I’m going to be honest. I’ve tried to sit down and write something which could be seen as inspiring; or a piece that sends out a message of hope and positivity. However, after weeks of trying to prepare Isaac’s 10 year anniversary blog, I’ve realised that’s just not who I am. I’m not inspiring. I don’t have anything significant to say about grief; and truthfully, I can’t admit to being ‘over’ the death of my son. Yes, time is a healer. This cliche is true. I don’t cry every day or feel empty inside still. But, I do miss him. I still feel cheated. And, I’m still bloody angry that my little girl doesn’t have her big brother around. So whilst I can, and will, acknowledge that some amazing things have happened over the past decade, I must be honest when I say this blog isn’t going to leave you feeling uplifted and full of peace. There is nothing uplifting or peaceful to come from loosing a child. It’s awful. And a lot of what I still hold on to isn’t bringing me peace at all. So, what am I going to say in this blog? I’m really not sure, but for once I’m going to have to wing it. I’m breaking all the rules here. No English teacher would condone writing anything without a plan, but just as life is messy sometimes, so is today.
The one thing I did plan was Isaac. In fact, trying for Isaac couldn’t have been more planned! When you go through your first round of IVF you are full of both anxiety and excitement. It’s a bit like a project which could lead to a fantastic prize! You have lots of dates for your calendar for scans and monitoring, along with packs of needles and vials full of hormones. You join fertility groups and have online discussions about the best ways to succeed at IVF. You spend a small fortune on fancy vitamins, high protein diets, acupuncture, relaxing massages and basically anything Dr Zita West’s book has told you to do! And when the very uncomfortable egg collection procedure happens, you cross every finger and every toe that a few potential contenders will be viable. The science now takes over and you hold your breath to see if you have created an embryo. Yes! It’s worked. Now you wait to see if it takes and attaches itself to the all important ‘thick lining’ you have pumped yourself full of hormones to achieve. And then you wait, again. It either works or it doesn’t. And when it doesn’t you feel like a failure of a woman. You hate yourself, every pregnant person you see, and sink in to a horrible depression until you decide to max out a credit card and give it one more try. However, this time you’re even more scared and anxious than you were the first time around. We did all that. The second time around we got Isaac. It was worth it.
I’m ashamed to say that after we lost Isaac, I doubted that last statement for a while. How was it possible to go through the ordeal of IVF just to then watch him die a week after he was born? The trauma of his birth and the events which followed left me with all kinds of awful, illogical thoughts. The story of his birth and the hugely irresponsible neglect of North Middlesex hospital is detailed in earlier blogs, so I won’t tarnish this account with their negligence. Suffice to say, the whole experience has left me a changed person; one that is better in many ways, but also someone who has dealt with those consequences, and not always very well. But, I love my son. The IVF turned out to be nothing in comparison to watching him die. And even though I had fleeting moments of wondering what the hell was the point, I know I would nearly die again to have him here, even just the short time we had together. I don’t regret a moment of being his mother.
But, the life of a bereaved mother is not easy. In those first few years, I felt hurt like I had never experienced before, and may be the physical sensation of pain is the best way to describe the loss of a child. When you break a bone, you cry out in shock. The pain is biting and raw. You don’t know how to cope and you are desperate for the hurt to stop. You continue to howl in pain until someone comes to your rescue. But, even with the help of experts, nothing can completely fix what’s broken straight away. As the bone heals, the agony begins to die down, but what you are left with is a scar where that fracture once was. It is a continuous ache. It doesn’t ever go away but you learn to except it’s weaknesses. You know what you are capable of and you bench yourself when you fear you could get hurt again. This experience of living is not a complete one. The injury is forever though and you have to accept it. Loosing a child is like that. You will never be whole as the break was too deep. And much like that fractured bone, you will never be perfect and completely whole again. You are fragile and weak now, and it doesn’t take much to break you.
But life doesn’t stop just because you’re a bit broken. Eventually you have to join the rat race again, whatever that might entail for you. My race was always to have a child. But I had had one and now he was dead. I was in a world of pain, and hating myself for allowing him to die. I had failed. In fact, I was wishing I died with him. I wanted the pain to end and in my mind I actually planned ways to make that happen. That’s not something I’ve ever said aloud or openly admitted to before, but that was how extensive the pain was. Thankfully there was something which stopped me from accepting that this was it. I want to say it was my husband, and my family and friends who kept me going, but it wasn’t. They loved me hard and willed me to live again, but sadly logic doesn’t like to listen to common sense when you are suffering from that kind of grief. What I still wanted was to be was a mother. I wanted to hold my baby again and hug and kiss him, but that was impossible right? So, still broken I decided the only way to cope was to have another child, and God forbid anyone who got in my way! I was like some unstoppable force on the track. No one was determined to win that baby race as much as me. I was still in the early stages of grief, but I now had an alternative plan. I held on to that plan like it was the blueprint to happiness. I pushed aside my pain and motored on. More IVF. More debt. More failure. Keep going. More IVF. More debt. Another fail. Try again. And then… Gold! We got our daughter.
God, I love that child! I love her like nothing else in this world matters. But if I’m honest, she began her life as replacement for the child that died. Thinking about that now, I’m thoroughly ashamed of myself. Another confession: at my 16 week scan I was told I was carrying a girl. I cried. These were not happy tears though. I wanted a boy. I convinced myself that if I didn’t have a boy then life couldn’t be perfect again. I cringe when I think about it now. Getting used to the idea of carrying a girl took time. However, any thoughts of this baby being a replacement for Isaac soon vanished once I brought her home. She was Isla. In the most basic of ways she was nothing like her brother: she cried; she ate; she smiled. Basically, she lived. Isaac didn’t do any of those things. You can’t compare children to each another, especially when you never knew your first child long enough to do that. And thank goodness they couldn’t be compared. Isla deserves to be her own person. She will always be our rainbow, but she is not Isaac, and for her sake, I’m bloody glad I got over that early on.
So, I got what I believed would make me better. I had run the baby race and won. I had the most beautiful baby girl who I was completely in love with. But, the victory was short lived as the grief slowly began to rear it’s ugly head and returned with a vengeance. I had flashbacks of Isaac’s death; I went through the ‘what if’ ritual about 20 times a day and replayed alternative scenarios in my head of should have been done to save him; and I felt out of control and unable to concentrate on anything in the present. I was tired of fighting it. I’m still tired.
Why was this happening though? I asked that question to my therapist and GP many times over. And in truth, they gave me a reason why, but I refused to deal with it. When I started trying to get pregnant with my daughter, I had tried to ignore the grief. I addressed the symptoms instead of the cause. I wanted quick fixes to the anxiety, insomnia and crazy thoughts I was having. I didn’t have time to open up about how I felt as I was too busy trying to get pregnant again. And when Isla came along, I was too busy trying to be the best mum I could be. Of course, there’s the obvious moments where I give in to the loss: the anniversaries; seeing children who would be his age; the rites of passage like starting school etc. I accepted what they meant to a bereaved parent and would ‘feel’ the loss for that time period. After that, I would tuck it away and go back to having anxiety symptoms that I couldn’t get on top of because I refused to link it with the loss. But you see, it wasn’t completely my fault; life has a funny way of allowing you to miss someone, yet keep moving, therefore, not giving you time to process how you’re really feeling. And I did keep going through a number of other traumatic experiences that made me feel like I was cursed. But they needed attention too so it was easier to tuck away how I felt about the loss of my son and devote time to the practicalities of what needed done in those moment. I had the five year legal case to get justice for Isaac. Then I had the accident which left me disabled. Next, my mum died after a long, cruel illness. And adding to those things were the other day to day struggles with anxiety, flashbacks and general self loathing at times for not being able to control those feelings. But I kept going, refusing to accept defeat and wave my white flag. The running joke amongst family and friends is that I’m dead inside. I’m not. I just don’t talk about it. I don’t want to feel sad and depressed. And to be honest, after a while, people stop asking if you’re okay when you don’t automatically say “No, I’m not”.
I guess this is where I messed up. This is why it’s been so hard these past ten years. If I had opened up and talked about what I was really feeling may be I wouldn’t have to deal with this ongoing anxiety and fear. If the last 10 years hadn’t been so awful, maybe I would be at peace with Isaac’s death. But, life hasn’t been so considerate and as a result I kept dealing with the symptoms of anxiety without ever addressing the fear it ultimately comes from. And, that’s what I live with: fear. I’m scared I will die and leave my baby girl. I’m terrified of loosing more loved ones. I’m living with fear about the future, so much so that I hate to make plans in advance. Because, what’s the point in a plan? It can all change in an instant.
As I said earlier, there’s little that’s inspiring in this blog. I can’t promise anyone that after loosing a child you will ever feel normal again. However, during these the last 10 years I have had to learn to cope with my grief, albeit not as well as many of you may have believed. But after yet another period of anxiety where none of my usual tools are helping, now I’m ready. I know just getting on with things and living in this fear is not enough, and for the sake of my own wellbeing I need accept what it is that has created this fear and anxiety. It’s guilt.
I blame myself. I should have acted quickly. I should have screamed at the midwives to do something. I should have taken better care of myself. He died because of me. And, as a result, when anything bad happens or when my anxiety flares up; I have a voice inside my head which tells me I deserve it. Rather than listen, I have pushed those feelings of guilt back; and my mind and body punishes me further with anxiety for not admitting to where this feeling of guilt comes from.
Of course it’s not logical. Deep down I know that Isaac’s death was not my fault; the 42 accounts of negligence were not my doing. But ten years later I’m finally understanding that the events of Isaac’s death must be addressed if I want to feel better. I don’t want to live in fear anymore I don’t want to remember my son through guilt.
So, now I have a new plan. Past experience has taught me not to expect it to stay on course, and it might take me another 10 years to feel better. However, the difference between then and now is that I know to expect bumps and forks in the road. As long as I accept that there is no quick fix to my anxiety and grief, I’ll keep moving in the right direction though. No more standing still and fire fighting. I want to start living in the moment rather than catastrophising about the future; and this needs to happen now the sake of my daughter. In Isaac’s memory, I need to be brave. This is the new plan.
We continue to fundraise in Isaac's memory for the Evelina Children's Hospital. If you would like to donate please go to:
