Introducing These Precious Little People
All about us going public. Gulp.
And autocorrect just changed my hashtag #newhere to #nowhere. This is doing nothing for my sense of self belief! Apprehensive, feeling sick, sleep deprived (up until gone 4am last night), but trying to allow flashes of excitement to creep in. I'm also periodically having to intervene to stop my two living kids (aged 3 years 8 months and 15 months) from killing each other (standard morning in this household then). They are fighting over who gets to play with (or destroy in the toddler's case) the train track that was built to occupy them. My mum is round (legend), but it doesn't stop my 3 year old son needing my attention and input with something or other approximately every few minutes - CBeebies to the rescue it is then...!
Parenting is full of challenges, everyone knows that, but parenting after loss can take it to extremes in terms of falling into the 'guilt' trap - if things aren't perfect at all times, i.e. the TV is never used as a babysitter, if meals are not always home-cooked, freshly prepared and full of fresh vegetables, if they aren't playing only with open-ended wooden toys and being read to a dozen times each day - then it must be proof that we don't deserve to have these precious little ones here growing up with us. If we can't savour every second and be present every moment with and exist solely for our children then we are being ungrateful and don't know just how lucky we are. These are big parts of the reason why I've not been able to focus on publishing this book before now. I started daydreaming about it around four years ago and actually began to work on the text of it over two years ago, but having the time and confidence to push ahead and actually get on with it has often felt a distant dream that has had to fall down the list of priorities way more times than I would have liked.
But now I'm here, I'm doing it. I'm *making* time; I'm *finding* the confidence.
Not everyone is going to love it and be as passionate about it as I am. That's ok (it really is). But I am hopeful that it will help lots of families affected by the death of a baby who have been searching for a support resource like this one, and that word of its existence will spread - slowly, perhaps, but surely.
"Feel the fear, and do it anyway" - Susan Jeffers