What's 30 years or so?

This is the day, 30 years ago, that I sat in a hospital bed, confused, bemused, besotted... At 1:49am on August 10th 1981 I gave birth to JC. Some 6 weeks premature, very small even for that gestation & with a fighter's strength he hung on to life with a determination belied by his size. He was delivered naturally, suddenly and still in the amniotic sac. The nurses wrapped him up in a warm blanket and then silver foil. They held him out to show me with the words "here's your son, you probably won't see him again". These are not words you want to hear when you've just given birth to your first child. These are actually words you just never want to hear.

They were wrong though.

Happy places

I was replying to a comment on this post and made a reference to when I used to pick JC up from creche. I can't recall having blogged about it so I decided I would collect some of the happiest memories I have of JC's short life and post them here. As an antidote to the sadness of his death.

The little things

I'm someone who copes. Life deals me shit, I deal with it. I don't complain a whole lot nor spend time thinking I'm hard done by. Not enough time in my life to waste doing that. That's not to say I don't whinge at times. I do, we all do but it's never been a focus for me. We all cop shitty things in life and you just have to deal with it and get on with finding what was good in amongst the crap.

I have some days that I get through without thinking of my other sons. The ones I can't hug, the ones I love as much as the one I have with me now and as much as I love my daughter. The ones I miss, the ones I wouldn't have back if it meant I would have to give back my now children.

Then there's days when one small thing will make me think of my eldest son and a smile will play across my face, or maybe some tears will fall from my eyes. It happens far less with my other son since I never got to meet him let alone form any lasting memories of time with him. My eldest son though... walking in the rain can bring back memories. Helping my now son to balance. Picking a flower. Seeing a toy that JC played with. Hearing a word he could say. Today it was remembering his laughter.

His tinkling, joyful, effervescent, infectious, amazing laughter.

I wish I could play that sound for you. There are no words that describe it as well as it deserves. It was medicine of the best sort. Guaranteed to cure all ills. Destined to put a smile on your face, a joyful spring in your walk. This time it bought a tear to my eyes and a wistful happiness to my heart that I can still hear him when I close my eyes.

I fear the day I cannot recall his face, his tiny arms wrapped around my neck, his laughter, his joy in living.

When I can no longer remember will he fade to nothingness?

Will he no longer be real?

He never rang...

A second child... did we want a second child. That was the next question after we adopted our daughter. We discussed and examined the idea and decided we didn't want to be a single child family. We lodged a second application and waited for a social worker to be assigned to do the necessary paperwork.

The unmentionable...

It's my birthday today. I'm 47. Time, I think, to start counting backwards to be sure I avoid the big Five Ooooohhhhhh.

Many of my birthdays have been average, even sad. My Eighteenth was the day I found out I was pregnant, my twenty first came only two months after my eldest son died. My Thirtieth was a massive joke. Husband was supposed to take me out for dinner but he couldn't leave work (as in he couldn't and still can't relinquish control) and then one of the drivers from the company he worked for managed to "invite" himself to stay the night in our spare room and intended to come to dinner with us. This was a nice enough man but he was not a scintillating conversationalist and he was not who I wanted around on my birthday. In the end my husband sent this driver and another employee over to our place to have dinner with me while he worked. We had pizza... It sucked...

Feeling our way

The early days of bringing our daughter home were wonderful yet stress filled at the same time. My fear of not being able to cope after so many years of being childless loomed large at this point. I had spent years bemoaning my lack of children yet that very lack afforded me the ability to do pretty much as I pleased without thought to the logistics of a child. Would I cope with being responsible for a small person, for being their constant, basically their whole world. In the main I found being a Mum really easy but there were small things that upset the proverbial apple cart.

Waiting...

Once you're accepted into the Adoption program there is no way of knowing how long you will wait to be selected as the new parents of a child or even if you will be selected.

At that time in Victoria the process from the other side of the adoption was that a birth parent can indicate their interest in relinquishing their child but could not sign any consent forms for a period of two weeks after the birth. They then had a grace period of 28 days which could be extended before final consent was given

Suddenly I see... me with a baby in my arms

So my baby finally came home. My teeny tiny boy (hereafter known as JC) was all ours at last. No more Dr's and nurses poking, prodding and controlling our existence. We still had to see them sometimes so they could monitor his progress. Being born so small meant he was likely not to keep up with his peers even age adjusted. We had perhaps more visits with the Health centre than usual and visits to a peadiatrician and peadiatric surgeon but otherwise all was good in our world. JC was growing very slowly, he was a gorgeous child with a lovely nature. I enjoyed being a mother, I was where I wanted to be.