And what a year its been. Just like that our baby girls 1st birthday has been & gone. I still struggle to get my head around what has happened to us. I mean around this time last year I was in labour ready to give birth to a baby but it’s not the one I hold in my arms now , how can the mind process and deal with the fact we should have two babies here but for us one of our children lay beside us snuggled soundly and the other in her little box of ashes, it’s just so surreal. It really does just go to show u never EVER know what’s waiting for u round the corner.
How do we get our heads around that this time last year we were planning our baby girls funeral. I still can’t believe we’ve made it through the pain of that day and the 365 days that have followed as I can’t begin to tell you the pain that comes with saying goodbye to your child. I will say though with the pain comes a new strength and outlook on what life has planned to throw at you next whether it’s as a couple or individually and one thing I have found myself repeatedly telling myself when things arise that the old me would have a complete meltdown over is that nothing can ever possibly be anywhere near as bad as what we’ve went through.. so bugger it.. bring it on!
Some of the hardest things of living through the last year have been the mixture of emotions amplified by 1000x due to grief and then being lucky enough to find ourselves on a new pregnancy journey all of which have really took its toll mentally, physically and emotionally (I think i’ve aged a good 3o years in the grey hair and wrinkles department!) I had (still have) ALL the emotions all of the time and some all at once so much so I feel like my head could explode. I have felt lonely even when surrounded by people, heartbroken beyond repair, anxious, scared, depressed, fearful , frightened, panicky, ill, exhausted, drained and through all of this I guess I’m a little ” dead behind the eyes” too as a light went out in me when Francesca died that will never fully come back on. My main emotions that have ate away at me at times have been the guilt and the anger. Two strong emotions I wouldn’t wish on anyone and have tried to overcome but haven’t yet succeeded. Iv surprised myself at times with the awful bitter feelings i’ve had that were never part of me as a person pre loss. I was angry at a lot of things when Francesca died and I guess I still am to this day, but one of the main things was that while my life grounded to a sudden tragic halt, everything else around me carried on and all I seemed to see around was that while our lives were over, it just felt like everyone around us were moving on and living their best lives, succeeding at everything life had to offer and I feel like I was being punished. Every facebook pregnancy or new baby announcement was like a knife to the soul so much so I took myself away from it as I couldn’t bear to see any more scan pictures pop up on my timeline. Why were those people allowed to have their happy ending when mines was shattered. Why was our family chosen to live this life amongst a sea of others who seem to “have it all”. Which of course is crazy as no one has it all and everyone deserves happiness . Also how it looks on the outside isn’t always the real story as you never know what other people are going through themselves but I was bitter at times and I hated myself for it but couldn’t help it . I started to really believe I must have been such an awful person to deserve this.. its a dark dark place to be stuck in. Over time these feelings have been supressed and I can move away from believing that although there are those days where the ugly awful voices come back to remind you the feelings are simply repressed not gone.
In amongst these awful feelings I am glad to say we’ve had some really beautiful times too and have progressed to a place where sometimes we both just sit and just take in what we have now and how lucky we are to have it. This took a long time to be able to fully appreciate as “lucky” was not something we felt at all. I am beyond grateful for the little things in life now and the days where we find ourselves laughing or smiling are becoming a little more frequent now as before I thought I would never hear laughter in this home again. For this I will always be grateful to Francesca for sending us our little Leo from heaven to help heal our hearts as without him I really don’t know where we would be and it scares me to think about it. He really is our gift from the angels.
Its been a while since I have written on here as I cant begin to tell you how difficult i’ve found things at times to just get through a day with the brain fog so thick, I could barely write my own name sometimes. But as I sit here and look back over the last year its hard to take in all the events of 2018/2019 but it makes my heart almost explode with love that I’m now a mummy of two beautiful babies. How lucky am I to be able to say that …
FOR FRANCESCA 
❤❤❤
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