumping Off A Cliff” questionnaire and suggesting that based on my responses I shouldn’t even contemplate getting pregnant for another 18  months.

Then I burst into tears and don’t remember much else of what he said.

I left with my referral, I have an appointment booked in for Friday, and I’m a little bit stumped about it.

I don’t know what there is left to talk about. I feel like I spent the entire first month just talking about it until my jaw ached, there is nothing left to say. Robyn died, I am sad, but I need to keep functioning to look after my two living children.

I cry when I see sleeping newborns. I am jealous of their parents. Because at some point those babies will open their eyes, and mine never did.

I can’t look at ultrasound screens, on telly, on my mum’s forums, I can’t even look at the old sonograms of the boys. Because all I see is the dead upside down baby, with no movement in her chest and a room full of silent people, none of them knowing what to say next.

I can’t watch telly, I don’t want to see the news, I don’t want to see stupid fluff pieces on morning shows, I don’t want to see adverts for products offering “the best protection for your baby”. I was the best protection for my baby.

I can’t sit still and let my thoughts take over, that would be instant doom.

I can’t imagine having a baby. I can visualise my next pregnancy perfectly. I can picture myself running around after the boys with huge belly once again without any hesitation at all. I can’t imagine myself with a newborn, or with three children living under our roof, I am prepared for the death of my fourth child more so than I am for its birth.

I have irrational hatred to people that I consider to be parenting badly. The mother in the cafe mixing up formula, I deserve a child more than her, because I would breastfeed. The parents standing in the same aisle as me in Target, complaining because they can’t find anyone to babysit on Friday night, I deserve a child more than them because I would never leave it, ever.

Don’t even get me started on the emotions I have towards the people that actually ARE parenting badly. Another reason why the news is a no-go area.

I don’t want to pick up her ashes, because then we will have to scatter them, and I will lose the last little bit of her forever.

I’m not ready for another pregnancy yet, but I still sob every time my period starts.

The logic in that one fails me completely.

I am sad. I have moments of uncontrollable emotions, but on a day to day basis I am competent, I am coping well, in fact I even feel far better than I did during my PPD with Declan.

I want to go and see the psychologist and just get him to tell me that this is all normal, that everything I am feeling is what I’m meant to be feeling.

I don’t want to sit down and talk for hours about all that could have been, or why what happened, happened. It doesn’t fix anything, it doesn’t make her come back, it doesn’t even make me feel better, it just forces me to dwell on every emotion.

I just want him to tell me I’m normal, that everything I’m feeling is normal.

Categories: Me Me Me, Mental, Robyn | 13 Comments

An Apology

Posted on May 22, 2010 by fern

You know when you get a little distracted and don’t post for a while.

And then your mum comes to visit (with less than a weeks notice!), and of course you shouldn’t be messing around on the internet during the first time you’ve seen her in 18 months.

Then you get sick, and spend two days refusing to leave bed.

And then you agree to do your first ever market and spend every spare moment you have sewing.

Then you take on about 20 custom pieces in the same week, ranging from appliques to full blown quilts.

Then one day in the shower, you realise that you have a little blog sitting out there on the internet, and you wonder how it’s dealing with your unashamed neglect.

You figure that now would be a good time to write something, but it’s been so long, so whatever you write should be suitably epic.

So you wait another week to come up with something.

And nothing comes.

(apart from more custom work, and you start to worry that maybe, just maybe, you may have over stretched yourself)

Sorry little blog. I promise I shall squeeze in a few minutes each day to water and tend to your browning leaves, and together we shall cross our fingers that real life doesn’t interrupt again any time soon.

Categories: Me Me Me | 5 Comments