It's been a while between posts. I haven't really felt the need, or known what, to write. In the last few weeks there have been the usual ups and downs. I've cried about Kathryn, I've laughed with the kids as they feel the baby moving inside me, I've had a really bad doctors appointment that upset me a lot, I've been in a lot of physical discomfort (actually, forget discomfort, I've been in a lot of pain from my back) and I've had a few moments where the pain has reduced and I've really enjoyed the physicality of being pregnant. All of this is just my normal life now. I have a lot of emotions coexisting and some of them seem to contradict each other but they're all there. This is not a bad thing, it's not negative to feel dark emotions. This is just my new normal. I can not for one second feel guilty about wanting and loving our new baby as much as I do. I'm incredibly excited about meeting her and I adore feeling her move, wondering what she is experiencing inside me, thinking about what she will look like and be like. I love her. I know rationally and reasonably that if Kathryn had have survived I would in all likelihood never have had another child - and certainly not at this point in time. But I can never for one second stop missing Kathryn and wishing that there had have been some way we could have had both our girls stay here with us. I can accept that there was a reason I don't understand that Kathryn's spirit needed the experience of having a body, having parents and a family, but that she did not live outside of me. I believe she wanted to and intended to. I have nothing to base that belief on other than the conviction that Michael and I both feel incredibly strongly that she tried to live and wanted to live. The reasons she couldn't and didn't aren't for me to understand right now and I accept that. What I will never accept is the idea that her death was in some way for the best, or part of some grand design that included the birth of our new baby in Kathryn's place. I have four children - one of whom is with us only in spiritual form. Likewise, I don't need to understand the myriad emotions I feel. I don't need to process them or move past them or try not to feel the darker ones. I just accept that I have them.

One thing I am very sure of - this is our baby's time. The baby that is kicking me as I write this, that is. Of course I think about Kathryn. I get anxious about the progress of this pregnancy because I have had the experience of a baby dying inside me. It is not an irrational fear or anxiety - it is the memory of loss, the anxiety that it could happen again and the desperate hope that it doesn't. I also think about my other two children. And Michael, my dad, my parents-in-law, the rest of my family, my friends, the kids' school and activities, what to eat for dinner.... missing Kathryn is just one aspect of my daily life now. I don't think it's ever going to change. I will always miss her because she will always be physically missing from our family. But just as when she died I promised her and myself that it was her time and she would have it - the birth of our new baby is this baby's time. I do not see this baby as some kind of gift from Kathryn - even though I do believe that Kathryn was involved in leading this baby to us. I don't feel the need to 'remember' Kathryn in every activity involved with this baby. This baby was very deeply wanted by both of her parents for her own sake. She is not - and will not be - "Kathryn's sister". That would be too much of a burden to place on such small shoulders. My shoulders are more than broad enough to bear both grief and love at the same time.

Father's Day

Today has brought many mixed emotions. Obviously there is sadness for Kat. Last year I was so excited to wish Michael a happy Father's Day for the first time as we anticipated our baby's birth in a little under six months.

It was that weekend that I was saying 'look at these red spots. They're all over my chest and on my arms and face'. Michael thought they looked like a heat rash and put it down to a hot shower. The next day they had turned white and pussy and I put it down to a pregnancy break out. The day after that they had disappeared.

Also that weekend was appalling with Rory. I think I've written before about how the kids had been behaving in very disturbing ways since their father announced his move to Canberra earlier that year. Father's Day brought it all back out again. Well, it hadn't stopped at any point since February, but Father's Day was bad. Rory was saying, among other things, he wanted to cut our heads off. The next day was the first day of three that I just couldn't wake up. For three days in a row I went straight back to bed after putting the kids on the school bus, woke up around lunch time and had something to eat then went back to bed for a couple more hours until the kids got off the bus. I put it down to stress. The kids and I had just had whooping cough; Michael had been travelling for work for three weeks right when I was at my sickest and so I'd had to do it all on my own; I was getting all Ds and HDs at uni; and the kids behaviour had been seriously worrying (I had them in counselling - it was beyond anything we were capable of dealing with alone) for seven months. Of course I was stressed. And thought I probably had a touch of post-illness fatigue after the whooping cough, which I also attributed the increased vomiting to. Stress and fatigue. It didn't worry me as such because at that stage of pregnancy (15 weeks) I'd still been throwing up every day with both Rory and Sienna.

So, this weekend, this day, I can't help but remember all that. But we also have so much to celebrate.

Of course there is the baby that is now growing inside me. We are both just so excited about this pregnancy and love our baby so much already.

There is also the change we can see in our family. We feel like we've finally gotten past the 'settling in' or 'teething' of creating a step-family. When the kids drive us crazy now it just feels like normal kid shit. They don't give off the aura anymore that there is any underlying cause for any bad behaviour - it's just something that all kids do every now and then. And most of the time they really are fantastic now and are a joy to be with.

We both still have our fathers with us - something neither of us takes for granted.

So, all in all we have felt that today we have plenty to celebrate while still taking the time to acknowledge the grief we feel that someone is missing. We think that's just how special days are going to be from now on.

On a slightly different note, but something that's been on my mind all day... the kids rang their father this morning for Father's Day. When Rory asked to speak to Dad he was asked who was calling. We assumed we had gotten a wrong number - until a moment later we heard him saying 'hi Dad'. At which point we just looked at each other in disbelief. A child calling that house asking to speak to Dad... and whoever answered the phone didn't know who he meant? Then Sienna asked him if he received the presents they sent - framed photos of each of them and cards they made. Yes, he had received them. Just apparently didn't feel the need to say thank you or otherwise acknowledge them.

I'm always grateful that Michael is in my life and I have always felt very good about bringing him into my kids' lives. But then sometimes I have moments of deep gratitude that my children do at least have one great 'dad' in their lives.