Got through the weekend somehow

Well that was a tough weekend, god knows what Christmas itself is going to be like :(

Saturday was exactly 3 months since my precious angel boy Bailey was born.
We lit his candle for him, I have had the Julien Macdonald black vanilla scented candle for him ever since the day of his funeral in fact I really need to get a new one of them as it is running out and the smell reminds me of him so much I can't not have it in the house.

We would have gone to the crematorium but as I still have Bailey's ashes at home it was ok.

We spent some time alone shopping and having a quick drink in Bailey's honor.

I was so pleased to find this canvas in a shop (especially after seeing one in the angel mums group I am in)

The words mean a lot as we had the song played at the end of Bailey's funeral, at the moment those curtains closed around him and as ew eventually walked outside the chapel to look at his flower rainbow.

Sunday was another painful day, it was the due date for the little one we lost at 5 weeks in April this year, who Daniel has named "April"

We did try to launch a Chinese lantern from a local park, but typically as soon as we got in the car, it started pouring and got really windy so I was gutted when it did not work.

I was in tears over this, so in the end I came up the idea of lighting the lantern in the house and releasing it in our garden and our angels must have been happy with this because it worked beautifully.

Our lantern on its way to our angels Sunday December 16th 2012

Tomorrow is yet another difficult day, it will be 41 years since my mum and dad got married. I have decided to take my poor dad to the crematorium (If he wants to go of course) to see mum's memorial rose and Bailey's memorial of course, then am planning to take him to lunch as a surprise.

I know it will not be enough, but the day needs to be recognised.

Christmas is coming too fast now.

We are having my dad and younger brother over to ours on Christmas afternoon for dinner, it will be so strange as I have not seen them on Christmas since I left home at 19.

We are off to the in laws for Boxing Day so all going to be a bit stressful, not sure how I will be.

We have got an appointment through to see the fertility consultant again in mid January, the day we got Bailey's post mortem results the consultant there was annoyed we had been discharged and felt I should be under them still especially as we are trying once again.

Please keep us in your thoughts xxx

Two Sad Dates

I am dreading this weekend and not sure how to mark it.
Saturday December 15th will be 3 months since my Bailey was born sleeping and then the very next day it is the due date of the little angel I lost back in April this year, my middle son has named her (We decided little one was a girl because at the time I said I could not face the thought of her being a boy as after having 3 boys it meant I would be able to picture them too much)
But then Bailey came so that didn't really work out for me did it?

Just under two weeks ago my hubby took me away for a long weekend in Rome, he had insisted on booking it as he felt we needed time alone together and because he was very worried I was not getting a break as I have my dad over every week day unless I go out but I do not really have anyone to go out with these days so that doesn't really happen.

My dad loved staying over at our house with the boys for the weekend, he said it felt good to be useful bless him.

We went early on the Friday morning, it was the day it was 3 months since my mum died and I felt awful leaving dad
We had been to Rome before, eight years ago but had taken our youngest son who was nearly two at the time so was not too easy.
I found getting on a plane again upsetting as the last time I had done it was to leave my hubby and three boys on our family holiday to return to England to see my mum's body and plan her funeral.

We stayed at the same hotel because the location was just perfect, just between the Pantheon and the beautiful Trevi fountain.
I love Rome and it is always somewhere we said we would go back to.
It was lovely to be able to walk around hand in hand in such a beautiful place.
I wanted to make Bailey part of it as of course I SHOULD be very pregnant with him right now. We went into a church by the Trevi fountain and as we were buying a candle to light the little Italian priest stopped me and asked my name. When I told him he said "Of course" and pointed to a prayer card with a particular saint/arcangel on - Raphael for healing.
He said "He says "Helen no more crying, you must find things to make you smile" It was the strangest experience as I had not gone in there sad as such but this holy man had picked up on my pain.

One of the hardest times on our break was when it came to buying gifts, we bought things for the boys, gifts for my dad and brother, but then we were choosing presents for hubby's mum, it broke my heart because everywhere I looked I saw things my mum would have loved as she was a big one for gifts.
It was so so sad only being able to buy an ornament for her memorial in the crematorium.
Then we chose some little xmas decorations for Bailey's memorial plaque too.
It is all so so wrong.

How is this for typical, think hubby was hoping for the break to be more....romantic, but of course being a woman my body had other plans and decided to give me the worst af in ages. I was in agony and we had to walk around lots which was hard work, but we wanted to make the most of our time so I struggled through it.

So now we are back and the build up to xmas is really coming on. I hated putting our tree up the other evening, my 15 year old son is more like me than I ever realised before all this agony. He was in tears hidden in his room as the tree went up and I was in and out the kitchen trying to hide my tears from the rest of the family.
The only thing making it any easier (not the right word really) is that I have some decorations made with Bailey's name to hang on the tree, I have ordered some but some of the lovely ladies from the 2012 baby loss group I am in have been wonderful and also sent me some, just cannot get enough of seeing things with my angels name on.
We decided last night we are going to invite my dad and younger brother over for xmas day, this will be the first time I will have seen any of my family on xmas day for 19 YEARS! Hubby was really not sure about doing it as he was worried it would make it harder for the boys and me too, but how can we not have them over, it has only been 3 months and that day will break all our hearts.

I have only written one xmas card so far, it was to my secret santa in our angel mums 2012 group. I am struggling with the whole idea of writing cards and have even put notes on my facebook page asking people to make donations to my Bailey's charity fundraising pages instead.
http://www.justgiving.com/remember/36743/Bailey-Green
I am raising money for SANDS and also ACHING ARMS in his memory.

I have also set one up in my mum's memory as for her funeral we were asking for donations to Help for Heroes, her favourite charity to help the soldierd.
I thought it would help anyone still wishing to make donations and also it is somewhere I can make donations as birthday, xmas and mothers days presents that I so wish I could give.
http://www.justgiving.com/Helen-Green10

Merry Christmas to anyone and everyone out there xxx

Why? How? When?

Please excuse the not very imaginative title.

I know it has been a while since I last blogged and I was not sure I was even going to write again as it is not really making any difference to anything and I am probably just boring and depressing whoever might actually still be reading these.

I know I originally started this whole blog to tell the story of my journey struggling to conceive our so longed for baby number 4 but this has now become entwined with the loss of my mother as well as the losses of 2 precious babies this year alone.

November was always going to be an awful month as the 18th would/should have been my poor mum's 65th birthday, with my dad's 65th birthday only a few days later, closely followed by the long awaited and dreaded appointment for Bailey's post mortem results.

Mum's birthday was on a Sunday so I had arranged for us all to drive (well hubby drove bless him) all the way to Somerset where my severely mentally disabled brother lives in a wonderful care home. It was the first time I had seen my brother since our mum died at the end of August, I could not help bursting into tears as we arrived at the house after the 2 and a half hour drive there. My brother bless him just kept staring at dad, he, mum and my younger brother had spent the week in Somerset the week before she died so I can imagine as much as we cannot really know how much he actually understands, it was clear he noticed something was different.

With the help of two of my brother's carers we drove to the seaside, we had some of mums ashes with us and as the tide was out we had to walk quite a way to get to the sea to scatter some. It is hard to describe that moment, but we all scattered some, including my three boys who chose to take part (I would never have pushed them to) more amazingly even my special big brother came over to me as I was holding the container and then copied what he saw me doing, but he was so gentle and kept coming over to scatter some more into the sea. It was a precious moment.
I had bought some sky lanterns intending to send one up for mum and another for Bailey but despite trying for a long time (which my brother was unbelievably patient with) they did not light, probably due to the wind, I was so disappointed. 

I then started writing Bailey's name in the sand as I have started collecting photos of his name written on various beaches. I wrote messages to mum too saying happy  birthday and then the boys all started to join in too which was a lovely moment as was the moment my dad helped me finish my sand message to mum after I hurt my back.

After my brother's carers took him back to the house as he had had enough by then the rest of us went for a walk along the seafront, dad and my younger brother clearly had lots of memories from their holidays there with mum, I felt like an outsider once again which was horrible and I felt bad as the day was meant to be about mum.
I only had one memory of mum there, from a weekend we had all spent together a year ago.
The boys found the day very emotional and are really missing their nanny.

A few days later it was dads birthday, another very hard day as dad was not interested in marking it at all, but I still wanted to make the day about him  so we cooked him (and my younger brother of course) dinner, the boys got him a present and a card and I got him a card and will be taking him to see one of his favorite Irish groups next year.
We also went for a drink with him and my brother that evening which dad loved, he did get emotional as it was their local pub and the lovely landlady sent over a bottle of fizz for him which he did try to refuse until I said we should raise  glass to mum and him for both their birthdays.

Next month would be their 41st wedding anniversary, another hard time.

This week we finally had the hospital appointment we have been waiting over 10 weeks for, since the day Bailey was born and before really)
We arrived at the hospital about 20 minutes or so early for our 10.30am appointment with my gynae consultant. We were quickly ushered into yet another quiet room after we explained what our appointment was for. I could not stop shaking and thought I might have another panic attack as I had had one earlier in the week, but somehow I did not this time.
The consultant was someone I have known for years, I was worried as she had a tendency to be a bit of a joker, but she was lovely. She started off trying to ask me how I was but quickly realised I was not able to talk about myself so went straight into Bailey's post mortem results, which was a good thing as I had not been able to take my eyes off the report sat on top of my folder on the table in front of her/

Her first words were like being hit in the chest by a football, she said "He measured as about 14 weeks" She explained that although this is not totally accurate as they just measured him and went by a graph of average sizes she gently explained the report said there were "changes and signs" on his body that showed he had been dead a while before he was born. She did say that being in the warmth of my body would have sped these things up so he was probably closer to 15 weeks.
That might not sound major considering I had believed/hoped he had been closer to 16 weeks, but the thing is if he was 15 weeks it means he died the same kind of time as my mum, so I made that awful 6 hour journey home from what should have been our family holiday even more alone that I already was.
It means I did put my mums hand on a baby I had already lost yet was still carrying, it means I imagined feeling Bailey move inside me the week I was here caring for my distraught dad and my brother while planning my mums funeral myself and it means the day I had to phone the hospital without my husbands hand to hold to get the final CVS chromosome test results and discover we were having another little boy, he was already an angel.

She went on to talk about how massively swollen our baby boys tummy had been and that this was due to his bladder being so enlarged as it had never been able to empty even a drop due to a valve, I listened then asked if the valve had not been working normally and that was when she explained exactly how poorly Bailey had been, because you see there should NOT be ANY valve there at all, so this was an abnormality had had from the start.
She explained this meant as he had developed this while still so little he had NEVER had a chance and would never have survived much longer than he did.
This was especially hard to hear as we had been given some hope by the specialists we had been referred to.
So Bailey DID have megacystis which means the enlarged bladder, this can be caused by minor blockages that can sometimes clear themselves or be operated on in bigger babies, but Bailey's megacystis was not caused by this, he had a condition called PUV- posterior urethral valve.
This had also caused damage to his little kidneys as the urine in his bladder was flowing back up the tubes to his kidneys as the bladder was so full and was not able to empty at all.

I have asked for a copy of the report to be sent to me to read properly.

I was touched my auntie (mum's sister) text me to see how the appointment went, it is a particularly difficult subject for her so it always means so much that she genuinely cared and wanted to know.