~Fiona's Journey~

December/January 2003/2004

*Post read with the beginning of the month at the bottom through to the last at the top.

Thursday 22nd January 2003

 I am just very tired at the moment, Everything takes such a long time and organising all the kids, lifts etc is very hard, my wrist still hurts badly and to make matters worse it tipped down with rain all week, and last week as well. It is just so depressing! I have found the only thing that drags me through the day at the moment are the children, I think I would go crazy if they were not there to give my day some structure and balance. Jono continues to be such a ray of sunshine in my day, I cannot help but smile at his antics! This week another hurdle was past as it was Martha's birthday and Simon's birthday. Martha was only six so enjoyed a barrage of cuddly toys, dolls and fake make up!. and the angel teddy from Joshua!! I have had to slow down considerably with my wrist, anyone who knows me well will know how frustrating that is for me!! Today after school the kids wanted to paint so I set it all up and left them to it, when I came back to check they had all painted pictures either of Joshua or for him! It is sad to be aware of how much they love and miss him, but comforting to know how much they love and remember him as well.

Thursday 15th January 2003

 I am a bit slow writing this because last night I broke my wrist so I am in plaster up to my elbow! I see no point in lying to you all, I have been so open so far. I found it so very hard to go to the hospital, I kept crying! Everybody thought it was because my arm hurt so much, really it was that finally I was allowed to cry...and I just couldn't stop. Eventually I explained about Joshua and they were all so very kind, still I just cried!!! I now feel even more depressed as I cant drive for six weeks so have all the added pressures of trying to organise seven kids and all the school trips and after school activities. As Simon works so far away he is unable to help. It has been very hard. On a brighter note, we passed another hurdle, Abie?s birthday. Again the only way I can cope with the absence of Joshua on birthdays is to buy the child a little present and card from him, usually an angel teddy bear! Then at least he is still part of things and included in the celebrations. I find the nights that Simon is away even harder now. Night time can be both my enemy and my friend at the same time. My enemy, because it stretches out in all its dark loneliness in front of me and sometimes seems so endless, my friend because it finally provides a safe haven for me to cry and masks me and protects me with a dark blanket of seclusion in a way the day time cannot provide. I don't want to depress you so I will end here!

Thursday 8th January 2003.
This time last year I found out I was pregnant with Joshua. I guess the scary thing is that but the time I did the test his condition was already there. I was so happy and excited. Now today, to add insult to injury my period arrived as well. My body was really letting me know!

I have had to trail around the shops again this week as next week it is Abie's 16th Birthday and then the following week it is Martha's 6th Birthday and Simon's Birthday as well. All around me are happy mum's pushing babies, perhaps I just never noticed there are so many babies. It is so hard to look at them, yet so irresistible as well, to imagine that Joshua would be nearly four months old, what he would be doing, all his little mannerisms that we never got the chance to know. It is all those things that are so hard. To look at chubby healthy babies, and wonder why Joshua had such a terrible condition, that gave him so little chance in life is sometimes excruciating.

I guess I feel worse because everyone has gone back to school and work, and although I didn't really want to work this week I feel bad because I was not called upon, adds to my general feelings of uselessness! I know it will change and I will doubtless be complaining of being to busy, its just when everyone is out and I am on my own with Jonathan, I feel Joshua's loss so much more acutely. I know how much Jono would have loved to have him around as well. Needless to say all that excess love I have goes on Jono so he is becoming pretty spoilt I feel.

Someone once told me on the bad weeks you just have to hang on in there till the dark clouds pass, so that's what I am doing...hanging! See you next week.

Martha (in Gold wings) as Angel Gabriel

Luke and Bella (Luke is Joseph, Bella the angel behind him!)

Thursday 18th December 2003.
As Christmas approaches for the first time ever the thought of moving to the middle east where it is not celebrated looks very appealing!! I have now endured all the Nativity plays and Carol Concerts, each one with its own emotions and pain rolled in, and am now trying to get my head and body around buying all the presents, made worse by the fact I have to buy all my mothers for the children as well this year! I detest going around the shops and having all the friendly assistants wish me a wonderful Christmas, a very big part of me would either like to thump the next Santa clad one or scathingly say, 'no actually, I wont, my baby's just died!", but of course I don't you will be pleased to know! I just think it, grit my teeth and smile, before I walk away and brush the millionth tear away. The children have coped by writing cards to Joshua telling him about their school plays and how much they miss him. We have stuck these in his memory book as well. We all still find writing a very therapeutic way of dealing with the pain of not having him here. It is a private way we can all express to him how much we miss him and in some small way it makes us feel he is sharing things with us still. We have all signed a beautiful Baby's first Christmas card to him which is displayed in our lounge as well as a little china teddy with his name on. We have decided we will buy one each Christmas to remember him then. The children all made and decorated pots (ah that pottery A level was not wasted!) that now sit by his Grave in his garden. Inside these they can put anything they want to give him, beads ,stones, shells, wild flowers. I was meant to be working this week but only managed Monday as Jono got a very severe viral diahorrea which ended up with me taking him to the local hospital, where I gave birth to Joshy. I found this surprisingly traumatic as we had to have a lot of the same procedures done to Jono, and he kept saying "just like Joshy Mummy". The hardest part was being taken into room on the children's ward, it looked very similar to the one Joshua had died in, Jono started to scream and I burst out in tears, we must have looked a right pair! Thankfully the Doctors were very understanding and eventually let us go, as I did not want to spend the night there at all! I have found this week particularly hard, perhaps its a combination of factors. Having to work in school and talking to the excited kids about Joshua I still find excruciating, shopping and everyone so happy when I am just not interested at all, having to do so many things and organise so much when my brain is still functioning at a much slower speed, having the hospital experience, and just grieving still so much for him. I knew it wasn't going to be easy, its not, its pretty grim really, but again for often more subtle and unsuspecting reasons than the ones you would normally imagine. I will try to write next week about Christmas and what we did to remember Joshua then. Until I do, may I take this opportunity to wish you all every happiness this Christmas. Thank you for reading my story and for supporting me and my family so much, you have no idea how much all your comments have made. I send my love in particular to all my new friends out there who have also lost a baby this year. For: Elliot, Georgia, Darcy, Madeline, Viven, Imogen, Molly, Joshua, Jonothan, Daisy, Benjamin, Alexander and Daniel have a wonderful Christmas in Heaven with Joshua James. For all their mums and any others who are reading this, an extra lot of love from us this Christmas, as we all cope and remember our babies in so many different ways all over the world. Fiona

Joshua's garden decorated for Christmas.

Saturday December 13th 2003
The dreaded build up to Christmas has now begun, and it is every bit as awful as I had imagined although not in the ways I had imagined. Having now seen so many Baby's First Christmas cards, I decided to actually buy one! It was so good to look at them all and not avoid them. I chose one with appropriate words and have written it to Joshua telling him how much we will miss him this Christmas and stuck it in his memory booklet made me feel better to be proactive and do something than just keep trying to avoid the topic! The children have also written him cards and drawn him pictures telling him about their Christmas plays. Again they very much wanted him there and felt the need to express to him all they had done. Although it sounds rather bizarre, for us, it is keeping him alive and with us, and involving him in all we do, which I think, for us is more healthy. At the end of the day, as with all these things, you have to find your own way and the things that help you personally. I went back to work this week. It was very hard to pluck up the courage to walk into my classes as in each class there were students who remembered me being pregnant and asked how my new baby was. I found it hard to try to be very matter of fact about his death in front of noisy classes filled with teenagers who buy and large didn't really care. felt as I was telling them I was somehow trying to brush him off. I wasn't really, it would have been inappropriate to tell them how I really feel, but again, the inevitable guilt is there. I survived the three days I was in, but very much needed to be alone during lunchtime so that Joshua was not completely squashed out of my thoughts all day. I think perhaps some of my work colleagues could not understand why someone who used to be so vivacious and bubbly was now so sombre and silent. I enjoyed being in the classes with the kids again, but was very tired at the end of each day. It was defiantly good to be back, but I am glad I have the flexibility to pick and choose when I go in. I found that after I had finished, Thursday and Friday were very weepy days, probably because I had , had to swallow all my grief to get my job done well so it all came spilling out when I no longer had too hold it in. I also realized that I have come quite a long way now, little subtle things have crept in, without me realizing it, and ever so slowly my life is resuming back to how it was. Don't get too excited! They are little steps Things like spending more and more time downstairs in the evenings instead of hibernating in my bedroom all the time, being able to sit and watch something on the TV, picking up a book and reading it, not always remembering the key times or events in Joshua's life each week. Little things to anyone else, but huge steps for me. I find that the extreme pain of loosing Joshua has for me not diminished any at the moment. I still could cry at most points in the day still, the change perhaps is that I am now more used to, and comfortable with how I feel, instead of being surprised at all its intensity. Not every day is terrible any longer, but every day is filled with thoughts of Joshua and tears at some point. As the inevitable stream of Christmas concerts hit this week, I have cringed my way through all the songs about babies. joy, and hope. All my children have said that as they were singing them they were thinking of Joshua, I think they were all very brave, especially Luke, who as Joseph has to sing a duet with Mary about the beautiful new baby. He had already said it made him think of Joshua and made him feel sad, so I really felt for him as he was singing this. It made me realize again, that it is not just me that is finding this all so hard. Susie's class were watching The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe this week as part of their Christmas treat. Thankfully when it came to the part when Aslan dies her teacher stopped the video and suggested that Susie sit outside with a book. She was very grateful as often she feels very exposed at school. I will be forever grateful that her teacher thought to do this. Simon has his staff Christmas meal to attend, although of course he would rather not be there he has to go.

So we are all coping with the lead up to Christmas as best that we Can. find the hardest thing is to open all the Christmas cards that we have received that are addressed to us all as a family but Joshua's name isn't on them. For me he is so real, and so part of our family that I find it painful he isn't mentioned. Of course I understand why, it is just the feeling that he has been wiped out and doesn't exist. Hence on the ones I am sending his name is there! Again this is for me the most natural thing to do, he is and will always be a part of our family, so for as long as I wish, and feel comfortable, I will add him as such!

Memorial Service

Sunday 7th December 2003
Feel a wreck today because I have just driven all the way down to London and back in one day, we finally arrived back at 6.30am! Groan. The reason? To take Abie and two of her friends to see Justin Timberlake at Earls Court. They were unable to get tickets locally, so in a moment of madness last May I agreed to take them. Of course as the time grew nearer I became completely stressed about the whole thing. Ordinarily this would not have bothered me, as I have driven these distances before, I think its just handling the grief you feel is so utterly draining and overwhelming that to take on anything else just is very hard and stressful at the moment. The day began with us all going to a beautiful Memorial Service at Chester Cathedral, organized by SANDS (Still Birth And Neonatal Death Society) It was a service to help prepare for Christmas and celebrate the lives of our lost babies. I was in two minds whether or not to go, I wasn't sure we were all ready for this, but as the time drew nearer I felt I wanted to remember Joshua in as many tangible ways as I could at this time, and so did the children and Simon. During the service, Joshua's name along with all the other babies was read out and we went up and lit a candle for him and received a beautiful little angel teddy to put on our tree. One of the readings that particularly touched I have finished this update with below. After the service there was coffee and mince pies and a time to chat which I was unable to do as we had to leave to start our drive. I took great comfort from the service, I know it sounds really strange but it was the first time I had been with others who had shared the same awful experience as me, it helped to see others hurting as much as I did, I didn't feel so alone or such a freak! I hated having to leave the children and Simon so abruptly, I knew I would find this very hard, I wished we could have all gone home and talked about Joshua instead. I was thankful the the drive down only took 4 and a half hours and we even found our way through central London traffic on a Saturday afternoon, not for the faint hearted! By the time we arrived I was in the swing of things. Whilst they all went to the concert I wandered around London. I had grown up there so still know it very well. There were many people I could have popped into see, but I just wanted to be alone. If Joshua had lived it would have been so very different, I just don't feel up to being so exposed yet. I had a nice look in Harrods and then walked along the Thames. I decided I was very glad I live in such peace and beauty, as central London was so noisy and busy it would be hard to find Joshua there! We got very lost trying to get out of London, it took two hours as I could feel the panic rising. Finally we were on our way, but I was desperately tired so had too keep stopping. I was lovely to be home again, surrounded by everyone. It made me realize for me, my security is my home and my family, where Joshua had his final resting place and where all his things are, I hate going very far from this still, or being away too long. Still another hurdle achieved, the list goes on!!

Don't think of them as gone away.

Don't think of them as gone away,
Their journey has just begun
Life holds so many facets
This earth is only one.
Just think of them as resting
From the sorrows and the tears
In a place of warmth and comfort
Where there are no days or years.
Think of how they must be wishing
That we could know today,
How nothing but our sadness
Can really pass away.
And think of them as living
In the hearts of those they touched.
For nothing loved is ever lost
And they are loved so much.

~Bedside Memories~

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