Grief in Three Parts: My Motherhood

It has been a rocky few weeks of ploughing through the pain and, me being me, I’m trying to work through it in a productive way. I'm not someone who really feels the comforting effects of wallowing, and I find it very hard to survive without a plan, without intention, but my plan isn't going to plan right now and I don't have any desire to form one which doesn't involve Posy. Even so, I know that I have to carry on, but moving forward without a purpose is proving impossible for the time being. For the first time ever, there is nothing that I am working towards, nothing that I am excited for and no sign of where I am headed. Yikes!

Ten weeks ago, everything was going to plan. I was about to start my maternity leave, I could feel my body accelerating towards labour and I was eagerly and impatiently awaiting the arrival of our little girl. The next year of my life had been entirely planned out; I was going to be a mother. Maybe I was too idealistic, maybe I was a bit naive of all the things that motherhood had in store for me, but either way I was looking forward to every minute of it; the good, the bad and the ugly. I was as prepared as any first time mum can be and I had a rough idea of what my general day-to-day was going to look like for the next twelve months. I knew how I was going to ensure that my maternity leave didn’t become too lonely; I had researched the local groups that might have given my week a bit more variety; I had ideas for how I was going to allow myself to keep being me rather than simply being swept up by the whole mum-thing and I had prepared for how I was going to survive the difficult baby days. I even had an idea of how and when I would be going back to work once that year had finished. I think, because it was such a significant amount of time, I can’t help but look forward with that specific time frame in mind. I can’t help but see the next year as a vast chunk of time to fill knowing that, despite my plans, it won’t actually be consumed with having a little one to take care of. Rather, it appears it's going to be a year of grief and mourning and being a mother without anyone to mother.

The plan was to raise, teach and mother Posy. I know that I am still her mum, but merely knowing this doesn’t really help with providing my days with a sense of fulfilment. I can’t mother her in the way I expected or in the way I had planned to and, as much as it is lovely to hear people remind me that I’m still her mama, there isn’t an easy way to do it anymore. There’s no textbook on how to mother a child when that child dies. You can’t prepare for it, you can’t go on courses to learn how, you just have to muddle through it and hope that you’re doing the very best you can. Instead of living the motherhood I had prepared for and learnt about, I am going to have to teach myself a new way of being Posy's mama. But in the mean time, I am stuck in a mourning period for the motherhood that I have lost. This isn't the journey I had dreamed of; in no way had I imagined that it would look like this and I’m pretty sure that this isn’t what anyone else had imagined for me either.

When I was pregnant, in fact even before then, all I kept hearing was how everyone thought that I was going to make a great mum. People would say things like, ‘oh you’re going be a wonderful mummy’, ‘I can see you as a mum’, ‘I’ve always thought you were going to have a little girl’. When Posy finally arrived it didn’t really change. I was told how well I was doing and how much of a natural mum I was. Now, not so much. Of course I have the encouraging messages saying how strong I am, how brave I am and how Posy was lucky to have me as a mum - and I am very grateful for those messages - but I am left wondering whether I have fallen into a new category. One that no one really knows how to handle, a club which no one wants to be a part of. Am I now seen just as a grieving mother, a mum without her baby, Mama to a little girl who isn’t here anymore?

My definition of being Posy’s mama has changed, painfully and abruptly. My entry into the world of motherhood hasn’t been normal and my brief enrolment in the ‘mum club’ feels like it has already come to an end. With Posy in my arms, I literally had my foot in the door, only to be pulled out and have it slammed in my face. Now, without a baby, it’s as if I don’t qualify. Even though I am still very much a Mum, I don’t fit in, I’m not eligible to be a part of it. It feels like I am still peering in from the outside, waiting to be a ‘real’ parent, waiting to have something to mother, waiting to be allowed in.

I am trying my best to get out the house as much as I can, but it is so hard when I know exactly what I am stepping into. I can’t go to a supermarket without seeing mums at the tills juggling avocados, purse under pit, with baby thrown over their shoulder. I can't go for a walk without having an army of prams chase me down the road. I can't see family and friends without feeling that Posy is meant to be with us, the centre of attention of course. And I definitely can't go to a coffee shop without sitting within earshot of a group of mummies and their babies, hearing all about the wonders of being a mum. Any time that I have managed to summon up the strength to go out, it’s like someone has dragged me up to a window and pushed my face against it, showing me everything that I'm missing out on, everything that should have been and everything that my motherhood doesn’t get to be. Here I am, sat in the corner of the coffee shop, a complete outsider, wanting to scream at them. ‘I am a mum too’! But, like I said in the bump post, there is no visual evidence that I am a mum so, how on earth would they know?! I think this is the real kick in the teeth that comes with losing a child. I might catch their eyes and have an awkward smile but they don’t see that I am one of them.

Last Saturday, after our belated Mother’s Day lunch, I suggested that we go for a stroll towards the cathedral and around the lake at Verulamium Park. However, I don’t think I thought it through all that well. Almost as soon as we were on the path leading down to the lake I felt my heart break, my stomach tense and the sudden swell of tears that I have grown all too familiar with. I realised that this was an image that had been stuck in my head for a long time, the only difference being that Posy wasn’t with me. Since I can remember I have envisaged the park being an important part of my motherhood. I love how beautiful it is, all year round, and how peaceful it is and I had imagined the memories it would hold in the childhoods of the mini-me's that Michael and I were going to raise - just as it had in mine. The sharp sense of affliction I had surprised me, but it was real nonetheless; I was going to have to wait longer than I thought before that dream became a reality.

I know that it’s okay that I don’t know what I am going to do next, that it is completely normal and that no one expects me to have a plan. In fact, I have been told not to even try and visualise a plan but instead, to stay and settle in the nothingness until I feel ready. But, at some point or another I am going to have do something; my days are going to need motivation again. So I can't help but question, when will I feel ready and what if I never do? When will everyone’s expectations change? What do I do when they start suggesting that I really should be doing something? What does being a mother to Posy even look like? Right now, I have no idea and I get a stabbing sense of guilt whenever my brain naturally starts to plan for any sort of future. I know there will be many steps in the process but I am determined that whatever I do next, just as it would have if she were here, will centre around my identity as Posy's mama. While I mourn the one that I had planned for, I will learn to live a new kind of a motherhood.

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Becca x