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.

You know, sometimes there are still moments when grief for Kat takes my breath away. When I simply can't believe that I'm up, walking around, smiling, laughing, living my life and excited about the future. That's all.

The photo of Michael and me that is on this page sits in a frame in our lounge room. It's one of my favourite photos ever because (a) it's a nice picture of us and (b) because when it was taken we were both utterly exhausted from grief and trauma but when we saw that photo we both just thought we looked happy. It became a symbol for us of how we got through unbelievably bad times together and all the while held it together calmly and quietly and with enormous love. Of course we cried - my god, we sobbed and howled and clung to each other like we were drowning in a raging torrent. But I also remember how quietly we just sat together talking about what needed to get done and both of us putting in equal effort to do it. And that through it all there was so much love. This photo captures that.

I sat here the other day looking at that picture and thought that I couldn't look that happy now. I felt so weighed down by everything that has happened in the last 15 months. I should be celebrating the arrival of our beautiful baby girl - and I am (I really am) - but I was so weighed down by my health problems coming after so many other bad things. I kept on thinking "what next?" when normally I would think "it will all be OK". Or else I would just get on with it and not think about it until the storm had passed and I had time to process.

I couldn't believe that I looked at a picture taken 10 weeks after my daughter died; 8 weeks after Michael's business partner suddenly pulled the plug on him; 5 weeks after my parents-in-law were seriously injured in a car accident; 3 weeks after moving and a couple of hours after we heard that Rory and Sienna's other baby sister had been born (when all we wanted was their baby sister in our arms) and longed to feel that light-hearted again.

Today though I've been home for a few days. I've been eating nice, healthy food and getting some exercise. I've got my toe nails cut, finger nails filed, legs shaved and hair done. My leg's improving.

And right this second? I'm typing this one-handed as I have Caira curled in my other arm. I just looked at her as she sits here wriggling and waving her arms about. She's watching the ceiling fan go round and her eyes are shining and she has the biggest, most beautiful smile. I have to go change her nappy and there's nowhere else I'd rather be.

All is well.

I'm home, temporarily. I'm on a 'day pass' from hospital, where I've been for the last ten days and won't be discharged from for at least another two.

That boil on my leg turned out to not be a boil. Or it was a boil but it was caused by a Golden Staph infection. We went away over Christmas and were keeping an eye on it the whole time, knowing I really should see a doctor when we got home. It was incredibly painful and I wanted it lanced so it would be gone - taking the pain with it. Oh and also there was a very large red patch around it, indicating infection. I kept hoping that when it drained the infection would clear. Instead, as it started draining the red patch got bigger and hotter and my foot swelled up. So off to the doctor I went, the morning after we got home. I expected that I would walk away with a prescription for some antibiotics and was happily anticipating the next week and a half at home *with Michael*. His office was closed for that length of time and we had been looking forward for months to that week and a bit at home alone with our new baby.

The first thing the doctor said was "I think you're very close to needing to go to hospital". By that time the boil, which had that morning shrunk a little, had turned into an abcess the size of a golf ball, the entirety of my lower right leg was bright red and my foot was twice its normal size.

She called in a colleague for a second opinion and well, off to hospital I went. Still expecting at that stage to be in for a couple of days of IV antibiotics, just as I was two days after bringing Caira home when I developed an infection in the uterus.

What I didn't expect was that the abcess would test positive for MRSA, or Golden Staph. And that instead of a couple of days IV antibiotics (which I'd already had by that time) I would end up with 4 days of very strong IV antibiotics and not be allowed home as soon as I started on the oral ones.

We've waited so long to be home with our baby. And on Monday (when it's expected I'll be discharged) I will have been in hospital for a day short of half her life.

Dear Universe: I've had about as much as I can stand for a while. OK?

It seems that every body has its breaking point; I reached mine yesterday and it was a boil on my leg. Actually, I'm not sure if it was the boil or the tiny cut on my little toe.

It made a lot more sense when I did a quick re-cap on the last 15 months: anxiety for our sick baby; grief; trauma x 2 (sudden end of business partnership and car accident); moving; change of climate increasing asthma to point where I need medication every day; pregnancy - not just pregnancy but one fraught with grief and anxiety as well as symphisis and insomnia; emergency caesarean; infection; effects of antibiotics on my newborn baby (upset tummy, unsettled, grizzly, not sleeping); ongoing bleeding from bladder; very painful haemorrhoids; a boil and to top it all off MY LITTLE TOE HURTS.

I feel like a punching bag and the blows just keep on coming.

It's school holidays and I can't sleep during the day with Rory and Sienna home.

Caira's taken to waking up at about 9.30pm and taking 2 hours to settle again, so I haven't been getting to sleep until about midnight. Even though looking after the kids isn't hard work as such (older ones entertain themselves, I don't need to "do" much for them and Caira really only needs feeding, changing, bathing and cuddling at the moment) I'm emotionally and physically exhausted.

The good news (for me) is that once upon a time I would have crumpled to the floor in a sobbing heap. Last night Michael hugged me and I quietly cried a few tears. We went to bed early (well, 10.00 instead of midnight) and I only woke up once, at 12.45 to feed Caira. Was completely oblivious to the fact that Michael was up with her for 3 hours after that, about 2.5 hours of which he was lying in our bed with her. Slept right through it. I felt awful that he'd been up so long but so very, very grateful that I slept. I know I wasn't up to being up last night. Michael told me all through the pregnancy that he wanted to be up with her through the night to let me sleep as much as possible. He wanted to take as much of the load off me as he could. (I kept telling him that since I would be breast feeding there wasn't much he would be able to do through the night, plus unlike him I can sleep during the day.) It still kind of surprises me after almost three years whenever I see him DO the things he SAYS. Not because it happens rarely - it happens all the time. I've just never known anyone else who DOES so much.

In a completely unrelated matter - I got an email from uni last week about my grade point average. Obviously mine is too low. I didn't complete second semester last year or first semester this year before taking an intermission for 18 months. I got an email stating that I needed to present a case to the uni for why I should be allowed to continue studying. I told them that I was on an intermission; that in first semester this year I was resuming study after complications in my pregnancy resulted in the stillbirth of my daughter but that I had found myself unable to keep up with my study due to grief combined with a subsequent pregnancy. (I got an email back saying I was fine to resume study in 2012 and that the email had been sent due to an automated system.) I cried and cried and cried. I hate still dealing with fallout from Kat's death. Daily (and forever) grief is something I've come to accept. Most days it's just a knot of awareness in the back of my mind that someone is missing. But then every now and then I have to more actively deal with it and it breaks the wound wide open again. I miss her so much. I wish so much that we could have all three of our girls with us.

It's taken 10 days to get the chance to post this, but....

CAIRA IS HERE!!!!!!!!!!

She was born by emergency caesarean on Wednesday 1st December, her due date. My waters broke (in an absolute flood all around the house!) around 10.00 the night before. I'd been having irregular contractions for a few hours previously and almost as soon as we were in the car on our way to hospital they started coming every three minutes although only mild. I was in very early labour on arrival at hospital and five hours later, stretched out in a warm bath with essential oils and Michael brushing my hair, just as I was thinking that the last couple had been much stronger, contractions... just... stopped. We ended up getting a couple of hours sleep before I was induced in the morning. Contractions started again and I was assessed by the obstetrician who found that Caira's head was down but sitting high in the pelvis. It had been very low the night before. I was instructed to remain upright to allow gravity to help her come down. I spent the next three hours going between standing and swaying (sometimes with Michael behind me, his hands on my hips giving my back his body heat) and sitting on the birthing ball, leaning forward on the bed. It caused excruciating pelvic pain though, having to sit with legs apart in order to lean forward so I would sit until I couldn't stand it anymore and then stand until I couldn't stay on my feet anymore. Somewhere in there I saw the doctor again and Caira had turned sideways. Just before midday, after labouring for three hours and as I was requesting an epidural, the doctor came in to do another scan to check Caira's position. She was head down again. Immediately after the scan I went to the toilet and the doctor stayed in the room to do another scan when my bladder was empty. In just that few minutes, Caira turned around to breach. At that point, and with me lying there saying "just get her out, just get her out" the doctor ordered a Caesarean due to an unstable lie. Because my waters had broken there was no way for the doctor to turn Caira around again and even if she did turn there was no guarantee at that point with all her movement that she would stay in any one position.

So, an hour and a half later I had experienced the extreme weirdness that is feeling pressure and pulling on my insides, hearing snipping and knowing it was my body being cut but not feeling any pain and there we were in the operating theatre and listening to Caira's first cry. When we heard that sound we both burst into cry-laughter. We were holding hands, looking at each other and waiting to catch sight of our daughter and I was saying "she's alive, she's alive, we did it, she's breathing, she's crying, she's alive!" In that moment, despite those words, I wasn't actively thinking of Kat. This was Caira's moment and I was so excited to meet her. My over-riding emotion was utter excitement.

Caira was taken by the paediatrician for a check and Michael cut the cord. His first words when he saw her were "she's absolutely gorgeous". Nurses were telling me how big she was, that they thought she would be over 4kg. Finally, all wrapped in a blanket, Caira was laid down on my shoulder and Michael and I sat/lay together looking at our daughter. Her eyes were shut tight and she kept trying to open them but not doing it. A nurse came and shielded her eyes from the theatre lights and she opened them; we both saw that her eyes were the exact same colour as mine. She closed them again and the next time she opened them they were dark blue. Her hair looked red but once the vernix dried it was much fairer, more blond. It has started to fall out now and what's left is darkening. In some light it still looks red though. All in all she looks very much like me. And she wasn't over 4kg - she was 3768g or 8 pound 3.

She has been a dream baby so far. In her first week she had the usual second night feed and scream fest that they all have but otherwise she went five to six hours between night feeds every night and two to four hours during the day. She rarely cries - although when she does she really lets us know about it! The kid is loud! When we pick her up we could swear she's smiling. Michael's mum said the same thing. Her mouth kind of opens, her eyes shine and her whole face glows. One thing I have never, ever seen or heard any other newborn do... we will often go to check on her in the bassinette and she will be wide awake, just lying there happily looking at the side of her bed with her hand outstretched. The first time I saw it I was sure that my vision from all those months ago was true - both my girls in the one cot, one a newborn and the other a little older but still a baby sitting up on the left side (as I look at her) of her sister's head watching her.

The main other thing to write about now is that I was readmitted to hospital after a day and a half at home with an infection. I've been on antibiotics for a few days now and they've unsettled Caira, but nothing we can't deal with. She's crying a bit more and wanting more feeds but we are fine.

All in all she is an absolute delight. She's a beautiful girl in every way and we are so much in love with her.