4 months on

It was this day a year ago, January 4th 2011, that we found out we would be welcoming our first child into the world later that year. Ironically, a year on, January 4th 2012 marks not just one year from finding out we were pregnant, but also 4 months since our precious baby died. So much can change in a year. How I would love to go back in time to this day a year ago - and once again have the joy and happiness we felt, without it being mixed with the sadness and pain that now threatens to overshadow our joy.

It is interesting the things that have changed in the 4 months since we said goodbye to Hannah Grace. Most people don't mention her as much now, and it's not often we get to tell people about our daughter. Some have gone back to treating us like a 'married couple without kids'. Instead people ask if, or when, we are going to have another baby. Do they realise that no other baby will ever replace Hannah? And that having another baby won't take away our pain? Some people expect us to have at least started to 'get over' our loss by now. But these people don't understand the depth of the pain we are going through, or the fact that we will never 'get over' our daughter. We do have to move on with our lives, and I think we are doing that as best we can, but we don't actually want to 'get over this'. Hannah is part of our family and our lives, and she always will be.

I have decided to post on here a poem that another 'baby loss mum' wrote. I can relate to most of what she has described. We do have such a new 'normal' that we are adapting to. Her words might give you a bit of a glimpse into what this looks like... 
 

MY NEW 'NORMAL'
Normal is having tears waiting behind every smile when you realize someone important is missing from all the important events in your family's life.
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 to make it go away.
Normal is having the music on the minute I walk into the house to have noise, because the silence is deafening.
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 realizing it has become
a part of my "normal".
Normal is having some people afraid to mention my baby.
Normal is making sure that others remember her.
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 own child is unnatural.
Normal is realizing I do cry everyday.
Normal is disliking jokes about death or funerals, 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 all over the world, 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 not listening to people make excuses for God. "God may have done this because..." I know that my baby is in heaven, but hearing people trying to think up excuses as to why babies were taken from this earth is not appreciated and makes absolutely no sense to this grieving mother.
Normal is being too 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 a child, because you will never see this person again and it is not worth explaining that my baby is in heaven. And yet when you say you have no children to avoid that problem, or just don't answer, you feel horrible as if you have betrayed your baby.
Normal is avoiding playgrounds because of small, happy children that break your heart when you see them.
Normal is asking God why he took your child's life instead of yours and asking if there even 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 hiding all the things that have become "normal" for you to feel, so that everyone around you will think that you are "normal".