It’s Ok Not To Be Ok

This last week I have struggled and I am not afraid to admit it.

I have never been a sleeper, always prefer doing things late into the night rather than getting up early and doing things. But when Rhianna died, my sleeping became hideous, I spent many a night laying in bed and before I knew it, it was five am and I had a couple of hours sleep before the day started again.

The night before her funeral I cleaned all night and went to bed at six am. There was no point trying to sleep it wasn’t going to happen.

Since then every March my sleeping gets bad, like really bad, at the moment I am averaging two am before I fall asleep and am up between 6.30 and 7.30 with the kids. I am struggling with the lack of sleep but it doesn’t matter how tired I am.

My head hits the pillow, and everything I felt, everything I feel comes flooding to me and I am awake just laying there.

It is something I just cope with and hope that it may get better as the years go on, the first year I had sleep issues for a long time, they have reduced dramatically and I am trying to just get through them.

But I am tired, I am stressed, and I miss her.

I miss not having a girl in the house.

Not having hair to play with, dolls to dress, and pretty pink clothes.

I want the sparkles, and the girlie time, the nail painting, the stealing of my makeup and the stealing of my shoes.

It’s different things on every birthday that I miss.

I wonder if she would still be dark, as Boo and her were so alike at birth and now his hair is getting lighter and lighter.

I wonder if she would have the same dirty laugh as her brothers.

Would her eyes be dark like Boo’s or blue like Baba’s?

Would she have their mannerisms, their ways?

Be as cheeky, as stubborn

As naughty, as loving, as caring.

Would she be like them in any way?

This past week I have wondered a lot,

What we would be doing for her birthday?

Who we would be inviting?

What we would be buying?

What she would like or would have to have!

That vital present, what would her’s be?

So many things to wonder

So many unanswered questions

So many what’s, if’s and maybes.

And I have to admit too many for it to be ok

This week I have struggled probably more so than any other week since she died.

I have struggled not having the answers

Not having her

I have struggled with failing, not protecting her, not being there, not noticing

I have struggled with fear, not letting Baba and Boo grow, Boo particularly, trying to wrap them up and protect them and they not leave my side.

I have struggled with a longing.

A want for a baby girl that is so strong it has even made me question our decision for no more, even though it is the best option for us.

This week I have struggled, I have cried, I have screamed and shouted, and then finally after a couple of days, and a lot of crafting, colouring and looking at flowers I have accepted that it is ok to not be ok.

It’s ok to scream and shout.

It’s ok to cry at the TV when a three-year old runs across it.

It’s ok to cry at baby clothes

It’s ok to cry at baby cards

It’s ok

Not to be ok

It’s Rhianna’s month, the month that 3 years ago we started so excited to meet our little girl, and we finished with our world broken, and both of us being kept alive by Baba.

It’s Rhianna’s birthday.

It’s Rhianna’s death day.

There is no difference with them, they are both the same.

Moulded together in one day, just one small day 24 hours only. That is her day.

But it isn’t just Rhianna’s month, and this is something I struggle with every year.

It’s the month we changed.

It’s the month where we were that happy family, and we became ‘that family’ – “the ones that lost their baby, late into the pregnancy”

We will forever be that family

Three years ago on this day we never even contemplated we would be that family.

March is the month we joined that club

March is the month our life was divided.

Our life before babyloss, compared to our life after babyloss.

And I struggle with it every year

I don’t want to be that family

I wasn’t given a choice and I will always be that family

And it makes me angry, it frustrates me, it saddens me, it so so saddens me, and it just reminds me how much we miss her, how much we love her, and what we will never ever have.