I've written before about 'Golden Slumbers'.

It was originally sung by The Beatles and covered beautifully by Ben Folds for the 'I Am Sam' soundtrack. It was that version we had playing in the car once on our way to Newcastle for an appointment at the Maternal Fetal unit.

'Golden Slumbers' has been a favourite of Michael's for many years and he has performed it many times. As we listened to it that day I said 'hopefully you will sing that to our baby every night as a lullaby'. 'Hopefully' because at that stage fear was setting in for our baby. We didn't know then that we were having a girl, but as soon as we found out, 'Golden Slumbers' became 'Kat's Lullaby'.

A few short weeks later it became her funeral song. We had it played right at the end as her coffin was lowered.

When I was pregnant with Caira, the first time we went shopping for baby things the Ben Folds version came on in the shops. We laughed, cried, hugged and said hello to Kat who, it seemed, was joining us in our excitement for her little sister.

Yesterday Caira didn't sleep all day. As I tried to get her to sleep, in desperation I started singing 'Golden Slumbers' to her. She smiled a huge smile and stopped wriggling. She still didn't sleep, but it calmed her.

Later at night I was still trying to get her to sleep. After singing it myself for a while I played the song. It made Caira smile. It made me sob.

I haven't completed the thought that's been brewing in the back of my mind which I'm about to write down, so I don't really know yet where this post is going to end up.

Last week Kat's due date rolled around for the second time since she died. I've never considered 20 November to be her birthday; it was three months before her time and she was too little to have survived. Her body, her journey towards life was interrupted.

I didn't blog about it. I didn't put it on facebook. But I did make her a cake. It was a heart-shaped white chocolate and raspberry cake and Michael was the only other person who knew its significance. I didn't want to tell the kids. I want to be able to include Kathryn in our family without canonising her. I don't want her up on a pedestal. I don't want everything to do with her to take on a hushed, reverential tone and make Sienna cry. I just wanted to make my daughter a birthday cake and share it with our family.

I look at Caira now and I never - EVER - think that if Kat had lived, Caira wouldn't be here. I have heard other women who have been through this say that about their youngest child. They say that as much as they miss the baby who died, they know they wouldn't have had X if that baby was still here and they wouldn't be without X. Those women are a lot further, in terms of time, away from the loss of their babies than I am. They tell me that it took them years to reach the point of "being able" to say that. I truly don't believe I ever will and neither does Michael. It's true, we hadn't planned to have another baby after Kat. Even though as a kid/teenager I had always wanted four children and I feel extremely blessed to have now had those four children, we only wanted and planned to have one more child. But I look at Caira and I wish that we had her big sister who had just turned 1 here too. I wish Kat had been born alive and well and that a month later we had been completely shocked and a little bit horrified to discover I was pregnant again and had our baby girls 9 months apart.

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We went to my brother's house yesterday.

Recapping, my brother's first response to the death of my daughter was to book a flight from Darwin to be with me. When Dad told me he was coming I let out a breath I didn't know I'd been holding. I so wanted my family to come to me but I didn't put any expectation into it. When I saw him at my front door I flew into his arms and sobbed.

My brother, sister in law and niece have just moved from Darwin and now live about an hour and a half away from us. I haven't lived this close to him since I was 8. Today is his birthday so we went up to see them yesterday. We all had such a beautiful day. He played with the kids in his usual fashion - dangling them upside down and taking them to look for snakes and to the park in equal measure. The kids loved every second of it. An orange butterfly stopped by to visit too. It fluttered past them, landed on a rock and stayed there.

Confidence, where have you gone?

I've struggled with low self-esteem, self-consciousness, social anxiety and feelings of inadequacy for a very long time. It always comes out more in times of stress and, as I've learned in the last year, grief and trauma.

The thing is I'm feeling OK at the moment. I got over feeling swamped by a run of bad health (which is kind of continuing but I'm OK). I'm eating well and exercising. Losing weight and doing my best to focus on what I'm doing rather than only seeing how far I've still got to go - which doesn't come naturally to me and I have to make it a conscious effort. The kids are fine and we're all getting along really well. Michael and I are great. We're making all our wedding plans, saving as much as we can for it. We have a 5 year financial plan taking in the wedding, paying off debt and saving to build our house. On top of that we've been talking a lot about what we want for our future and we're both working at achieving our goals. I'm excited about what we're doing and where we're going.

So why do I feel all my old demons coming back out to play? I'm questioning everything I do and say. I feel constantly misheard or misunderstood, which I know means I'm not communicating properly. But I don't feel like I'm doing or saying anything differently all of a sudden. I feel awkward and clumsy. I just want to melt away and get out of everyone's way.

I really don't like myself when I get like this. What I hate even more though is that there's no obvious trigger for it this time. I'm on an even keel with Caira and haven't felt like I've had any trouble with PND. If anything I'd say I feel the best I ever have with a young baby. Maybe I've been in 'coping' mode for so long that now the pressure's off it's catching up with me.