Just realised that it's gone a year now since I found out I was pregnant with Kat. No wonder I feel like I've been pregnant for at least a year... I'd say ha ha, but I don't really feel like laughing about it.

When I was a kid my biggest fear was the death of a family member. I used to pray that we would all die at exactly the same time so that none of us would have to go through each other's deaths. When I was about 7 I dreamed mum's death at the age of 45 after being tortured for 4 years - and she died at 45 after 4 years with cancer. When I was about 10 I saw a plaque on the cremation wall at church for a stillborn baby. It said stillborn but born still. I had to ask mum was stillborn meant and my heart just broke when she told me. Directly behind her tree at the cemetery there's a baby's grave. I've been looking at that tiny grave for 20 years now and get a shiver down my spine each time. Sometimes I feel like a part of me has always known I was going to lose my mum when I was still a kid myself and then one day lose a baby.

That parallel universes feeling is still strong. I feel like I straddle two worlds. In one I'm the me I've always been. In the other I'm the mother whose baby just died. Kat and the memory of her is so deeply ingrained in my soul. I know she will be with me and be a part of me for ever. But I'm not defined by it. All the things that make me me are still here. I'm not changed by it. I've been feeling socially awkward and prone to panic since she died - but I've experienced that before. If anything I now see it as a trauma response. It's starting to lift a little, but only a little. Still, it doesn't cause me a great deal of anxiety because I know I've been through it before and I know I can get past it. So there I am with one foot planted on one universe where I'm still myself, just with the memory of another tragic experience. And then I have the other foot planted on the other universe which is all about Kat. Sometimes I can't believe I'm that woman who sat beside Kat's grave and sobbed as her coffin was lowered. I can't believe I'm the person who heard the doctor say "no heartbeat". How is it possible that that woman is up, walking around, breathing, laughing, crying about things other than Kat, having another baby, getting the kids through each day's routine, making plans for the future? It just seems too... weird.

A double-post day! Feeling like I left it all a bit too negative-nellie before when really, some great positives came out of yesterday too. Namely, my family. I love them so much. I love being one half of Team Jen & Michael: Together we can do Anything!!! (Maybe we should get matching capes and wear our undies on the outside.) He really is the love of my life, a love greater than anything I ever dreamed possible. I have two beautiful, healthy, intelligent, loving, caring children who literally taught me what love is. They challenge me and being a mum is sometimes harder than anything else I've ever done. Sometimes I just want a break from constant "kid-shit". But always there is an incredible amount of love. (Something that parents the world over understand.) I had a beautiful baby girl whose entire existence was contained inside my body... what a very special privilege it was to be her mum. And I have a baby growing inside me who I feel move and already love just as much as each of my older children. I have my dad, who I've always admired and respected as much as loved. I have a sister and brother who I like as people as well as love as family - and my brother, well I've always adored him... he doesn't say much but who needs words when he will jump on a plane to be with me when my daughter died? I've been an auntie to some adorable little kids since I was not quite 13. Most of them aren't kids anymore and they are lovely people. Michelle... I'm so proud of you. I have a best girlfriend who is my adopted sister, we've been friends for 24 years. And I have the most amazing in-laws ever, truly wonderful people who I love very much.

A few years ago I couldn't imagine having this much love in my life and I am deeply grateful for it every day.

Another post today that isn't Kathryn-related, or pregnancy-related, but is just about things that have happened that I want to get out. And that, as much as anything, is why I started writing this. It's the every day life of a woman who has experienced the horror and heartbreak of burying a child. It's a life that includes love, children, family, highs, lows, dramas, comedy - just like anyone else's.

We've had a really lovely few days at home with the kids, starting from Saturday afternoon they've just been a joy. Rory's been very cuddly and chatty which warms my heart to see after so long seeing him so sucked into himself. Over the last few weeks things have been really good with them during the school week but they tend to get a bit ratty over the weekend. Which is all good and normal kid behaviour, it's fine and easy enough to deal with. But it took a good six weeks after getting them home from their last trip to their dad's for them to even start to settle down. And it's been like that for two and a half years now, since I first moved away from the town he lives in. Every visit to him was fraught by them getting very anxious (and naughty) before they left and then very unsettled (and sometimes disturbing) when they got back. I'm so tired of it. I'm tired of the constant interruption to family life. I worry about how unsettling it is for the kids to go through this every few months. The only time they have ever come home and settled straight back into our family life was after spending a two week block with him last year. They really need those longer blocks of time with him, to make it more meaningful for them to be spending time with him and to make them more settled before and after the visit. But he has never yet in three years stuck to any agreement we make about his time with the kids and so it is always arranged from one holiday to the next and no matter what amount of time I suggest they go to him for, he goes into "negotiation" mode and comes back with a counter offer of about half what I suggest. For fuck's sake - I'm not trying to screw him over, I'm trying to get him to spend more time with his children!!! If I suggest two weeks his first response is always to say one week (even the time he did end up having them for two, it was only after initially saying he was only doing a week and me then pointing out that they hadn't seen him at all for six months and so I thought it would be less unsettling for them to have a longer time with him - miracle of miracles he agreed); if I suggest a week he comes back with four days. Sometimes five. I just don't get it and I never will. All I know is that it's the same attitude from him that appeared after Sienna was born. I'd been out of action for the duration of the pregnancy, firstly due to continued threatened miscarriages from five weeks on and then due to daily vomiting for months on end and an excruciating condition that had me crying myself to sleep every night. (Yes I know, terribly selfish of me to not be able to cook and clean and him having to do it all for 7 1/2 months.) The day Sienna was born was the day he "checked out". It really was like it had been a conscious decision on his part to never again do anything I asked. I could go on and on with examples of it, but that's a whole other therapy session. Suffice to say that he seems to see me suggesting he spend time with his children as me "asking" him to do something and so his immediate reaction is to do less than I ask. He has never once shown any understanding that his time with the kids isn't about him - it's about them and their right to know and have a relationship with their father. I know that in the long run he's only hurting himself. But right now he's hurting my babies...

To top it off, I found out - or rather had it confirmed (I already knew) - that he lied to me yet again last year. Within days, I can't remember the exact timing but it would have been only a few weeks, of Kat's death he informed me that he would be paying me drastically reduced amounts of child support, as he was no longer working full time. I told him that he needed to contact the Child Support Agency (CSA) to update his details, so that my Family Tax Benefit would be adjusted to allow for the reduced amount of child support I received. He refused to do it. He said that the CSA had told him that if he changed his income estimate at that time I would end up owing money due to an overpayment of FTB. Didn't make sense to me - I would only end up with a bill from them if his income (and therefore child support payments) were going up, not down. And so we made an agreement that he would pay me a third of what he had been until July. But the cost to me in not having my FTB payments adjusted was going to amount to about $1000 - which he personally owed me in July. He told me that he was definitely going to be back in full time work in one of two jobs he had offers for by February (and I made the offer of him continuing to pay lesser amounts until July instead of as soon as he was back in full time work because I wanted to give him the chance to get back on his feet) and that he would provide the CSA a new income estimate in July, as per his "discussion" with them. I rang them yesterday to get the ball rolling on the whole "new estimate" thing, since I know that left to his own devices it wouldn't get done, only to be told by them that it was indeed all bullshit and they wouldn't have told him any such things. Do you know what? I'm past being sick of being lied to by him. I'm past being tired of being lied to by him. I'm just resigned to knowing that I cannot believe a single word he says. And sick to the stomach every time I think that the kids are 7 and 8 - I still have at least 10 years ahead of me of actively dealing with him. Anyway, I get the feeling that all that full time work I was told about in December has failed to materialise - or possibly even that he is deliberately working less purely to avoid paying "me" money. Nothing to base that on, just a gut feeling. And let's just say I have these gut feelings that he is about to pull some shit frequently and I have never once been wrong. As far as the money goes - it's not like it lines my pocket and pays for me to luxuriate. It's his financial contribution to the daily lives of his children. But it was so little anyway that yes, we have to stop and reconsider how to pay certain things, and we have very little room to move as it is, but it's doable. The point is, I feel he is deliberately handing over full paternal responsibility to Michael. Who is willing and happy to take it on, something I've actually struggled with a little, seeing him so whole-heartedly take on financial, emotional and practical responsibility for my children. More and more all the time, we are the family and their father is just someone they know.

Doctor's appointment today, everything went well. I heard the heartbeat! Then had a cry. I get so shaky and nervous before appointments and go in convinced it's all going to be over again. The rest of the time I'm fine and I've felt so positive about this baby right from the start. I saw a really great doctor, exactly the kind I would like to be seeing all the way through (plus, I really wanted to have just one doctor so I didn't have to keep going over what happened to someone new on each visit) but he's referred me to the high risk clinic at the hospital. Not because there's any reason to suspect that this pregnancy is high risk as such, just that having had a stillbirth he thinks I should be seen by obstetricians. If they're happy to do shared care I'll split appointments between the clinic and the GP.

I saw a newborn baby girl at school this afternoon and it took me a while to realise that seeing a new baby made me smile instead of want to cry. I just sat there thinking "that will be us soon", it didn't even tear at my heart that it was a girl. This is a huge change from a few months ago.

15 weeks today. I know I've already passed the point in the pregnancy where last time I'd broken out in the rash, but always looking back on when I got sick with Kat I think of it as being at 15 weeks. So this week marks one of the milestones I've been expecting to hold my breath over. It's kind of different though to how I expected it to be. I thought I would be panicking about this pregnancy, but I'm not. I know I don't have any rashes, I haven't suddenly started throwing up more, no nosebleeds and, even though I'm tired and have a sleep most days it's not like it was that week with Kat where I just couldn't wake up. And I'm feeling the baby move every day. Not as much as I'd like, but it's still so early to be feeling it at all so it's nice to be feeling it each day. So I know mentally there's nothing wrong with this baby and all my thoughts have returned to Kat. I know I keep saying it, and it's a completely useless thing to say and think, but I just wish so much there had have been some way we could have both our babies here with us. I miss her. We miss her. I don't know if it's time, or the way my mind works, or both, but I've found myself reflecting more on the time surrounding her death. I know that's something I've always done - kind of deal with the most immediate thing first and then it's only later (often months later), once the immediacy has passed that I start to process my more emotional responses, or realise that there were other layers I didn't really give much attention to at the time. Maybe it's a bad thing to give things so much thought so long after the event. I don't know. This is hardly the usual, run-of-the-mill event though. And here I am finding myself going over various people's reactions at the time. Some are painful and hurtful. I don't think people set out to hurt us, but there were a couple of people that unfortunately did. I'm sure I've written on here before about Michael's cousin telling us at the time that people would say things that hurt because they didn't understand and to remember that it was about them and not us. It was the best advice I received, but I've found it hard to live by. I find it hard to offer other people my understanding of them and their responses. My mind's been kind of stuck on those things for the last few days and there's nothing else to turn over. A few people said or did some really insensitive things and, for now at least, those people are not as big a part of my life as they were before. Today I've been remembering the amazing people and things that happened. It's not like I didn't acknowledge them at the time - I really did - but today I'm just remembering. My brother took my breath away. I still don't even know what words to use to describe hearing that he was coming and then to see him at my door. I flew into his arms, held on tight and sobbed on him. Even now, I'm sitting here with tears rolling down my face just thinking of it. No matter what else either of us does in the rest of our lives, THAT will always be how I sum up the person that my brother is. Michael's parents were just shining lights for both of us. They dropped everything and came to be with us in Newcastle and then at home. Everything they did was done so quietly, they didn't go around announcing that they were cleaning our house or doing the ironing or taking the kids out or going shopping for us. We would just find those things done or being done. Their presence was an enormous comfort to both of us and to the kids. My girlfriend and her husband travelling up from Muswellbrook; a friend of Michael's flying up from Sydney the day after receiving good test results after her cancer treatment; a lawyer from another practice and one of the Court ladies coming to the funeral; Michael's friend who organised the flowers for us and another one who just sat and talked about Kathryn with us over coffee; the boy in Rory's class who approached Rory to say he was sorry about Rory's sister and then also went looking for Sienna in the playground to say the same to her as well; the people who sent us flowers and cards and the people who sent us messages on facebook, all saying the same thing, that they knew there was nothing they could say, but just to get those little, one-line messages meant more than I could tell them - these people were all beautiful. And in the long run I really do think that it's these memories that will stay with us.

A very brief post tonight. I just realised today marks a crazy coincidence. It's a year today since the date of Kat's conception and I'm at the same point of pregnancy, to the day, that I broke out in the rash that I could never have imagined was killing my daughter. I don't even know what to say other than it's a very weird feeling. And I've been periodically checking for spots.