Reflecting on Six Months of Charlie

This afternoon, six months ago, I was being flown to Charlie's hospital in an Air Ambulance. I'd been without him for 24 hours and so much had happened in that time with his life only holding on by a thread.

That evening will always be one of my favourites. My dad was able to drive Gracie up and I remember meeting her downstairs at the hospital entrance. Holding her felt like everything. It was late at night and she was still so chirpy and sweet and excited to see her new baby brother. We hadn't told her yet but it was her birthday. I remember being excited and felt so happy, even given the circumstances, for her to meet him. She peered over at him lying in his crib with his beanie and eye patches and breathing tube and she said, "I just love him."

How has it been six months? Half a year! But then again, how has it only been six months!? How is there still a lifetime left to feel his absence?

The last couple of blogs I've written, I've felt I've expressed my acceptance more. Some days, I can look at his death as part of our story and some days, like today, his absence tears me apart. It aches down to my very core.

I miss who he would have been. The giggly little six month old, that would be sitting, trying solids for the first time. Gracie was born the day after Charlie and so all the memories of her, three years ago, remind me of which milestone he would be developing.

I also miss who he was. I miss, so much, being able to walk down those halls, being able to wash my hands at the infection control station, knowing with some certainty that he would be there. Now, I think of that little crib that he used to lie in, that would be filled by another sick little baby and know, that I don't ever have the chance of seeing him again. If I could only share with you, how beautiful he was. How wise he seemed. How I felt that when I looked into his eyes, I'd always known him. His fight was inspiring.

I miss who I was in those days before I birthed him. Six months ago. That woman was so assured that she was going to be holding a baby in a few days time. That in July, she would have her hands full but her heart overflowing. I've been replaced by someone I can't yet encapsulate but she is no longer the same. Some memories came up from a year ago today, a Snapchat before my sonography appointment, excited to have a picture of the baby growing in my belly, a video of Gracie rocking a pumpkin, 'practicing to be a big sister.' I feel the joy of those moments and now the sadness of what that Lauren didn't know.

I transformed the morning Charlie was born and I died the afternoon he died. When I left him, in his cuddle cot and walked out of those NICU walls, I left behind Charlie and I left behind the person I had been for 29 years. Bradley lost the wife he knew. Gracie lost the stable warmth of her mother. My friends lost the version of me that they were easily comfortable with.

I really don't know how to summate the last six months. There's been times, I've given up on living and sent my soul somewhere else because otherwise I'm not sure how to endure it. Some days I feel numb, frozen in pain. It's there but it settles deep in my chest. Some days the loneliness swamps me, and I realise, that there's no one else that can grieve Charlie as I do. Some days, his presence (and absence) sits within me softly. I notice it and cherish him. I've given up, I've fought, I've struggled, I've done the soul work, of picking up the pieces and learning how to rearrange them. I've loved. I've loved so hard and some days that feels like the hardest thing of all.

Today, I've had a day. I would be tempted to call it bad but I'm on a mission to neutralise my emotions. It's felt hard. I've felt out of routine. A day of parenting Gracie alone. I haven't been able to grieve openly in two weeks, being away overseas, and then, even though it's been on my mind a lot, six months hits me hard. I've struggled to balance being able to grieve and parent. I've lost myself to Charlie and I've lost a bit of myself as a mother to Gracie as well. I am keenly aware of my absence. I've felt my nervous system, be so low, that I feel threatened by her, even when when she's playing. I feel keenly, the elements of my communication that I could have vastly improved upon. I've snapped at her when she's been wriggly, "just go away then." And my beautiful, kind, three year old has snuggled up to me and said, "I won't go away, Mum. I love you and I'm not going to leave you."

My inherited brain, blames myself and tells myself that I'm a no good mother. That I'm messing this up too. That I'm a crumpled, shell of a person. The counselled part of my brain, tells me to look at today with kindness and compassion. This feels hard because it is hard. It's hard because here I am, six months down the track with a still gaping wound in my heart, still taking Movicol from my tear, still struggling to navigate life as a family with an angel baby, knowing that this wound is forever.

If I can stop though and consider how far I've come, perhaps the two trains of thought can coexist. There were days where I'd stopped eating and drinking, where I'd slipped into psychosis from my nervous system being so low, where I simply was in a tunnel that was dark and long and warped and I was not in control. Six months later, I've survived, I've managed a lot of the firsts; first Woolies trip in a small town, first time back at work etc., I want to eat mostly nutritious food, I've trained for and run a half marathon, started a blog, raised $2500 for the NICU, been on holidays twice and lay in the sun and felt a sense of peace and warmth. I've got strategies to help myself out of those deep pits and my sweet girl is so emotionally profound and kind, despite the loss she's experienced.

I'd like to leave this post today with a little note to Charlie to commemorate his journey earthside six months ago.

My son,

I still feel that assuredness, trepidation, the nervous excitement, the love and trust that was all bound up that night I laboured with you. We worked together to bring you earthside. You tried so hard despite nothing being the way you'd been told in the Book of Instincts.

I'd heard multiple times, that when you birth a baby, you go to the stars to fetch them. With your older sister, that was taken from me but with you, I felt it. I went there and then you were here.

If only I could re-experience the horror of that moment, when you came out not breathing, just to re-experience your warmth again. To feel your skin again, for that split second you were on my chest, before you were whipped away again. And in the NICU, those beautiful deep blue eyes, that searched for mine when you heard my voice above you. If only I could see them open once again. To do that, though, would be to put you through all that pain again.

I feel so intensely sad, that you only got a taste of the love this world can offer. That you only felt a few seconds of sun on your skin as you were transferred into the ambulance. It would be more clear cut for me just to enjoy these things for you, if I wasn't your mother because my being is so bound to yours and to the responsibility of protecting you. Instinctively, I feel, I would give my life for yours.

But that's not our lot. That's not our story to tell. This is. And I will continue to share with the world your love. I am your keeper now that you have gone to join the angels and I will keep your flame alive until mine is extinguished.

The last nine + six months with you in my life, in all the ways you have been, have made me a richer person for it. Having you there, rather than not at all, has been one of the blessings of my life. Here's to working towards a year of knowing you earthside, remembering you, loving you.

Love always,

Your Mama