Someone who I once thought my whole world said to me ‘you live your life like it’s a movie’. I doubt they would even remember saying it, but it’s always stuck with me and left a sting. But when I think back on my life, movies, books and music were how I got through. My favourite movie, My Girl, was never easy to watch, yet I somehow resonated with it every time – I was never sure why, until we lost Louis and the poem ‘weeping willow with your tears running down’ filled my thoughts. I never expected life to be easy, but I never expected it to be this hard either. For years I believed I would name my first-born Vada after the main character and became disgruntled every time someone linked it to the Star Wars character, Darth Vader.
When Charlie was born, his name was one I had never considered but both Dave and I liked it so once he had arrived it was decided he would be our Charlie Grahame – named after both our fathers, Graham and Graeme. It wasn’t until months later I realised that the name Charlie had actually been the main characters name in a number of my favourite movies from when I was younger. Mighty Ducks, The Santa Claus movies and Jack Frost. Everything seemed to have all fallen into place, but we had lost Louis – again a name I had never considered, but by now you all know the story. My point being, Dave and I had decided to try again. And when we revisited our baby’s name list, we realised that our chosen baby girl name, was and had always been Lucy Louise – I just couldn’t believe it!
We hadn’t received a positive test but I had been feeling yuck, I was tired, sore, migraine lingering, sensitive to smells (poo mainly, but also chlorine, deodorant etc), that along with the skin infection, things were getting hard.
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On the morning of February 10 while sitting beside Charlie having my morning coffee, I had a strong push to message a local lady named Jess. Jess and her husband had given birth to twins on November 16, Harvey and Eloise – Harvey ‘born silent.’ At the time I did reach out but I felt she needed time to grieve (understandably) and we hadn’t spoken since. But this morning, there was just this nagging need to message her, I didn’t know what to say and I didn’t understand why but I sent through a message just reminding her she was not alone and I hoped her and her family were healing. She replied, immediately thanking me and stated it was actually her birthday! She expressed that she had an emotional night due to feelings of loss and that something was missing, following that she felt all joyous occasions would feel the same for some time.
Jess and I were linked by the loss mother’s group we never wanted to be a part of and we were able to understand each other and share our stories. Our boys would have been three months apart, they would have been in the same year at school and possibly have even been mates – but I believed they were mates and that Louis was sending messages that morning to check in on Jess and possibly bring us all together. Jess and I would continue to chat over the next few weeks, supporting each other through Facebook memories, timely milestones and unfortunately more grief. To be continued . . .
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During my final weeks at the Numurkah centre, my period came four days early. There was no evidence but I knew my body and I believed this to be another early miscarriage and I was devastated. Things continued to blow up at work and I tried my best to keep things running smoothly but I continued to be put in situations where I was expected to step up without support. Several people had expressed their understanding for my leaving but my mind was made up – no one begged me to stay and I had at least one staff member deliberately avoiding me. Wednesday there was no room leader again, I guess I wouldn’t be saying see you later! The children did well following direction but it was the additional educators within the room who struggled to follow routine. The running sheet stated for one routine to be completed at a time, allowing children to have more one-on-one time with the educators and keeping the chaos out of the room. The problem was I kept taking on the whole of the room because others weren’t stepping up, I was serving lunch, doing beds, settling the children, while watching the worlds slowest nappy changer at work – I was burnt out by 1pm.
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The morning I received the call from the director at the stand alone kinder, I counted my blessings, but deep down I knew if this didn’t work out, it would be back to the drawing board. Charlie had secured a spot in the kinder group and I would be a new addition to the occasional care room.
'Our Little Louis' 