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.