the days in between

To begin I'd like to say a heartfelt thank you to all your lovely comments and emails since I last posted in May, We really appreciate your kind words and prayers.

It's been a bumpy couple of months. I've thought about when I may come back to blogging...I have come here to write a post a couple of times. I even hit publish on one of them a few weeks ago but had post remorse...if that's even a thing and then reverted it to draft a few minutes later...It was about how to help parents who are grieving, what to say to them and what not to say. I think it was after a day where someone had told me they knew exactly how I was feeling, having lost Isaac...because her daughter had lost a baby...she meant well but I'm not going to go into that. It wasn't the right time to come back. I have missed writing and from time to time I would read some of my favourite blogs...but it seems like everyone was pregnant, having babies...it was too much for me...some days it's still too much.

Since I was last here, we have been trying to start healing from the loss of our Isaac. Tim had a number of weeks off work and we went on a couple of small trips close by in South Australia, it was nice to be away and to stay in our pjs and eat chocolate and chain watch big bang theory. We stayed in Adelaide for a number of weeks until we had Isaac's funeral. But we eventually had to come home. It was hard coming home to Whyalla after being in Adelaide for so many weeks, around our family. Our house felt so big and empty...and I just didn't really know what to do with myself...

I have been seeing a psychologist which has been really helpful. She suggested I set little goals for myself each day. To start off with I set goals like get up and have a shower. She also suggested for me to create something special while I grieve Isaac. I haven't chosen one big project but I have been doing small projects to pass the time. I've also been doing a lot of reading. Some days that's all I could do. I've read some fiction and some books on grief; A force of Will by Mike Stavlund, Choosing to See by Mary-Beth Chapman, and a couple of books written by Bonnie Babes and Pregnancy loss Australia. The last two have been really helpful. They give accounts of other families who have lost babies and how life is for them now. I've shed a lot of tears while reading these books but it was good to let the pain out. I've also watched and listened to programs about grief. Radio National had a program on last week about still birth...which is different to what we experienced but I resonated with a lot of what the couple being interviewed said they felt. 

We had our follow up appointment with Isaac's doctor last week and it was a bit confronting. We had an autopsy done on Isaac because we never knew what had happened to our little bambino, and we weren't sure if it could/would affect future babies. The pathologist found a number of things in the autopsy that the doctors hadn't been able to find when Isaac was in my womb. It was hard to hear all these things but it also gave us peace about making the decision to deliver him at 31 weeks. Many times over the past couple of months I have wondered did we do the right thing. And from what we were told last week, yes we did. Our little Isaac never had a chance...if we had of waited he wouldn't have had a better chance, there were too many things that had gone wrong with his development. It was hard news to hear. But the harder news is that the pathologist and the geneticist were still unsure of Isaac's condition. 

They think it may be one of 2 things. One of them is a condition called Baller-Gerold syndrome . Dr Chris ("our" geneticist) isn't 100% convinced it's Baller-Gerold but there is a gene test to see if Isaac carried the gene for this syndrome. It's a test that is done overseas and will take 2-3 months for the results. We are anxious to find out whether it is this syndrome or not because if it is, the likelihood of this happening again to future babies is 1 in 4...so now we wait...some more. If it's not Baller-Gerold then Dr Chris thinks it is something called Disorganisation Sequence (which there isn't a gene test for), which should never happen again...if it is this then what happened to Isaac was a random stroke of bad luck.

It was Isaac's due date on Friday (28th June) which was very hard..actually that's and understatement, it was a horrible day. I was all over the place. Thankfully I had booked in to see my psychologist that day. It really helped me turn my day around. (Just as a side note I am a big advocate of people seeing a psychologist or counsellor if you've experienced some sort of loss, or are finding it hard to deal with life...if really helps talking things through with a professional who won't give you crappy token advice). It feels like getting through that day was a big step in our grief process. I do still feel very numb to life...the pain is still there but it's changed somehow...it's hard to explain. We are having more "good days" but grief is a funny thing and it can catch up with you when you least expect it. 

I'm not sure what Lozalicious is going to be in the future, I may even start a new blog to talk about my grief of lossing Isaac, and I don't know how often I'll be here but I hope I'll find enjoyment in blogging again like I used to...and I look forward to visiting all your corners of the net again too 

xxx

(the beautiful flowers are ones we received after Isaac was born)