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

Busy couple of weeks...

What a busy couple of weeks I have had.. Little J started school and i have started TAFE.. I am glad I am at a TAFE.. It's a great distraction, however everytime I start a new chapter in my life it is always bittersweet. As thrilled as I am to have this opportunity to do Nursing and as much as I enjoy going to TAFE, meeting new people etc, I still get the thought that it's not where I'm meant to be. I am MEANT to be raising my children. Taite and Seth. 15 month old twins that were born premmie, or 11 month old twins born when they were due. Either way I should be up to my elbows in nappies, washing, I should be awake all night getting up to them. I should be going to playgroups, not bereavement support groups, and the list goes on....... At this stage of my grief I am not a crying mess on the floor every day, but I think of them everyday and I miss them every day and the pain is always there.. I miss my babies and would rather have them here, but as they aren't I think I am doing the best that I can to bring positive things in to my life. And I am proud of that.. I so desperately want to be a mother. I am going to see a natropath on Friday.. She is well know as the Baby Maker and has a really high success rate apparently. Something like 90%. So I am hoping that I wont even make it through my 1st semester of nursing without having to defer it.

I would like to post a couple of poems that I got out of the SANDS newsletter this month. I have changed them a bit to suit my situation a bit more.

A baby Wanted (Marion Grimmett)

The loving
my babies so wanted,
born too soon,
My babies dying
What pain,
What loss,
What damage
For What?

Dreaming (Joy Blackburn)

There's a sadness in this living,
There's a pain that has no words,
There's a missing and a longing,
And a sob that can't be heard,
There's a grief that can't be spoken,
There's a wound that one can't see
There's a dreaming and a hoping
When from pain we can be free

Getting left behind..

I found out a couple of days ago that a couple from the Bonnie Babes support group that I go to are expecting again.. They have been going to Bonnie Babes a month less than me. I am so happy for them, I really am, but there is still that pang of jealousy. I wish it was me.. Actually, I wish I never had to go to Bonnie Babes. I wish Taite and Seth were born healthy and survived.. I miss my babies so much.. It got me to thinking though I wonder if it will make their daughter's birthday/angelversary easier to cope with? I wanted to be pregnant by the time Taite and Seth's birthday came, but on further thinking, I don't think it would matter. Maybe it would give more hope for the future, but there is no way it would take away the pain... A lot of the blogs I have been reading over the past year, now have a subsequent baby or pregnancy. It's hard not to feel left behind.. I am a little bit worried about how I will go at the meetings now. Bonnie Babes was like my safe house.. I really hope I can keep going without it hurting too much. I really don't want it to bother me, but I am scared it might. All I can do is just go and see how I feel. Then deal with those feelings as they happen.

I keep dreaming I am pregnant, and the weirdest dream I had was the other night I dreamed I had triplets! 2 boys and a girl.. But it was like the boys were Taite and Seth.. and although they were in NICU in my dream they were about 1yr old!! Since the boys died I have begged them to come and see me in my dreams.. Maybe they finally are :)

A little blog gripe...

This morning I had some time to spare.. I have my 7yr Old brother here from NSW playing with little J, before I take them for a swim.. Anyway, I came across a few new blogs this morning and I have 1 gripe. If you haven't been reading these blogs from the beginning, I find sometimes it is hard to get the full story of what happened. I just want to make sure that if someone comes across my blog they are able to find out the full story. I know some people are different but when I first lost the twins I wanted to find a story as similar to mine as possible.. I wanted someone that lost twins due to prematurity. I wanted someone who had made the horrible heartwrenching decision to turn off their babies' life support. Although everyone's experience is always different it can sometimes be so similar and come with similar feelings and especially in the first few months it is good to know you are not completely insane and not a total nut case.. I hope this post made sense.. Anyway just for good measure I will include the link for the boy's memorial site. It has the full story, pictures, and poems. It took me 6 months to complete and was a crucial part of my healing.. I am very proud of it. http://www.taiteandseth.webs.com/

Mother of Angel friends..

Since I lost the boys I have met a lot of special people online and through Bonnie Babes. Although I wish I never had to meet them under these circumstances, there are 2 ladies in particular that I know will remain friends for life. 1 of these ladies is Debbie from Bonnie Babes. Her thoughtfulness and selflessness blows me away sometimes. She has made me scrapbooks and given me special candles all out of her own time and money, just to honour my son's. Another one of these friends is Kathi Slee, from http://butterfliesandkittens.blogspot.com/ . She and her husband went to a Mother's (and fathers) Of Angels retreat in Melbourne, where they had a candle lighting ceremony and a balloon release. When Kathi got back she e mailed me some photos. She had done a balloon release for Taite and Seth. If you haven't lost a baby you probably wouldn't understand just how significant this is. It is so beautiful to know that someone else is taking the time to think of and honour your babies. So thank you Kathi, the photo's are beautiful.. :) I wish you never had to understand what this meant to me..

Just a bit of a ramble about grief..

In the morning is when my grief is still the strongest.. Particularly since Jade had gone back to work, Little J is at his Mums, I don't have a job and TAFE hasn't started yet.. I wake up with Jade then after he leaves is when my mind ticks over.. It's always too early for me to get up so I just lay there and think about what should have been.. How I should be a mother to beautiful twin boys, how I shouldn't have even 5 minutes to myself. Then my mind wanders to the NICU stay and their death.. That part of the morning is awful.. I am glad though that I don't feel that grief all day. When I think back, I have come SO far in my grief.. And when I have this horrible feeling in the morning, I have to remind myself that it will pass. I wont feel like this all day like I did at first.. I am looking forward to starting TAFE, to have a distraction again.. Don't get me wrong, I think of Taite and Seth ALL DAY EVERY DAY, it's just not with that awful feeling of sadness and grief.. I don't know how to describe it.. I hate the fact that this is, and will be the rest of my life.. In a way, I hate that I have learnt to live with it. I have no other choice, but it is not fair that I will always be a mother to dead babies..

13 months is not long in a lifetime, but I feel that I can't really speak about the babies or my grief anymore.. The fact that my babies didn't even get mentioned at Xmas really showed me that everyone has moved on.. I thought maybe we might have played Tears in Heaven for them like we did last year.. I guess last year they were so fresh in everyones minds. It's funny that I think of them as much now as I did then.. I don't even know where I am going with this. I guess my point is, although I am learning to live without my babies, it doesn't mean that I think of them any less. I still want to speak about them, I still want them remembered as part of our family.. I don't want them fading away like a distant memory, and that is what I feel is happening..

A mothers Love...

I found this quote on a memorial site for twin boys Logan and Brody born at 22wks and thought I would share it..

A mother's love persists beyond the grave, stronger than death enduring and everlasting. A mother's love persists. You ARE a mother, even in the physical absence of your children. You are a mother, because a mother's love persists