Day 17 - Birthdays and Anniversaries

Today is Day 17 in capturing your grief –birthdays and anniversaries.

                                   

When your baby dies, you loose your future.

You loose all the hopes and dreams and plans that you had envisaged.

Triggers are funny things. Who would have thought that today would have been one of the most difficult posts to write?

When I was pregnant with Joaquim, we had already started to make so many plans. We homeschool, so every lesson I prepared, I had him in mind, and went to an extra effort to keep all the pictures I drew because I would be using them with him. Every book I ordered, I justified the purchase because Joaquim would get to read it too. Every item of clothing that my boys grew out of, we packaged in an airtight container to keep for when Joaquim would wear them.

Today’s trigger was LEGO of all things. My two older sons are infatuated with the stuff, but it is so expensive! When I was pregnant with Joaquim, I came across an advert. A toy store owner was selling the contents of her shop. Among other things, she had R30 000 worth of Lego sets that were being used as display pieces. She did not have the boxes anymore, but she did have the instruction booklets, and she was selling over 50 complete sets for only R4000. Now usually, this amount of money would have turned me away immediately, but I sat thinking about all the birthdays that Joaquim would have, and some of the sets were DUPLO, baby Lego, and it seemed like an unbelievable opportunity to plan ahead.

We transferred the money, and 1 week later, 2 HUGE boxes were delivered at the Cargo section of the airport. My husband came home with them and opened them up. There were 2 huge boxes, filled with Lego….. All mixed together. My heart sank. Have you got any idea, what a huge job it is to sort out Lego? And here I was with over 50 sets of Lego all jumbled together.

So, needless to say, most of my memories of my pregnancy with Joaquim, are of me sitting cross legged in the study, adjusting my growing belly over my feet, and sorting the Lego first into colours, and then painstakingly putting all the sets together piece by piece, and then packaging them up, ready to be taken out of the cupboard for Joaquims 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th, 5^th birthdays. I remember his little feet and hands kicking and punching when I had sat in one position for too long.

It took me about 3 months to complete the task. That is one month longer than the time Joaquim actually spent in my arms! So now, every time I see Lego, I get angry, resentful of that time I spent awkwardly huddled over those little plastic pieces, when I could have been simply enjoying every minute with him in my womb, and counting the kicks and movements.

Anyone that knows me well enough, knows that when it comes to my children’s birthdays, I go all out. I start preparations a month before, we pick a theme and then I handmade all the gifts for the guests, we make the décor ourselves, and we try to find a meaningful life lesson to attach to the day.

Joaquims first birthday has just passed, and those weeks that would have been spent in preparation for a huge celebration, were spent trying to get away from under this dark cloud that had begun to form around me. I tried to distract myself with as many things as possible, but nothing could stop the day from approaching. I kept busy right up until the night before, and then it happened. The day I had been planning for for months, but dreading for weeks arrived. I was so totally lost. Instead of being surrounded by people and balloons and cake, I wanted to be all alone. I wanted to crawl into a dark hole and never come out. I wanted to feel sorry for myself, and I didn’t care anymore if I made anyone uncomfortable with my tears.

I wonder if it will always be this way. I imagine what he would look like as a 1 year old, what he would be doing or saying, what milestones would he be accomplishing? I am finding it so hard to look at babies of this age and not feel a little resentment and jealousy?

We did not do anything remarkable to mark his first birthday. We managed to survive it, and I think that is one step in the right direction.

Exactly 2 months to the day, when his anniversary came along, a friend of mine stepped in and took over for me. The dark cloud had turned into a thick, suffocating mass, consuming me entirely. So we were whisked away by our dear friends Richard and Shelly, to the Vaal River where they own a home, and we got lost along the waters edge and filled up the dam with our tears.