A Mothers Grief

You ask me how I'm feeling,
but do you really want to know?
he moment I try telling you
You say you have to go

How can I tell you,
what it's been like for me
I am haunted, I am broken
By things that you don't see

You ask me how I'm holding up,
but do you really care?
The moment I start to speak my heart, You start squirming in your chair.

Because I am so lonely,you see,
friends no longer come around,
I'll take the words I want to say And quietly choke them down.

Everyone avoids me now, I guess they don't know what to say
They told me I'll be there for you, then turned and walked away.

Call me if you need me,
that's what everybody said,
But how can I call and screaminto the phone, My God, my child is dead?

No one will let me say the words
I need to say
Why does a mothers grief
scare everyone away?

I am tired of pretending my heart hammers in my chest,
I say things to make you comfortable,but my soul finds no rest.

How can I tell you things
that are too sad to be told,
of the helplessness of holding a child who in your arms grows cold?

Maybe you can tell me,
How should one behave,
who's had to follow their childs casket,watched it perched above a grave?

You cannot imagine what it was like for me that day
to place a final kiss upon that box,
and have to turn and walk away.

If you really love me,
and I believe you do
if you really want to help me,
here is what I need from you.

Sit down beside me
reach out and take my hand,
Say " My friend, I've come to listen,
I want to understand."

Just hold my hand and listen
that's all you need to do,
And if by chance I shed a tear,
it's alright if you do to.

I swear that I'll remember till the day
I'm very old,
the friend who sat and held my hand
and let me bare my soul.

Written by Kelly Cummings

I wish I had found this poem when I lost Taite and Seth. It is so true. However I have been so blessed to have many good friends that I can talk about my babies too. I have bored many of them 1000 times with the same stories. There are a lot of people that get really uncomfortable though. I can't blame them. It's not nice to talk about, but it's frustrating when people think it's too upsetting for them when it didn't happen to them.. At this stage I find I am avoiding stories of miscarriage and loss for my own reasons. I really appreciate the fact I can choose to avoid these stories though now. I am still living my own nightmare of loss though and that will never go away..

Mother's Day..

Has to be one of the worst days invented for Mummy's of Angels.. I woke up alone. Hugged Taite and Seth's bears and cried most of the morning. I should have my babies with me. This should be my 3rd Mothers day where I am happy and smiling. Instead I'm hurting and miserable.. I love and miss my Angels so much. I wanna be woken up with dribbly kisses from my 2 and a half year olds.. Instead, I just think of them.. It's not quite the same..

Just let me sleep...

I am awake at 11pm still. I am normally in bed early unless I am partying! For the last 3 nights I haven't been able to get to sleep til 1am or so. Then I wake feeling like shit.

I am feeling a bit down at the moment, with easter coming up, the the dreaded mother's day.. I just wish I could sleep til it's over and wake up pregnant. I want to be a Mum, but even if I had another baby this pain wouldn't heal.. I just don't know if I can deal with this for the rest of my life.. How can I do it? This will be my 3rd Easter without Taite and Seth and although my grief has improved on a day to day basis, these family holidays and anniversaries are still as hard as they were the 1st year. Only difference is I have an idea of what's coming and I know I have felt it before.. I just hate it. I hate that my son's aren't here with me, and I hate that I am not yet a mother when I should be.. :(

More poems..

I just came across a website with some lovely poems Bears of Hope for pregnancy and infant loss support.. I found 2 gorgeous poems so thought I would post them :)

TWIN ANGELS
Last night two little angels
Came and whispered in my ear.
And this is what they told me
“Don’t worry Mummy, we’re right here.

It feels like a long time
Since we last felt your touch.
And we wanted you to know
We miss you and Daddy very much.

We know that you love us
And think of us every day.
And it makes us very sad
that we had to go away.

But we know that our memory
will never ever die.
And we know that sometimes
When you think of us you cry.

But don’t worry Mummy
There's so much here to do.
And every day remember
We are watching over you.”

Then my angels kissed me
As tears rolled down my face.
And I knew we’ll all be together again
Another time. Another place.
Author unknown.

and this one...

THOUGHTS
I don't need a special day to bring the two of you to mind,
The days I do not think of you are very hard to find.
Each morning when I awake I know that you are gone,
And no one knows the heartache as I try to carry on.
My heart still aches with sadness and secret tears still flow,
What it meant to lose you two no one will ever know.
My thoughts are always with you,
Your places no one can fill.
In life I loved you both dearly,
In death I love you still.

I miss my babies.. "Mummy loves you Taite and Seth xxxx"

A bit of de briefing (a bit confronting)

Well, this post is a bit strange. I am about to post parts of my various responses in a forum discussion about whether babies should be resuscitated from 20wks.. It was stemmed by Poppi's Rule, a FB group campaigning to have this happen. It's funny how ok I feel at the moment, but how some things trigger such deep emotions. So here are some of my posts: (Some of them aren't full posts I just posted what is relevant to me and I didn't quote anyone else..)

I joined it.. My babies were JUST viable.. When I went into labour I was only 23wks (by date of 1st U/S) and my local hospital said I was not at the point of viability and were going to let me birth.. It was horrid to be told that just because of a 'date' my children weren't going to be given the chance to survive.. Luckily for me, I was under the care of another hospital and I was transferred up there and I stayed in labour til over 24wks.. So we got to choose whether the babies were rescusitated or not.. If anyone has read my story, (link in sig) you will know we chose that.. However we also chose later to cease their treatment.. My babies had 12 days of tubes, wires and ventilators and I feel guilty every day.. They died anyway, it sometimes seems like they went through all that for nothing.. On the other hand, I know they had the chance.. I know they knew their Mummy and Daddy loved them.. And selfishly, I am grateful I got to be a mummy for 12 days..

...My babies were past viability by 2 days and we still got the choice to resuscitate or not.. If we wanted to let nature take it's course that was ok. But selfishly, we wanted our babies saved. As I have said in my previous post I feel guilty for putting them through 12 days of hell, when at the end of the day they were said to have irreversible brain damage and to us it was the wrong thing to do to keep putting them through all that when they may have had what we deemed a bad quality of life..

But each side has it's bad.. I would have felt guilty not giving them a chance.. Even after we turned off their life support, I agonised for months if we had done the right thing.. I lie.. I regretted for months turning off their life support. I wanted them back, brain damaged or not.. I thought what kind of mother was I to not 'accept' my babies just because they were disabled.. But again on the other hand I did it for them.. I loved them and thats why I let them go.. I honestly have no idea what I would do if I was faced with the same situation.. As a mother, you do the best you can with what you know.. I knew I loved my babies and would be a good Mummy.. I feel guilty for many decisions and probably always will. The whole situation is FUCKED.. We need to prevent pre term birth

Not sure if my post made sense, obviously this is hugely emotional for me.. Also, I know it's not right to justify what babies go through medically, and I'm sure I have trauma scars that I don't even know about, but I was a very sick baby, I had a bad heart condition. As a bub, I had a nasogastric tube and was in and out of hospital. I had 2 surgeries, 1 open heart. I don't remember ANY of it.. As I said, it doesn't make it right to put babies through such trauma BUT if my babies had survived I would hope they could forgive me for what they went through..

...I think the same as you in some respect.. What my boys life would have been like had they survived with the brain damage would not be what I want. I would not want to be severly disabled.. Again not saying those who are have a low or no quality of life, it's what I deem I guess.. And with the twins it was about us and what we thought, and what we wanted. What we wanted for us and our sons and their older brother.. My partner didn't want our sons growing up looking at their older brother and cousins kicking a footy when they were stuck in a wheelchair not being able to MOVE let alone kick.. We had no idea how brain damaged they would be. Would they even be able to think? Really we don't know. Even before we turned off their life support I started grieving for my sons when I found out they had bleeding into their brain tissue. I was grieving for the chance to have a normal life, be a normal mother.. Does that make sense?? I totally understand what you are saying when you say by saving premmies we could be creating disabled children.. My babies were perfectly healthy, just born too soon. It was MY body that failed, not theirs. Had I carried to full term I am sure (never know ANYTHING for sure) but I am pretty sure they would have been healthy.. That just adds another guilt emotion into the mix because my body let me down..

I got 1 thing from reading over my posts.. I still hold an ENORMOUS amount of guilt.. I saw a psychic and she told me that I wont have another preterm baby. She said there was an evolved soul just waiting for me, but I cannot accept it yet.. In other words I'm not going to fall pregnant til I clear my emotional shit.. I think I need to let go of my guilt.. I'm going to work on it...

Today...

Today I was up at 5am.. Today it occured to me that I didn't think about the fact my chilren died until 9.40am.. It was 4 and a half hours from waking until I consciously thought about them..Wow! I don't know how I feel about that.. As you may know from previous posts as time goes on I am feeling further and further away from them.. I don't want to be in the depths of grief, but I don't want to forget them.. Memories are all I have. I'm scared.. What if I get to a point where I go a day without thinking of my Son's.. I don't want that.. Remembering, not remembering, it all sux because they died and I shouldn't be in this position.. I am not sure what to feel about what occured to me today..

Take me away from here...

The land of grieving, that is.. I can't cope anymore, it's too hard. I will start the post by backtracking to Taite and Seth's birthday. I had a lovely day and after the balloon release friends of mine had put on a little 'party' for the twins.. Birthday cake and all.. It was really sweet, and a really nice way to celebrate the most important day of my life.. The twins birthday really is a day for celebration. I will never have that day again. The way I felt seeing my 1st born sons. Those babies, although they aren't here made me a Mummy and I love them so much. Above are pictures of the day.. The balloon release (although once the balloons were let go you can barely see them it was so windy) And the gifts I got. T & S as well as the baubles were given to me on that day, but the candle holders which I have the baubles sitting in were given to me a few days before by a friend I met on my parenting forum.. I was touched to recieve each and every one of these gifts.

It was Tuesday night I came crashing down and pretty much couldn't be awake without feeling in physical pain. I think of the boys every day, but it has been a long time since I have felt like this.. It was too painful to stay awake so I didn't. I just slept for almost 2 days. And when I was awake I cried.. Yesterday I felt a bit better, even managed to get an assignment done and function the way a normal person does.. This morning I am somewhere in between.. I woke up crying and have no energy.. I just want this pain to go away.. I wish this wasn't my life. Last night I dreamt I lost 3 more babies. All boys, and I got them cremated and added the ashes to Taite and seth's urn. No wonder I woke up crying.. I just wish I could rewind back 2yrs ago, before i found out about the brain bleeding. When they looked like they would make it.. I want to touch them, see them and sing to them again. I want my babies to be a live and not dead. I want this pain to go away. I don't know what I have done to deserve this, or what they did to suffer through their 12 days.. I would have been a good mother. I did everything right in my pregnancy, those babies were so loved and wanted I feel so ripped off, but in another way I am so blessed I got to meet them and spend 12 days with them.. I love you Taite and Seth, please send your Mummy some strength to get through another day without you. xx

Sharing my story

So, on my parenting forum, one of the administrators put out a call to members to share a story. So I put my hand up to share my story about loss..

They are going to have something called Member Monday, where each Monday a member shares a story (not particularly about loss) So I got the details and tonight e mailed my story, pretty much the same as what is on my website..

I wonder how it will be received, as a lot of members may have read it, and the ones who haven't may have done so by choice?? I am hoping though that it may help members who may have recently had a loss..

I feel I have a lot to give in telling my story. There was so much to it. It wasn't that I had a baby and it died.. There was the fact I had twins, they were premmie, they survived in NICU for 12 days and the one that I wish I had been able to read IT GIVES AN ACCOUNT OF HOW IT FEELS TO MAKE THE DECISION TO TURN OFF YOUR BABIES LIFE SUPPORT! The hardest decision ever.. To know, that day that your baby is going to die. To know that this is the last hold you are ever going to have while your babies are alive.. That's powerful emotion and I want to share it, because I am sure it is more common than we think, but it is one thing that is not spoken about.. I suffered guilt for months, wondering if I had made the right decision and it was very very hard for me to find someone that related to that.. I hope I can help someone with my story.

I must admit it also has come at a good time for me in my grief as I am feeling very far away from my babies as more time passes.. This may just be my opportunity to remember them and have that closeness with them again through the grief. It also reminds others that I am a Mummy, I have had 2 beautiful son's that have made my world a different place..

I don't know how much sense that post makes but it makes sense to me.. I love and miss my babies so much and I can't believe that they would be almost 2!!

Grief sux..

When the boys first died I read poems and read books all the time trying to make sense of my grief.. Today I was on the forum I belong to and for some reason went into the baby loss section, (which I don't do that often anymore) and there was a mother sharing poems she was to have at her son's funeral. She also asked if we had any poems to share so I went to the poems section of my tribute site to pull out some nice ones and all of a sudden BANG!! I was right back there. I felt the intense heartache and grief that comes with planning your babies funeral.. How much life just sux and how much you can't bear to think past the next minute because it is all too damn hard, and I just felt so sad for this Mama.. And sad for me, because I remember it so easily.. Anyway I was reading some poems and this one in particular struck a chord with me. I mentioned in my last post how I felt about grieving now that so much time had passed and how I don't feel as comfortable openly grieving in front of people now and I realised this poem sums it up perfectly, especially the last part which I have coloured blue...

I lost my child today

I lost my child today.
People came to weep and cry
As I just sat and stared, dry eyed.
They struggled to find words to say
To try and make the pain go away.
I walked the floor in disbelief.

I lost my child today.


I lost my child last month.
Most of the people went away.
Some still call and some still stay.
I wait to wake up from this dream
This can't be real--I want to scream.
Yet everything is locked inside,
God, help me, I want to die.
I lost my child last month.



I lost my child last year.
Now people, who had come, have gone.
I sit and struggle all day long,
to bear the pain so deep inside.
And now my friends just question, Why?
Why does this mother not move on?
Just sits and sings the same old song.
Good heavens, it has been so long.
I lost my child last year. '
Time has not moved on for me.
The numbness it has disappeared.
My eyes have now cried many tears.
I see the look upon your face,
" She must move on and leave this place."
Yet I am trapped right here in time.
The songs the same, as is the rhyme,
I lost my child......Today.

This sums up just how I feel.. Over the last 4 weeks I have been struggling immensely again with my babies deaths.. I think partly it has to do with TAFE.. I am finding it hard, so in the back of my mind there is a little voice saying 'You shouldn't even be here, you should be at home with your LIVING twins'... I also don't feel I can express my grief like I could in the beginning.. It has been so long, surely I can't feel the same pain as I did when it was so raw?? Actually yes I do.. And I hate it..

I have been stressing about an exam we have on Wednesday.. So terrified I will fail, just like I am a reproductive failure. Can't fall pregnant, then when I do, can't stay pregnant.. I have moments where I think, I have failed at the most important thing in my life, why wouldn't I fail this.. But then I put a positive spin on it and think 'You know what, fuck it. If I fail this who gives a shit'. After all, it's not the worst thing that has happened.. If I survived my babies deaths, then I can survive if I fail an exam right?? Well I feel a little better now that is off my chest.. I just want the pain, the hurt, the guilt to stop.. I also thought I would post this.. I found it on a forum and I think it was on Sids and Kids website

This is now what normal is,

Normal is having tears waiting behind every smile when you realise someone important is missing from all the important events in your family's life.
Normal is feeling like you know how to act and are more comfortable with a funeral than a wedding or birthday party... yet feeling a stab of pain in your heart when you smell the flowers and see the casket.
Normal is feeling like you can't sit another minute without getting up and screaming, because you just don't like to sit through anything.
Normal is not sleeping very well because a thousand what if's & why didn't I's go through your head constantly.
Normal is reliving that day continuously through your eyes and mind, holding your head constantly.
Normal is having TV on the minute you walk into the house to have noise, because the silence is deafening.
Normal is staring at every baby who looks like he is my baby's age. And thinking of the age they would be now and not being able to imagine it. Then wondering why it is even important to imagine it because it will never happen.
Normal is every happy event in my life always being backed up with sadness lurking close behind, because of the hole in my heart.
Normal is telling the story of your child's death as if it were an everyday, commonplace activity, and then seeing the horror in someone's eyes at how awful it sounds.

And yet not realising it has become part of my 'normal'.

Normal is each year coming up with the difficult task of how to honor your child's memory and their birthday and survive these days. And trying to find the balloon or flag that fit's the occasion.

Happy Birthday? Not really.

Normal is my heart warming and yet sinking at the sight of something special my baby loved. Thinking how he would love it, but how he is not here to enjoy it.
Normal is having people afraid to mention my baby.
Normal is making sure others remember them.
Normal is after the funeral is over everyone else goes on with their lives, but we continue to grieve our loss forever.
Normal is weeks, months and years after the initial shock, the grieving gets worse sometimes, not better.
Normal is not listening to people compare anything in their life to this loss, unless they too have lost a child. NOTHING. Even if your child is in the remotest part of the earth away from you - it doesn't compare. Losing a parent is horrible, but having to bury your child is unnatural.

Normal is taking pills, and trying not to cry all day, because I know my mental health depends on it.
Normal is realising I do cry everyday.
Normal is disliking jokes about death or funerals, bodies being referred to as cadavers, when you know they were once someone's loved one.
Normal is being impatient with everything and everyone, but someone stricken with grief over the loss of your child.
Normal is sitting at the computer crying, sharing how you feel with chat buddies who have also lost a child.
Normal is feeling a common bond with friends on the computer in other countries, but yet never having met any of them face to face.
Normal is a new friendship with another grieving mother, talking and crying together over our children and our new lives.
Normal is being to tired to care if you paid the bills, cleaned the house, did laundry or if there is any food.
Normal is wondering this time whether you are going to say you have two children or one, because you will never see this person again and it is not worth explaining that my baby isn't here on earth.

And yet when you say I have 1 child to avoid that problem, you feel horrible as it you betrayed your baby.
Normal is avoiding playgrounds because of small, happy children that break your heart when you see them.
Normal is people asking why God took your child's life instead of yours and asking if there is a God.
Normal is knowing I will never get over this loss, in a day or a million years.

And last of all, Normal is all the things that have become "normal" for you to feel, so that everyone around you will think that you are "normal"

author unknown '

Missing my babies :(

Over the last week or so I have been really missing my babies and what should have been.. The good old 'Ripped off' feeling comes to mind. I think I have been wanting to distract myself so much that maybe I have been distracting myself too much. This is the 1st day I have been alone all day for ages. I have either been at TAFE or studying, or with friends studying. I think I still need my 'grief' time.. To tell myself thats it is still ok to grieve and be sad, rather than pushing it away because I have had my time grieving.

It still cuts me to the core when conversations come up about pregnancy or children and I don't join in. I sometimes would like to, but I don't want to join in like my babies are alive then have to explain that they aren't.. A conversation about pregnancy or birth for example.. I experienced it, but some people don't know that and its just assumed I don't have children, so I wouldn't want to talk about my experience and have someone say "oh you have children do you? How many" Or "How old are they?" Then for me to just deflate the whole conversation by the awful truth.. I don't want people to think I am saying it for sympathy. It was different in the 1st year as people recognised it was so raw, but now I think that people wouldn't understand and would have expected me to move on.. I don't know why I give a shit about what people think, but I do..

Anyway I am missing my baby boys so so much and wish they were here with me. :(

I started on my herbs from the natropath and have been on them for 10 days.. Will be interesting to see if they work.. Even if they do it wont change the fact that I lost my beautiful first born boys and I will always have a piece of my heart missing..

Dear Taite and Seth,

My baby boys, it has been 15 months since you gave me the most precious gift of being your mother. I wish so desperately that you were still here. I miss you more than I can even try to explain. I miss what should have been. I wish I could have watched you grow, seen you smile and laugh. I would have done my best to be the best mother to you, just like I am doing now. You still make me proud my babies. From the day I found out I was pregnant through to the day you were born and during those precious 12 days they remain the happiest and proudest moments of my life. I will love you and miss you forever, not a day goes by where you are not in my thoughts.

Love Mummy xx