I know that sounds like a statement of relief, but it’s really not.  I feel as if “Another Year Done” is a huge tick in the metaphorical box of life, a massive achievement on our part.  I am not one to wish time away, quite the opposite; but I knew from the start that I had to be kind to myself in 2017 and so getting through it feels epic.  This time last year I felt utterly miserable; I honestly couldn’t see the wood for the trees.  I couldn’t fathom how, after Teddy had already died, we could go on to lose another baby; our rainbow.  Life was feeling incredibly, dare I say, unfair; and I wanted things to turn around for us so desperately.   I recall the walk we took on New Years Day, as we do every year; and I remember us saying to each other that this year, 2017, it had to get better.  Let’s face it, I don’t think it could have got much worse.

I think we probably all know the answer to this one, but I just had to write this post.  I cannot quite believe we are approaching our second Christmas without Teddy.  This time two years ago he was still safely tucked up in my seventeen week bump.  I can remember feeling so blissfully happy, so excited for what lay ahead.  I kept saying to my husband, “This time next year…”  I pictured us with a bouncing seven month old; negotiating our first festive season as new parents.  The reality of last Christmas couldn’t have been further from that dream.  I remember never having felt less festive in my life; but I was trying, oh how I was trying so hard.

Will I?  Or am I?  This sentence is something I am starting to hear all too often as I write and speak openly about our desire to have more children after losing Teddy.  I find myself staring at those words or hearing them over and over again in my mind.  Is it that people don’t realise what they are saying, or are they simply saying I’ll make a good mother to a baby who actually gets to be physically mothered by me?  The truth is, I’m not sure.

I’ve been thinking about how to write this without coming across as the most unsociable and ungrateful person to ever grace the world of blogging.  The truth is, I am sure there will be parts of this that make me sound like both; but I can assure you that I am not.  I’m just a mother, still trying to come to terms with the unexpected death of her baby. Someone who wakes up each new day with the hope that she’ll feel strong enough to do everything she has planned for that day; and lives constantly under the cloud of doubt that they’ll be days when she simply cannot.