Waiting.And while I'm waiting it seems I'm not alone, and what I do know is that if hopes and wishes are enough to get baby boy here safe then we have plenty of those.
I might be distant, a little distracted, tearful, scared and a million more emotions, but I'm thankful for all your good wishes, truly thankful, and hoping all these hopes and wishes will be enough.x

It's been an exhausting day in hospital, scans, and monitoring and examinations, and swabs, and tears and hands held.
Baby boy will be with us soon. We are booked in for an induction on 15th July.So the countdown begins.

The small talk in the street.(and wondering, "have they really forgotten?")
The first stawberries from the garden.(that never quite make it into the house.)
The cheeky robins sitting on the swing.(Who sat there keeping me company last year when I was in labour)
The Boden summer sale.(and the dresses I didn't dare buy.)
The summer term inset day.(and being grateful for a day at home.)

All the little things are still the same, and she should be here.

Every kick and wriggle from baby boy reassures me for a moment, then I wonder, was it too hard, was it his last?
I don't trust my body anymore, I want him out, I want him in my arms and alive and safe, and there are no guarantees.

I think there is a good chance I might lose my mind completely in the coming days.

Some days the tears are near the surface, some days buried deep, and some days they surface suddenly to hot stingy eyes, and are accompanied by loud sobs I didn't know were there...or I was pretending they weren't.
I've been feeling really rather calm lately, eerily so, almost detatched. Like with any emotion I've tried to just feel what I'm feeling, just sit with it.I know whatever it is,it will change and there's little point denying it or trying to overide it.
This calmness is what it is, it's not an omen,if anything it's just my brains way of coping in these last weeks.
This morning though as I waved off Woody and the children, those hot stingy eyes gave me away, and for just a second I could picture an eleven month old little girl at my feet, waving them off.Then a second later could almost feel her head heavy on my shoulder.
I don't know how to get through the next few weeks. I don't know how to miss Florence and wait for baby boy without losing my mind.

We've been in Scotland for the past five days. We stayed in a cabin on the shores of Loch Lubnaig.
We almost had to cancel our trip after Woody, the boys and myself all came down with a violent stomach bug on Saturday night. We were fit to travel by Monday morning though, and with fingers crossed that the girls had escaped the bug we headed off.
I had a few little wobbles about being so far away from home, and more specifically away from my local hospital, my consultant and my midwife, and a bigger wobble when on Tuesday morning I blacked out for a second in the car. I'm certain it was only the remains of the bug plus a little low blood pressure. It didn't happen again.
Despite my wobbles and slight worries, it was good to get away. Of course I always feel I've abandoned Florence.
I bought lots of trinkets to decorate her grave, souvenirs from a holiday she could never go on. I'll take them to her today.
I also bought a little tweed rabbit for baby boy. I fell in love with tweed while away and have a million ideas in my head for a winter wardrobe and a few other things all made from beautiful tweed. I'm always relieved to know I can still be inspired, sometimes I think my brain is so weary from grief and from pregnancy after loss that there is no room left for creativity, but I have a page in one of my notebooks full of "Scottish inspiration" , and perhaps even some plans to keep me busy over the next few weeks until baby boy arrives...and he's going to arrive, and I have to, and I do believe he's going to be well, especially since I've just sent Woody off to collect a stupidly expensive,but beautiful pram to push him around in. (I was brave and talked prams over the phone with a salesman, and didn't cry even when he suggested I pay a deposit for it now and collect it after the baby was born...maybe he has experience of dead baby returns...who knows.)

It's not nesting ! It's simply making the most of Woody being home and getting on with all those pesky jobs around the house.
I have a list taped to the fridge and am crossing things off with great satisfaction as I go.
Just having a tea and much needed chocolate break.

This is a pin board I whipped up for India's room, which I decorated a while ago now, but has only been tidy enough for me to actually open the door and hang this board for about 30 minutes ever since.

I hung the bunting I made too.



Now it's back to painting Eden's room, the tiniest room in the house and it's taking far longer than anticipated painting pale green over dark crazy coloured walls.

Just quickly want to say thank you so much to you all for the comments left on my last couple of posts, knowing you are all willing me and baby boy on is a great comfort. I can't promise my posts here are going to be terribly sane over the coming weeks, but I'm trying.

I cast on this matinee coat yesterday, I'm knitting it in size 3-6 mths, thinking of cooler weather come September, all very practical for a normal pregnant Mama, but a minefield of emotions for this one.
Knitting has never really been my forte.I usually enjoy it,but get frustrated with my lack of skill. This pregnancy however, keeping my fingers busy in the repetitive click clack of the needles has been calming. I don't understand it,but it works.
I had thought perhaps I'd knitted enough for baby boy, but having nothiing on the needles was disconcerting. A new knitting book and an expensive trip to the yarn store, and I'm feeling..well not better, but calmer.
I still cried as I cast this on yesterday.

I said in my last post how I'd only really started to just think of myself as pregnant, and I think the realisation that sometime fairly soon I'm going to deliver a baby, and he's either going to live or he's going to die is hitting me full force.
I'm distracted, and I'm exhausted and I'm scared.

I really just want to be normal again, to rub my belly in public and glow with anticipation. I used to love pregnancy, I was confident in my pregnant body.

I want to say to Eden that the dinosaur she's making for baby boy is lovely without pondering silently that it's actually too big to fit in a coffin.

I want to not wonder how or where I'll store all of the baby things if we don't need them.

I want to pull the bedside crib out of storage without thinking it might only have to go back again.

I want to not be afraid of going to the baby store to order a pram.

I want to not have to sit on my hands whenever I see a comment on a forum from a normal happy preggo, about normal happy preggo stuff.

I want to not look up and catch women in the playground glancing in my direction in pity, then looking away.

I want to believe everything will be ok, but I don't want people who barely know me to tell me it will all be ok this time. They don't know, they didn't hold their child in their arms as she took her last breath, as her heart stopped beating....

I just want baby boy here, safe and sound x

And I think I'm finally starting to think of myself as really pregnant, which if you could see the size of me might sound slightly crazy.
Baby boy is big, currently estimated at 3lbs 6oz, I know those estimates are not terribly reliable, but he feels about that. And he's still a he. I double checked yesterday at my scan.The sonographer was very patient with my paranoid questions.
I also saw my consultant yesterday, and we are on track to induce sometime after 37 weeks, so hey maybe I've only another 7 weeks to go...we'll see.
I'm still telling everyone 10, and telling myself the same, while focusing on getting through the next minute,hour,or day depending on how emotional I am at the time, and these days I'm very emotional.

My consultant is a very lovely man, and yesterday in the process of explaining something to me he used an example of a woman who had two babies die. Now my logical brain understood the whole of what he was telling me, but my crazy babylost brain just picked out "again" it happened "again" and that word has been whirring around in my head ever since.

I've tried not to imagine baby boy in my arms,but sometimes I admit I do, just for a second.
I don't have the same feelings I had when I was pregnant with Florence, I do believe he'll make it, but then I know like any other babylost parent does that it can happen.

I often have that old Smiths song in my head, just begging the universe to please please please...

Baby boy is due exactly two weeks after Florence was born,so many events,birthdays,holidays,etc are running parallel and sometimes it's really hard.
Today was Sports day for Sid. Thankfully, the venue had changed,I really don't think I could've gone had it been held as usual in the vicarage garden, too many memories of excited conversations looking forward to birthing Florence.
This morning I found a spot to put down my picnic rug and sat quietly waiting for the children to arrive, and yes trying really hard not to cry. I watched babies that were born last summer crawl off with tired parents chasing after them, and couldn't imagine Florence ten months old and doing the same.
Just when I thought I might leave early a friendly voice said "there you are". A lovely friend came and sat with me, and we chatted, and despite still feeling kinda shakey inside I knew with her there I could stay.
Only two more sports days this week, maybe now I've done one,I'll cope better at the next two.

I think I may have just invented a living Florence. Waddling home from school in the heat, a Mum I don't know,but whose daughter is in Sid's class asked me if this baby was my third.(I had Angus and Sid with me). I replied that no, it was my sixth, and she was totally gobsmacked, exclaiming loudly to her daughter and husband that I was expecting my sixth baby.
Then she looked at my large bump and asked when I was due, cue more exclamations at my size and how much bigger I'm going to get by August. (sigh)
By now I was trying to avoid her,but she lives on the next street to me, and we were going the same way.
"Do you know what you are having?" She asked.
"Yes a boy" says me
"Oh, well I guess you have some girls too?"
"Yes" and I start to shake, and glance over at my friend who has now caught up with us.
We cross the road and I scurry away feeling like shit, and leaving her with the impression I have five living children, and no doubt next time I see her I'll have to pop her bubble and tell her one of them is infact dead.
Shit shit shit!!!

Another quick knit. I love this yarn, it's Jacob Sheep yarn, so the colour is the colour of the sheep, and it smells so divinely woolly.

Well meaning people keep asking me every day how I am. I'm not sure what reply they want to hear.
When I tell them that physically everything is fine, they look relieved, and I say quietly in my head "but everything was fine with Florence". I think most people still don't get that. In fact I know some people think that having her at home somehow caused her death. No one wants to think that sometimes babies just die and no one knows why.
People are reassured when I tell them I have a consultant, and I'm going to hospital this time, they just don't get it.
Sid's teacher asked me yesterday if I was having a c section this time. While it's a possibility, my consultant has already stated quite clearly that had Florence been born by c section, she still would have died.

Physically I am fine, and as far as we know so is baby boy. Inside my head though, well that's quite a different story. Sometimes I wish I was like Worzel Gummidge, and could take off this head,swap it with another for a while, just for a break.

Can't do that though, so I'll just keep on keeping on, and even though I cried while sewing the buttons on this little vest,I'll just keep on hoping baby boy gets to wear it, and wishing Florence were here to get under my feet and stop me having so much time to knit.

Despite the fuzzy head I still needed to tidy up my work space, and while putting things away I remembered I wanted to make a new cover for this cot quilt.
I know baby boy can't use a quilt (duvet really) until he's a year old, but the bedside cot will go up in our room eventually, and it'll be nice to have bedding that suits the current decor.
I used some of my Blue Dahlia fabrics, printed by Spoonflower on lovely soft interlock. The reverse is killington flannel, and I've used resin snaps for the closure.

I finished the blanket I've been working on for baby boy. I started knitting this in the early weeks of pregnancy when everything was so unsure. I thought if I could just knit and keep my hands busy...
So, I kept on knitting until I ran out of yarn, then inspired by the Bunny Blanket in Vintage Baby Knits, I added three little bunnies in this lovely floral cotton, and bound the edges of the blanket with Killington Flannel.
Lots of hand stitching, which I always find therapeutic, and I'm really happy with the "homespun" finish.
There is a lot of love in this blanket, and I think it's going to the hospital with us.

I can't explain this, but I've found myself browsing a baby equipment site and gazing longingly at a pram! What's that all about?
Yesterday I was not feeling good, I was sad and worried, and then something changed and I had an urge to buy a pram for baby boy...or to at least choose one.
We don't need a pram, I'm a babywearer most of the time, and we have our ancient, very well used Mountain Buggy, but here I am seriously considering buying a pram.
Partly I think I want baby boy to have something that's chosen just for him, something fairly indulgent that I can barely justify (it's expensive), maybe buying him a pram means he'll have to stick around to use it?
Whatever, I do feel quite, dare I say it...excited at the thought!
Of course, I haven't actually clicked on "add to basket"...not yet!

Oh how I wish that were possible. Some time out from grief and from worry. Death just doesn't let you take a break.

While I was pregnant with Florence I practiced postive visualisations, I listened to hypnobirthing cd's, and I knew how her birth would be...it was exactly as I'd visualised, in almost every detail. I just forgot to visualise a baby that would live.

I do try to be positive now, but after every positive thought, there is the "if he lives" tag line. I hate myself for it, but sometimes I think I just have to acknowledge those thoughts then let those thoughts go, try not to hold on to them.

I can't visualise baby boy's birth, because I don't know how it will be yet. There are questions over c sections, inductions, swabs, iv antibiotics. All I do know is it will be in my local hospital, my mw has promised to be there, my lovely consultant will be there and Florence's pead will be on alert.

Sometimes I catch myself daydreaming about holding baby boy in my arms, carrying him in a sling, but I stop myself fairly abruptly, because what if....

It's funny the things I can do to prepare, and the things I can't. I figure whatever feels right is right.
I can sew and knit for him, but only those first sizes. I can, and have started to pack a bag for the hospital...though not his things, not yet.
I can't order a new car seat, I can't pull out the crib,and the baby bath, the pram and all that stuff. I can't sort through the teetering pile of slings and hang the wraps ready on the door.
There's one maternity dress I wore last year that I can wear, but many more hung forlorn in the wardrobe that I just can't put on.

I just need a break from this grief and this worry. I just wish I could join in the normal pregnant Mama chatter, that I didn't flinch everytime someone glances at my bump, or have to stop myself from cradling my bump in public.

The other day while waiting at the pedestrian crossing I saw someone I vaguely know glancing sideways at my bump. I braced myself, but also reminded myself of this sketch from an old tv show, and had an internal giggle. This either proves I still have a sense of humour or else I've truly lost the plot completely!

While getting Sid ready for school, I mentioned how wriggly baby boy had been during the night.

"But he wont wriggle when he's born" Said Sid.

"I expect he will, and you can hold him."

"He might die, and then he wont wriggle"

"We hope he wont die, we hope he'll be fine"

"Florence died. Why did Florence die the day she was born?"

"We don't know sweetheart."

"Dead babies go to the cemetery. If our baby dies he will go to the cemetery with Florence"

I guess, he just doesn't know any different.

I remember reading in Veronika's book The Drinks Are On Me, about her mother nursing after the death of her sibling and being able to taste the grief in her mother's milk. The idea haunted me, and when I was donating my breast milk after Florence died I hoped the babies it went on to feed couldn't taste my grief, but just my love for Florence and my hope that my milk (her milk) would bring those babies the strength it could never bring to Florence.
Last night I was lying in bed watching my tummy, watching baby boy wriggle and kick about, and I wondered, can he taste my sadness in the amniotic fluid? Does he feel the pain in my heart? That pain and memories must be in every cell of my body, and therefore in him?
I guess if he can sense or taste my sadness he can also taste my hope and love for him?
I simply can not reconcile my love and pain for the loss of Florence with my love and hope for baby boy.
Is it possible? I know I will always love all of my children, and Florence is no exception. Baby boy is not a replacement child, he's our child, another child for us to love and care for.
This balancing act of grief, and hope is tortuous.

Nothing like some lovely pressies to help cheer up the day. This is my beautiful Mothers Day gift that got stuck in customs, so I only received it yesterday. It's so beautiful, I really love it, and the chain is long enough that Florence just sits on my bump right next to her baby brother.


Also arrived today, my birthday pressies! My birthday isn't for another week or so, but since I chose these myself and ordered them myself I didn't think there was much point keeping them wrapped up until then.
I'm so excited about the Cloud 9 fabrics, I love Michelle's work and can't wait to plan what to do with these.
The Red Letter Day fabrics are lovely too, perfect for a little baby boy I think.
Finally the book, that was a bit of a last minute choice. I'm not sure there is really much in it I'd want to make, but I love to just look at the pictures.


Thank you so much for the comments left yesterday, and all the hugs and kind words I received by email. Yesterday was tough, and honestly I'm still a bit wobbly today, but baby boy is kicking away and I'm trying to think he's letting me know "Hey Mummy I'm OK"...silly, but if it gets me through.

Today I had another scan and an appointment with my lovely consultant. I arrived at the hospital at 8.30 am, after a night of tossing and turning, and a morning of the usual chaos plus a bit more. Lots of snapping at poor old Woody.
Baby boy was kicking away in the waiting room, for the first time I actually saw one of his kicks. I thought maybe he was trying to reassure me, but then quickly told myself to stop being so silly.
The scan was fine, the sonographer was very sweet and showed me everything in detail. She said the heart was fine, but then in my head I saw "only 25% of heart defects are found on a scan".
After the scan I made my way to the ante natal clinic. I haven't had an appt there in 14 years, and suddenly felt rather strange, I was shaking.
The receptionist heaved down this enourmous file, and oh my! That file was just mine, it was about 3 inches thick!
While waiting I could feel my face getting hot, and I texted Woody to tell him baby's heart was ok.
A chirpy midwife called me through into a little exam room, and asked me how I was which of course resulted in me crying all over her and the student midwife. Neither of them had read my notes yet, so had no idea about Florence, but once they knew treated me really nicely, and said they'd go and fetch my consultant to see me rather than make me wait in the waiting room yet again.
Dr P arrived soon after, he has a kind face and a warm handshake. He talked to me softly and thoughtfully, and we discussed a care plan for this pregnancy.My head is now spinning with medical processes and terminology and appts, and swabs, and scans....and well I should be reassured by all this care, but the truth is it terrifies me, and I just don't know what I think.
I'm used to being in control of my body, to birthing my babies my way, at home. A healthy woman birthing a healthy baby....but that's where it all gets fucked up isn't it?
At least I still get the familiarity of seeing my lovely community midwives alongside seeing Dr P.
This is all just so alien to me, and I'm so so scared for my little boy and I miss Florence, and it's just all so fucking shit.
And I've got to stop crying before I go to the children's Easter service...and shit, I still haven't bought any bloody waterproof mascara...when will I learn?

I was on a roll yesterday, must've been that first lighter evening of the year. Whipped up this little suit, in velour stripes, with another knotty hat.
I've been a bit manic recently, mid pregnancy can be like that for me,but when I'm trying to distract myself from the demons in my head I'm extra manic.
Trying really hard right now not to worry about this weeks scan and consultant appointment. The sonographer couldn't get a good look at baby boy's heart last week, so I am booked in for another look this week.
There's no reason to suspect anything wrong,but there was no reason to expect Florence to die either, so that doesn't help me much.
I can feel him kicking about more now,but my anterior placenta muffles most of the movement.
Where's my bottle of optimism.....