My first, my last, my everything.

Well it's been a pretty awesome time for little Elin since the New Year. She is currently having one of the best 'runs' of good health we have seen since- well, in a long time! Her routine is excellent, she is having a brilliant time at school and has EVEN stopped crying on the bus. I can't tell you how much nicer it is to put her on the school bus smiling instead of screaming. Then, when the bus arrives back home at dinner time and the doors open for the lift to come down- NO CRYING! The silence is music to my ears. She has a little nap after school every day which is sooo cute- she has been tired out from all the playing and hard work! In general she is calm and happy. This means I am calm and happy. Life feels good again. However just recently I find myself being plagued by thoughts and memories of Elin's birth, which was so traumatic I frankly would rather never think of it again. I would like to erase it from my memory, like 'Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind' and yeah, I'm aware of how sad that is. But there was no happiness surrounding her birth only sadness, shock and deep, deep grief. I can hardly believe we had to go through it. In the past three years I have become very very good at burying the fact that I never saw her, held her. That we were told above all she may die, or be severely disabled if she did survive. That we spent those hours by her bedside watching her wired up to all the machines and the slow realisation that things had gone very, very wrong. So why am I thinking of it now? Maybe because more and more people my age are starting to have babies. Maybe because I am broody and I know somewhere in me that Im not done, that I want to be a Mummy again, that I want to try and claw back an experience taken from me. I want to have a baby and savour every moment, not want to wipe those first few days from memory. But I can't, too paralysed by fear. Like being in a horrific car accident then getting behind the wheel again. I can't. But I want to, badly. In the meantime I have to find a way to deal with the re-surgence of grief and upset from Elin's birth. I have to bury it again, before it consumes me with thought's of 'what if?'. I also have to find a way of not wanting to burst into tears when another person I know has a baby, and comes home, and has a wonderful time and it's everything they wanted. Because I really don't want to be that person, that jealous, bitter person that is hiding inside behind my memories of a terrible birth that was supposed to be so wonderful. Supposed to be my first, my last. My everything.