15 June 2017

After learning of the problems our baby had, the developments that weren't, there was a time when I found it difficult to grieve, difficult to think of the baby I had dreamt of, because this baby did not fit into that dream.

After learning that there were chromosomal abnormalities, it became harder still to grieve for what "might have been", as the logical part of my brain knew that it never would have.

After learning that the chromosomal abnormalities were as a result of a balanced translocation, and learning that phrase, and what it really meant? Well, that actually helped me to grieve properly again. I'm not sure how or why, but it helped me to know that it wasn't random, and our child was that way for a reason. On the good days, I can think about our baby, and hope for the future, as the post-mortem helped us to find out that there was a problem, and pointed us in the direction of ways around that problem. Our child helped our future children live.

For those who have a miscarriage and never find out why, the grief will always be for what might have been. The life that could have been lived. For those who, like me, have a miscarriage and learn why, the grief changes, and although I still consider what might have been, it's now with a caveat, if it had been a different sperm. However, if that had been the case, everything would have been different, and for me, there are too many possibilities to imagine. It's like the butterfly effect, (the chaos theory, not the movie I have never seen) changing one thing changes many things, and I have to trust that this is the best possibility for me. This is true for big things, and little things.

Like: I never regret being late for work, because if I had left earlier, I might have been in the way of a car whose driver was not looking where they were going, and I would have been dead. I never regret leaving a party late, because if I had left earlier, well, number one, I would have missed the craic, and number two, I might have been in the way of a car whose driver was not looking where they were going, and I would have been dead. I like to believe that no matter how rubbish things are, for me to even consider an alternate reality, means considering one where I, or worse, those who I love, are dead, where in the current reality they are not. Perhaps it means that in my reality everyone lives for as long as they possibly can? Or perhaps it means that everyone I love lives for as long as they can in proportion to how much pain they can bear. I'd like to think that is why our baby did not survive; the pain would have been too much, and although we suffered pain, we understand why.

I will continue to have moments of "what might have been" in days when I'm in work, and would have been on maternity leave; in days when I'm visiting family, and would have been bringing a cousin for our nieces and nephew; on significant events, when I will think about the missing presence, and what that would have added.