Category: General     Long read

First of all, let me start by acknowledging that we are not the only ones who have been through tough times this year. I am sharing how we have spent the last month but this isn’t saying this is what you should do if you’re ever in a tough situation. It’s just our honest account of how we navigated December this year.

Our December began with an advent calendar which let us light a candle for Ivy each day. It felt really special because I decided to give up chocolate this year and this felt like a good alternative. It gave us a dedicated and focused moment each day to think of our baby. Not that we don’t think about her all the time, because we do, but this was us stopping everything else and pausing to say, ‘we love you Ivy’, even if we were just thinking it in our heads.

The first weekend of December was an important event for Ivys Gifts. Reverend Sally, who has become a good friend over the last few months, offered to donate to our cause through her annual Christmas Tree Festival. In doing this, it felt a little like therapy. I am learning, as I navigate my way through grief, that I seem to build things and events up in my head. The saying ‘the thought was worse than the actual thing’ could be my caption. For us, we weren’t even sure we would be able to go into the loft at home and get the Christmas tree down, let alone decorate it. What would be the point this year? It was beginning to become one of those thoughts. As we offered to help with the set up of the tree festival, our first job was (can you guess?) to decorate a tree. We did it and we enjoyed it. That night we went home and had the strength to do ours. As Ivy is a December baby, so many of our thoughts return to last Christmas. “Remember when I couldn’t help you get the tree down Mike because I was heavily pregnant?” “Remember watching the Strictly Come Dancing final last year and Ivy moving to the music in my tummy?” ” Remember how I couldn’t even have a mince pie last year because I had gestational diabetes?” All a massive part of the journey we were on to have Ivy but also tinged with the sadness that she is not here this Christmas, a mere 12 months later.

So the Christmas Tree Festival felt like our chance to begin a Christmas that was accepting Ivy was missing but incorporating ways to keep her with us through the festive period. The decorated trees were beautiful. Regardless of your religious beliefs, this was a community event that opened our eyes to the fact that people face a whole range of difficulties in life. What is more the different charities and commnunity groups demonstrate that even through troubles, people can do amazing things. It was incredibly inspiring but what I also loved is that Ivy felt a part of our Christmas. Obviously not in the way any parent would dream, but her life felt celebrated, especially when we were reading her dedications on the memory tree. These messages made me smile – she mattered and she was (and still is) loved. I will definitely be back next year, decorating Ivy’s own special tree. That’s a pretty big step for the couple that didnt think they’d even be able to put up their own tree this year.

Our tree at home was a complete mish mash, two different colours of tinsel, two different sets of lights and loads of little tributes to Ivy. Lots of people have given us baubles and decorations for Ivy this year and I have loved every single one. I love to see her name written, ivy leaves, robins or angels, so with each addition to the tree I have felt that she is remembered and honoured. It has been symbolic too I think that our tree,although there is no design or structure this year, was still beautiful. That’s what we feel like we are striving for, beauty despite utter chaos.

After the tree festival, we became crazily busy. There were last minute gifts to buy, friends to catch up with, trips to London, a car to MOT and service, a poorly cat to take care of and of course collecting presents for Wexham Park hospital. I think it was my way of not having to think about the emptiness I would feel if I stopped. People at work were very thoughtful, letting me do some filing when they were practising the Nativity (and singing about a baby being born) or checking I was okay after a guitar concert playing Christmas songs. I want to say thank you to those of you who have looked out for me during Christmas at work.

The Christmas songs have felt strange this year. They were playing in the theatre when Ivy was being delivered and so they made me happy but I found that for the first time this year I really listened to the lyrics. I found that I could cope with most of them luckily. Some were more tricky to listen to, such as Last Christmas, All I Want For Christmas and Blue Christmas. For me the most difficult song that I heard everywhere was strangely the East 17 song, “Stay Another Day” .The words “Baby don’t leave me alone like this” and “I’ve only just begun to know you” have bought tears to my eyes numerous times this Christmas, once while driving home so I had to quickly turn off the radio to block out the feeling.

Collecting the presents for the hospital might seem like a strange thing to do for a grieving parent. After all, we were filling up our second bedroom with toys and games for children when we couldn’t do that for Ivy. Yet, it was actually okay. It felt lovely to know that we could help in some small way. Last year I spent my Christmas in hospital and when we got given a small knitted gift set on the maternity ward, I remember feeling humbled that a stranger had taken the time to do that for us. Plus, as all our fundraising money goes to Oxford Hospitals Charity, it felt right to also help the ward where Ivy began her hospital stay in April this year. The response was far more presents than I had anticipated but this spurs us on so that we can spread the joy further next Christmas. I’m already thinking of more places that deserve some Christmas cheer.

Perhaps because we were so busy, December 24th soon rolled around and it wasn’t easy. As a child I always thought that Christmas Eve was always more exciting than Christmas Day. I loved the anticipation of what was to come, what presents I would receive, the thought of the yummy food, it was a good feeling. This year the anticipation of how we might feel on Christmas Day seemed to be bad. I admit that I did start feeling sorry for myself. When I am feeling uptight, I need to keep moving and so we got our coats on and walked to the cemetery. It is a long walk and it allowed Mike and I the chance to talk. I was feeling better when we had returned home, but still not Christmassy. As a child, I spent Christmas Eve walking to the local church to sing carols. It is funny how these small events in childhood become traditions. I knew St. Luke’s had two services running that we could make and I definitely would have taken Ivy this Christmas if she had been healthy, so I wanted to go. Plus, as our wedding and her funeral happened at the church, I always take a moment in this building to think of those events. That church has been there at our happiest and our saddest. I feel close to Ivy in that building and I wanted to feel that way so desperately. When we arrived a small baby was being held by her mum as she left the earlier service. I could feel myself staring, I remember that feeling. I fought back tears in that service but afterwards I did start to feel a little more festive. Mike and I have created our own Christmas tradition since we have been together that we always buy each other pyjamas, which we open on Christmas Eve before we play a silly Christmas board game. Last year, I was being admitted into hospital but Mike still made me open my new PJs so I could sleep in them in the hospital. That evening, snuggled up, the anticipation of how hard the day might be made me sob. How could this be our story? How couuld it be right that we would have to create a new tradition of visiting Ivy’s grave each Christmas? However, we had missed a call (while we were in the church) to let us know that Ivy had a new headstone and it had been placed. It was too dark to go and see it at the time but it felt special that we had got it there for Christmas day and her Boxing Day birthday.

The best way to describe Christmas Eve and my worry was that my mind was seemingly thinking parallel thoughts often jumping between three different threads. I will try and explain this in the best way that I can but here are some of the things my brain was processing:

1. What were we doing this time last year?

We thought a lot about the fear and anticipation we felt when we were admitted. We laughed at the pitiful Christmas dinner I ate and the fact that Mike didn’t have one at all. We spoke of the panic at which we drove to Frimley and the laughter of Mike dressed in his scrubs and pink shoes for the C-section. We remembered the crazy moment when we saw Ivy lifted over the barrier and how I thought she was a boy. We remembered holding her and feeling so overwhelmed. We looked back on lots of photos and saw how beautiful she was from the moment she was born. I know every parent thinks that, but even covered in her waxy vernix, she melted our hearts.

2. What would Christmas have been like if we still had Ivy with us?

We thought about that in two sub categories. The first was if she was healthy and well. We tried to imagine a nearly 1 year old Ivy, what would she look like? We pictured her opening her presents under the tree dressed in a ridiculously cute Christmas outfit. We imagined a Christmas dinner being eaten with her in a high chair next to us. We imagined gravy all around her face and carrots on the floor. We thought about how we would put milk and cookies out for Santa and how we would have got her an Ivy stocking. What would we have done for her birthday? How would we have distinguished between the two? Would I have made a cake? Who would have been at her tea party?

But then we also imagined what a Christmas would be like if Ivy had lived with all the equipment she would have needed. Would we have been at home? Would she have been in hospital on Christmas Day? What sorts of presents would she have liked? How far would she have deteriorated? Would we spend her 1st birthday worried that she wouldn’t make her 2nd?

3. What will it be like next year?

We wondered what would happen in 2020? We never could have anticipated how much our life was going to change in 2019. We had the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. We wondered if we would be in the same position next year? We wondered if the life we had a taster of with Ivy would ever be our reality again?

When I write it all down like this, it’s hardly surprising that on the evening of Christmas Eve, I cried. It was just too much. Our psycholgist calls it the jug spilling over, when you are just so full of emotion. I definitely tipped over with my feelings that night. How could our life have changed so dramatically in one year?

But then… Mike being ever logical, and ever lovely, said what about a fourth type of thought? What can we do today? What can we do right now? This led to a fourth type of thought, that we tried to return to when the other thoughts pushed their way in.

4. Living in the moment.

The first thing that this meant was we decided to turn off our phones. I didn’t want to be spending the next few days being interrupted by other people. I know people mean well when they message, but I needed to not think of the different situations that they would be in over the Christmas period. I didn’t need to be reminded of what tough times they had been through nor what joys they might have had this year. It’s a tough thing to admit that other people’s happiness feels painful to us and it truly is a pain. Leaving without Ivy physically hurts. So we needed to be selfish as much as we possibly could be. It meant we wouldn’t see photos of happy family Christmasses on social media. We learnt that lesson the hard way on Fathers Day. Not that we think people shouldn’t share their happiness with others, I am certain that we would have shared a photo of Mike, Ivy and I had she lived. It’s just we have learnt to avoid certain triggers that we know are painful for us. Without our phones on I instantly felt relaxed and I also felt free. I had no idea what the time was but that was not needed over the next couple of days. We were just living in the moment or at least trying to.

When making plans for Christmas this year, we were reluctant to see many people over Christmas day and Ivy’s birthday. This was definitely not because we were shunning people, more that we had no idea how we would feel. We didn’t want the pressure of being sociable if we felt like curling up in a ball. We would have hated to have ruined other people’s happy day if we got emotional. Maybe this was another reason we turned off our phones. In fact our Christmas became a bit of a bubble for the two of us and weirdly being in the moment allowed us to actually have a happy Christmas.

We opened our presents, took a candle and a plant to Ivy’s new headstone. We cooked our own Christmas dinner and ate it on personalised Christmas plates made a few years ago. We watched DVDs we had got for Christmas and went for a very muddy walk through the woods. We tried to keep Ivy with us through the day. We put a small Christmas tree next to a photo of smiling Ivy, we lit a candle for her. We chose one that smelt of clean linen as the smell of washing makes me think of her. We put a small cracker in front of her photo frame and we wrote her a Christmas card and put it out. We chose one that said “To a Daughter at Christmas” rather than “On Your First Christmas.” I don’t know why but that felt important to distinguish between the two.

Mike and I debated whether to wait up until 00.08 on Boxing Day morning as that was when she had been born, but in the end I was so tired that we decided not to. I guess the fact that this Christmas was so different was a good thing and also that wouldn’t have been living in the moment.

Having said that I was awake really early on her birthday, with lots of thoughts going around. I didn’t want to get upset and ruin her day and I felt determined to make the day as special as we could. This was Ivy’s Day and I also didn’t want to let Mike down either. We began by wearing something green. Although I can’t remember Ivy wearing anything green herself, we seem to associate the colour with her. Probably because the plant ivy and her charity logo are both green. I wore a dress that I had worn when pregnant with her and again this felt special to me. Afterwards we took another trip to the cemetery, where my parents were already there lighting candles and eating biscuits. When we returned later we saw balloons with messages from her Nanna, Pops, Aunties and Uncles. I know that the anniversary of her birth affects more people than just us so we wanted to thank all of you who acknowledged her birthday in whatever way you did. For us, Mike came up with the idea to ‘do something’ . We wanted to get out of the house but not many places are open on Boxing Day. We opted for a cinema trip. We sat and watched a movie and of course my mind jumped back to where we had been last year. It also jumped forward to how we could make this a new tradition if we are blessed with more children. However, I tried to stay in the moment when these thoughts crept in. Once home Mike and I moved her Christmas tree away, put flowers next to her photo and a wind up wooden musical box that played Happy Birthday. We had bought her a small birthday cake and we each ate half of it while her candle was lit again. We decided not to put up banners and balloons and to invite people over as I think if we had actually run the day as if it was her first birthday, her absense would have felt too huge. We finished the afternoon by writing her a short message in her birthday card and we each wrote her a letter. This was our chance to share how we felt with her and this was the time of the day when both of us wobbled, but only briefly.

Just like I wrote earlier, the thought of things are often worse than the actual event. It might seem strange to say but I have enjoyed Christmas and Ivy’s birthday. It hasn’t been without sadness at times but to be honest that is the reality of every day. I don’t miss Ivy any more or any less just because it was Christmas day. I don’t love her any more or any less because she was born a year ago.

I guess what we have discovered is that for us, life feels a little darker now as we live every day without Ivy. I like special occasions, we can have fun but there is a touch of sadness too. The memory of her birth at Christmas time is sadly clouded by the knowledge that she passed away. As we move into a new year many people regather and feel the need for a fresh start. For us we can’t ever pack away what happened this year or leave our baggage behind. To be honest we wouldn’t want to. Ivy is still a part of our future even though she is no longer in our present. I guess if our life was a painting, we have had black paint mixed into our colours and we are no longer painting the image we had imagined. Yet maybe, if we really try, we can still paint a beautiful picture using the colours now available to us.