Unrelated Post

This is a post completely unrelated to Kat but is what's currently going around my mind and it's related to things I wrote about quite some time ago: the inherent danger in not understanding your own mind and not talking about things that happen to you or upset you or that just don't feel quite right.

Yesterday I started a course of Provera, which is a progesterone tablet. I have to take it for 9 days to give a boost to Mirena (an IUD) which has been ineffective at stopping my periods. I've had almost constant bleeding for the six months since it was put in and I'm exhausted, run down and can't keep going like this. So I went to the doctor who prescribed this short course of Provera as a trial before we resort to removing the Mirena and going back on the pill. The problem is that within an hour or so of taking the first tablet I started to feel PMS symptoms coming on. All afternoon I was teary for no apparent reason then last night after the second dose I was very tightly wound and edgy. That was when I realised I felt pre-menstrual and that the Provera had probably given me those symptoms.

I told Michael about it and he just said "right, tell me what I can do to make it easier for you". At which I burst into tears and hugged him. Of course.

I've had trouble with my periods ever since my very first one when I was 11. They have been very heavy and extremely painful ever since. I used to get a bit of depression with them rather than feeling "moody" or "cranky" but after Sienna was born I also used to get very, very tense. After about 2.5 years I finally gave in and went back on the pill (which I had been hoping to never take again) when, at the age of 28 I was seriously considering asking for a hysterectomy. The thing that finally made me decide to go back on the pill though was saying to my then husband (in a tongue in cheek manner) "I need to do something to sort out my hormonal problems because when I go through menopause you'll probably leave me". He sat bolt upright and said "will you do something to fix that then... I don't want to be someone who is divorced in their 40s, I want to be married at 90 to the same person". And so I did it - more for him than me. So I could try to be less annoying and ensure our future harmony.

After 3 years with Michael I'm still surprised when he demonstrates that he really, truly, honestly does just accept me exactly as I am. He loves me exactly as I am. He wants nothing more than to be with me, love me, support me when I need it and to receive all of that from me in return. It doesn't surprise me that he is like that; it surprises me that I have that in my life.

Michael was my third boyfriend (discounting school romances). The first one lasted a year and was abusive. I was fat (at a size 10 - I had "plenty of padding" and he bought me a size 14 dress because there was no way a 10 would fit me); I wasn't as pretty as my friends; his mother called me a whore (I saw her last time I was in town and the bitch had the nerve to smile at me like we were old friends); he would get up and leave me alone at functions where I didn't know anyone apart from him and then tell me he thought I'd "tag along" (like a freaking puppy) - when I got upset I was "guilt tripping him", actually when I got upset about him turning up to one of my family functions two hours late I was also "guilt tripping him"; I wasn't as smart, worldly or sophisticated as him and couldn't dress myself without his assistance (i.e. approval); but worst of all, when he sexually assaulted me the reason I cried about it was that I was a terrible girlfriend for not wanting him in the first place... when I was sick and in pain.

My ex-husband was my second boyfriend and I married him at 19 after 18 months together. Even in hindsight and with all the negative things I can and do say about him, I don't see it as a "bad" marriage. It wasn't "good", especially for the first 4 years we were together, but it wasn't "bad". I don't consider there to have been abuse or... well, much of anything really. Having said that, I spent 12 years being told to stop. Don't sing; don't dance; don't laugh; don't talk. Cut my hair. Dress differently. Don't have my own friends. I was told I was boring and terrible in bed. He would tell me I was beautiful and then show me with his actions that I was hideously unattractive to him. Of course, if I ever complained about his actions I was mean and controlling and he couldn't be expected to change anything. If I ever got angry about things he did he would get angry about my anger - I didn't have the right to be offended by him apparently.

I still basically think of myself as a generally annoying person. I still think that Michael must surely be upset and annoyed with me on a regular basis. I still think he will get sick of me. I still think when he tells me that I don't annoy him or upset him that it must prove he doesn't know me very well.

I wonder sometimes (OK, a lot) what it would have been like to have been loved by Michael since I was 18, which is when we would have met if I hadn't stayed at home and gotten married. I wonder what it would have been like to have the acceptance and love I have now - THEN. I wonder what it would have done to my life. I know that at that time I was already experiencing post-traumatic type symptoms; I know that the main reason I stayed home and got married at all instead of going off to uni was the phobias I had about people and public places. It was already there, but the social awkwardness/ineptitude came later. It came when I had dragged myself so far down into that stagnant, depressed life that I couldn't bear for people to see or hear me. I also know that just before I met Michael I was the happiest and most self-confident I had ever been. Being loved by him, having absolute acceptance of myself just the way I am, has given me extraordinary and unexpected freedom. I have that same independence and surety in my own strength and abilities I found when I was single but I have the support at home to apply it to anything I want.

Strange but true story to finish with. For about 2 years before I met Michael (i.e. about a year before I ended my first marriage) I believed I had a guardian angel called Michael. Every night when I lay down to sleep I would hear the words "I love you" in my head; it felt like a caress and was filled with a tenderness and depth of feeling I had certainly never known or received. Finally, I asked the question one night "who are you?" The name Michael came to mind. I thought it was an angel. Some time later (but while still married) I had a dream that I was swimming with my family (as it existed then) and the pool started to flood. There was panic everywhere and I grabbed the kids to try and swim to safety. We swam away from my ex and I was swimming towards a man with a brown beard who was sitting perfectly still and calm in a dry place, just quietly watching me. The kids and I reached him and I was filled with happiness. I didn't even look around to see where my ex (then husband) was. When I first met Michael I was completely caught up in getting to know this person who was by far and away simply the most stunning human being I had ever met. I was amazed by his mind, drawn to his face and I fell in love with his beautiful heart. We'd been together about a month or more before it hit me out of the blue one day - MICHAEL. Michael with a brown beard (well, goatee). Maybe he wasn't an angel after all?

Open Letter to Anyone Who Has Ever Visited an Infant Grave

It's been almost two years since we lost our daughter Kathryn. I can tell you in minute detail what her grave looks like; where it is located, what her plaque looks like and what is written on it. I can tell you that there are baby boys buried on each side of her and that she is in a row of infant graves, most of which only have the one date on the plaques, like Kat's.

Due to unfortunate (and terrible, horribly unfair) circumstances, we moved less than two months after Kat died. We now live a day's drive away from where Kat is buried.

Let me state right up that Michael and myself dislike graves looking like shrines. We don't like little toys and trinkets being left over graves. On a few occasions we have been given little bits and pieces and they are kept with Kat's things. We also don't like artificial flowers that get left to fade and fray. However, I know by looking down the row of infant graves that Kat is buried in our distaste for scattering "things" over a baby's grave puts us in a very small minority; by taking a quick scan around the cemetery I can see that our distaste for artificial flowers on graves also puts us in a minority.

If we still lived in the same town that Kat is buried her grave would have fresh flowers placed on it every week. I would lovingly tend them in our garden, pick them each week and take to her. I would kneel down on her resting place and talk, cry, sob, scream, feel, hug my family..... all the things I do when I still have occasion to go to the grave, only now I buy the flowers as I go through town instead of growing them myself.

But we don't still live there and it is our choice to not leave artificial flowers or "things" on her grave. To the other parents, relatives and friends of deceased babies her grave probably looks deserted. To us, artificial flowers and a shrine would underline that feel. We believe that fading fake flowers look as though a person thinks that they don't "have to" tend a grave because it has been decorated already.

Please understand that we pass no judgment on how other people choose to keep their loved ones' graves. This is just our personal position.

And so I would really appreciate it if the person who puts artificial flowers from the grave next to Kat's on to Kat's grave would stop doing so. Each time we go there I put those flowers back where they came from and each time I go back there they are again.

Our baby has not been deserted. A lack of artificial flowers and "things" on her grave does not indicate that we care any less for her than people who choose to adorn graves care for their babies. Leaving Kat's grave behind was probably the single most difficult thing about moving - among a very long list of extremely difficult things about that move and the circumstances surrounding it. We were robbed of the chance to tend our daughter's grave, to visit it just because we felt like it. There are now only rare occasions that we or our families are able to visit and leave fresh flowers. Each time someone goes there feels like a special occasion instead of the normal part of grieving it should be. It is heartbreaking for us. But artificial flowers and toys are not our answer; this is simply our wish and it is one that is our choice and ours alone to make.