October
In my last blog I spoke about why October is an important month in our calendar. But Rett Syndrome and Niamh’s birthday aren’t the only things that make this month quite big.
People who know me will know that I’ve experienced a lot in quite a short space of time.
For those who don’t already know, Niamh is my second child. I have a son who died in labour at full term (40+1 weeks).
He is called Arthur.
His birthday is 12th October.
He would have been five years old.
I became pregnant with Niamh very quickly after and my partner (R) left me about six weeks after Niamh was born.
I know. It’s quite intense isn’t it? I actually laugh when I say it out loud or write it down. It’s utterly ridiculous.
Within a 12 month period that all happened.
12 fucking months.
Even now, to this day, I find it hard to believe.
I have a lot of friends and people who learn about that period of my life that ask…
“How the hell did you do it?”
“How are you so positive?”
I remember after my son was born and I was sat in a hospital bed with him in a special cot so I could spend some time with him before he went to the mortuary.
I remember the pain of my heart smashing into a million pieces and not knowing how on earth I could live with such pain.
I just sat in this pain.
After some time I had this weird feeling.
I can only describe it like water flooding out of the brokenness of my heart… and filling up my body, except it wasn’t water it was a feeling, an emotion.
The feeling?
Love.
This feeling broke through the numbness and pain and heartbreak and drowned it.
I sat there in this feeling for what felt like an eternity.
That feeling was what made me decide to never give up. Ever.
Now the next part is pretty blurry for me. A complete fucking mess to say the least.
The turmoil and pain of losing one's child is a vacuous place and the fear of being pregnant again and what might happen was even more complex.
I reckon I’ve felt every emotion there possibly is… and I’ve felt them hard. But the one that I clung on to throughout it all?
Love.
After I had Niamh and R left I can genuinely say I think everyone thought I was going to lose the plot. Hit rock bottom. Be in a pit of despair.
I mean don’t get me wrong it was no picnic.
Nobody wants to be left, especially after having a baby.
It’s shit.
But something switched in my head.
I had a choice - to feel sorry for myself, feel rejected (all the normal shit you feel when you’ve been dumped) and wallow and stagnate in it OR to dust myself off, cry a bit and move forward.
I made a choice to keep going and be positive.
Love the world even harder than I had before.
It’s been almost five years since the beginning of this journey.
It’s been a painful one. An internal war over these years to not let the negatives and the anger and sadness drown out the postives and the light.
To turn my face always towards the sun.
I conciously made the decision to refuse to let it take complete control, to push through the uncomfortable-ness of life and the chaos that we all find ourselves in at times, to keep pushing forward through it all.
I choose love over fear and hate.
I would rather love hard and hurt than to never take the risk.
Because I strongly believe love is what life is all about. It’s the driving force behind the choices we make, or if it's not, it certainly should be.
Our world is losing that. I watch people daily choose fear over love. Hate over love.
The power structures that run our world do not do it with love. A lot of the time they are ruling through hate and greed and ego.
It seems to be our ‘go to’ in human nature.
With love comes vulnerability and boy do we hate to feel vulnerable.
Nobody wants to get hurt. Nobody wants to make the wrong choices or fail.
But I have experienced more love in the last four years than anything else. Because I chose it.
Sometimes life hurts… it really fucking does.
But to love life...
We heal because of it.
So to anyone out there who is reading this - choose love. Always.
In the darkest of times you can still find it, I promise.
It’s what we are.
It’s what the world needs more of.
It makes you stronger.
I don’t want to sound like some patronizing chick, who just because she got dealt a couple of shit hands thinks she knows how life goes, or thinks she’s got it nailed.
Because I don’t, I really don’t.
I just hope that if anyone reads this who cant see the light anymore, or fears the hurt life can throw at you, I just hope this helps a little.
I’m not perfect by any stretch of the imagination.
Boy do I have an ego and boy do I get angry at times. But that’s when you’ve got to grab yourself by the shoulders and shake yourself up a bit.
October is not only RETT syndrome awareness month...
From the 9th october it is Baby loss awareness week.
With the fear of sounding like a stuck record.
I feel uncomfortable in it all.
But ill just leave that there.
Im sure ill find an ease in it all some day.
But until then,
Hears to October, the absolute mother of all months.
What a challenge you are.
And hears to everyone else out there battling through life and all it brings.
Keep loving , keep turning your head towards the sun.
Without dark times we would never know the light.
So there you have it I suppose…
A bit cliché but I think it’s the bloody truth.
Lots of love to you all.
