Where do I belong now?

I'm lost.  I no longer feel like I know my place in the world.  I don't think I have for a while, and maybe I've even blogged about it before.  But it's bothering me at the moment. 

We have Toby.  It should be all better now.  This is the world speaking, or the unformed words that I see in people's faces.  Maybe I'm being my own devil on that one.  Do you get it?  Because really, it doesn't really matter if I'm making up what I see.  It's there if I think I see it.  I could turn this into a riddle, really.

So, I no longer feel as though I'm allowed to be in the world of grieving mothers.  Not that I'm being cast out or anything like that.  But I do feel, as I said, that those who haven't suffered the loss, have breathed a sigh of relief that now that Toby is here, we can get on with the normality of life.  Finally.  And they can come back to us and be involved and be comfortable. 

I feel like I have one foot in that group, but also that I have lost a certain amount of entitlement as some of my closest friends still wish for their rainbow.  It either hasn't happened yet or they have reason to have lost hope.  Either way I am saddened by the distance that the arrival of my own rainbow puts between us.

I am a mother to a real live child now.  I talk about nappies and poo and teeth and sleep and feeding and breastmilk and birth tactics.  I have arrived at the exclusive mothers club.  But it's the one where babies only live.

My mothers group IRL had a BBQ today and we went.  I felt on the outer as I watched conversations happen around me.  Considering that I've only been to a couple of meetups with them in the last few months, I'm lucky that they include me at all really, and they are friendly.  But they don't know my pain.  They've all been told of our loss, but I dare say they have probably forgotten as we don't know each other well and it would have been filed away in the "not so important info" section of their brain.  But even more than that is that they have no comprehension of the pain, or the ongoing sadness and devastation that doesn't really go away, but rather tends to ebb and flow with the seasons. 

Today I observed, smiling on the outside, a conversation about trying again.  There were lots of ooohs and aaahs and "we're waiting till he's three" type comments.  One guy commented (yes guy!) that his mother told him that as his wife was introducing solids she was likely to fall pregnant straight away.  More ooohs and aaaghs and laughter. 

I'm the only IVFer it would seem.  It's never been discussed so can't be sure.  But I'm also the oldest by at least five years, so I feel like the granny.  And that's before you even get into the discussion on secondary infertility, the added difficulties of it all being over 40, grief and loss, miscarriage.  All of my, our, baggage.

And then there is also my online group, which started as a group of TTCers who had been trying for more than 6 months.  Some of them I "met" online when we all mc'd around the same time.  Obviously, I'm talking about on a forum.  So these girls have a bit more of an understanding, and they have been fabulous at "listening" and supporting through the tough times.  But they still don't live it, and nor would I wish them to.

My biggest support group has all but gone their separate ways, as people's journeys took them down separate paths.  We are still there, but where three years ago there was unification, now some have been able to "put away" their grief more than others.  Some wear shoes of multiple loss, of infertility and rainbows that haven't been seen, or where the rain still seems to fall. 

And so I was thinking these past couple of days, just how, by the loss of our precious children, alone we really are.  We are doomed to travel our own lonely path for the rest of our lives because nothing ever changes the past.

:::

Tonight we had devastating news that a friend's wife was killed in a motorbike accident.  The mother of a four year old.  She was almost killed several years ago in a car accident, and survived but crippled.  And now she is gone. 

I felt the slap of the fragility of life.  I didn't know her well, she is the wife of a close mate of Shane's.  But I am devastated to the pit of my stomach for his loss, and that little girls' loss, and her parent's loss.  That someone we know now have to go through a Christmas full of "merry merry joy joy".  That he will have to put on a brave face for his little girl who at four will not totally comprehend why mummy hasn't come home.

That this year there will be no beautiful photo card of the little girl.  Because mummy isn't here to make it.

It can all be gone in an instant.