Lonely child

It makes me sad during this time of isolation that my little bubbly outgoing sociable girl often seems lonely desperate for the company of other children. Yes she has me and her dad with her but it isn’t the same as someone a similar age.

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At the door with her nursery bag wanting to leave to see her friends

Waves excitedly

When she sees other children going passed our house on their bikes on the way to the park for their exercise or animatedly chatting holding hands she bangs on the window waving to them shouting hello. She wonders why these children are allowed to play together but she cannot join them.

It’s hard to explain to an almost two year old that those children are siblings so they are allowed to play together and visit the park with each other.

She should have a big sister

It makes me so sad because by rights she should have an older sister to play with. A big sister to run around the garden with and who would be able to relate a little more to her, rather than the two adults she finds herself spending 100% of her time with.

Violet would have been able to look at books with her, play on the slide in the garden and they could have sat together to create sculptural masterpieces from play doh.  Even just lounged together on their giant unicorn to watch TV.

Don’t get me wrong I grew up with siblings myself so understand all about the arguments but you know what I would like to have to break up those fights and solve the disputes rather than try to cure lone tantrums about wanting to see others.

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Two of Aurora’s four cousins who she is missing at the moment.

Until now whenever I’ve gotten upset about her not having her sister here to play with I’ve taken comfort from the fact she has cousins she’s close to that she can grow up with. This current situation that stops her from seeing her cousins and indeed her friends reminds me how alone she really is.  I was lucky enough to grow up with a brother and a sister.

Facetime

Yes we can video call but she’s not overly interested in that. If we show her videos of her friends and cousins she watches them over and over finally tantruming when we stop her watching for the 100th time.

After seeing friends from a distance waving & chatting to them from the end of the driveway or over the fence she then has a tantrum because she’s not allowed to play with them. She’s even gotten her nursery bag taking it to the front door in an attempt to leave to go play with other children.

Adverse affects?

I fear that when this is all over our vivacious little girl might be a shy and reserved wallflower who has forgotten how to interact with her peers or other children.

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Playing in the garden

A close friend of mine who grew up as an only child once told me she wanted to have more than one child as growing up as she dreamed of having a sibling to play with. She said she used to feel envious watching me with my brother and sister wishing she could have the same.  I never really understood what she meant until now.

A new kind of grief

Watching my little girl cry and sob and tantrum because she wants to play with the children going passed our house breaks my heart.  Even more so that by rights she should have at least a big sister with her right now and actually she is the youngest of three.

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Sad in her pushchair as she watches siblings play and is told she can’t join them

It breaks my heart it really does.  It also reminds me of the difficult conversations that are coming in the future when she wants to know why she’s an only child and what happened to her older sister and brother.

Not alone

I recently came across someone else on instagram who is going through a very similar thing with their daughter and the isolation situation so I thought it was important to share this in case it might help even more out there to know they aren’t alone in this.

 

Big love

 

Sarah

Always Violet Skies

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Failing as a mum? 

So these past few weeks I’ve really struggled to feel anything but confident about my parenting skills. I know from speaking to other parents out there that this is a common feeling to have at times.

Your baby died

You see the struggle for me is when the rational voice in my head tries to change my mood by telling me that I’m a good mum. Another voice reminds me that my first baby died didn’t she and maybe it was because she wasn’t looked after well enough. Perhaps I should have tried harder or done something differently?

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Violet & Arthur’s grave

Whenever my rainbow baby is ill all these feelings get dredged up from deep down. All these fears and bad memories or nightmares from hell (also known as Manchester Children’s Hospital) as I call them.

Pneumonia

If my rainbow baby is diagnosed with a chest infection or heavens forbid pneumonia then even more negative memories and emotions appear as that’s what Violet died from.

When I took our toddler to the GP a last week we saw a different doctor than usual and she looked at the on screen records looking puzzled asking does she have a lung disorder as she’s here a lot to get her chest checked. Our usual doctor insists we bring her to be checked whenever we are remotely concerned but obviously this lady didn’t get the memo. I really think they need to have something that flashes up on screen to say “her sister died of pneumonia” as I then had to explain no she doesn’t have any lung disorder we are aware of and to rationalise why we’re so over cautious bordering on paranoid. When I said her sister died of pneumonia I didn’t even get the usual “I’m sorry to hear about that” instead I think she was a bit embarrassed as I think she initially thought I was just a paranoid over protective mother.  She listened to baby’s chest and agreed it sounded crackly so prescribed some antibiotic.

Nursery

Roll on a few days and baby seemed much better thankfully so we sent her back to nursery.  Around lunchtime I got a phone call to say she was breathing rapidly and sucking in below her ribs so really serious for a little one.

Hospital

I collected her from nursery and we drove straight to hospital A & E, where the triage nurse said she thought we looked familiar.  When we explained that our other daughter died in the hospital she immediately said “oh my god you’re Violet’s parents”.  It turned out the reason we recognised each other was that 3 years ago she worked on the ward where Violet died and she had looked after her the night before.  She welled up and I started crying so it was a great start to a possible hospital admission.

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Reading books in A & E

 

Violet

Thankfully because the nurse remembered Violet it was then an easy job for me to insist she asks for the on call respiratory specialist to consult and she obliged immediately paging them for us. Anyway they did an x ray of her lungs and saw she had a possible viral and bacterial infection on them.  They gave us more antibiotics and said as long as we monitored her for any further changes then we could take her home.

We were only home for a few hours when we noticed her breathing had gotten rapid again, around double what it should be, so we knew she was getting worse and phoned an ambulance, which is what we’d been instructed to do if she got that bad.  The operator explained that the ambulance would take 3 hours to arrive so given our proximity to the hospital we would be better driving her there ourselves.

Back again

We arrived back in A & E and were told they would be admitting her for monitoring overnight, as her oxygen levels were erratic.  It felt like I was at the gates of hell and having to enter it once again.  I explained this to the hubby and he laughed saying “pleased to see you’re not being over dramatic then” lightening the mood as always!

There are no words to describe how it felt being back in that hospital again sitting and sleeping (who are we kidding more lying with one eye open and jumping up every time she coughed!) at the side of my baby’s cot bed. All the memories I had suppressed of my time there with Violet came back along with my scepticism about what we were being told.  Luckily this time we had the top respiratory consultants looking at her x ray and examining her too so I felt more confident with what we were told.

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Sleeping like a baby 

Valentine’s Day

I got the best Valentine’s Day present in that we were discharged from the hospital and once again told to monitor her.  Fingers crossed she seems much better now but it’s always tough with little ones when they can’t tell you how they feel.

Here’s hoping she recovers quickly and we never have to return to that A & E again.  Although I plan once she’s better to take some more books in for the children in A & E as quite a few we looked at reading with her were ripped and damaged.

We’re still exhausted and reeling from the adrenaline here and hoping she’s better soon.  I take my hat off to those people, especially a dear friend of mine, who have children with long term illnesses who are often in and out of hospital. It is really tough to have to try to parent while doctors and nurses torture your child trying to make them better.

Thanks for reading.

Big love

Sarah

Always Violet Skies

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Future planning

Someone asked me recently what my plans were for the next 5 years. I laughed and said ideally I still want to be alive and I hope my family are all still alive too. Then I’d like us all to be healthy and happy. That’s about it.

A 5 year plan?

Not sure that was the answer he was after as he said I meant professionally and for your business. Well it’s not much use wanting anything work wise if I’m not here is it was my answer?

Maybe they shouldn’t ask parents of loss who have a heart defect that will hopefully be repaired before Christmas that question? 

Heart-frame-the-gallery-wall-violet-skies
This heart image by The Gallery Wall UK sits on my wall in the dining room

I used to be a planner

I used to be into forward planning years ahead at least as far as work, holidays and home went but these last few years have taught me that there’s no point putting too much effort into future plans when something could happen unexpected at any time that can change your world in a heartbeat.

Now I try to live in the present

It much better to live in the present as much as you can and also to try not to dwell too much in the past either as there’s nothing that can be done with that now.

Don’t get me wrong I still plan a little because I have to with work or family plans but i only tend to plan a few months ahead at a time.

How about you? Are you a planner? 

Big love

Sarah x

Always Violet Skies

Future-planning-violet-skies
Do you plan ahead?  What’s your 5 year plan?

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November at last!

November is here at last and I say that not because it is a favourite month but just because October is finally over.  This year it was particularly tough.

October

I was supposed to be visiting Lisbon last week for my mum’s birthday treat but had to pull out and left her with my sister as my little rainbow baby was poorly so I couldn’t leave her at all.  The illness of my daughter combined with Baby Loss Awareness Month was the main reason October was super stressful and a tough month for us.

For-the-rest-of-my-life-I-will-search-for-moments-of-you4-violet-skies.png

A poorly rainbow

Our rainbow baby was the same age as Violet was when she died and she contracted pneumonia twice, which was exactly what happened to Violet before she was admitted to hospital never to return.  This is why this past month has been so fraught for us resulting in hardly any sleep; stress levels beyond belief, emotional meltdowns on a frequent basis and the consumption of a vast amount of comfort food/drink on a regular basis.

Violet-in-manchester-childrens-hospital-on-26th-Sept-2016-violet-skies
Our fear – this was Violet the morning she died.

Expert jugglers

We also managed to still juggle work commitments, the organisation of a surprise birthday party for my mum and even had a drink out baby free for an hour or so for a friends birthday before hot footing it back to soothe a poorly baby.

Update

Health wise my daughter is luckily recovering well but we’ve decided to keep her away from nursery until the new year at the earliest to allow her lungs to fully recover and to ensure her immune system is back to full strength too.  We will continue to juggle work commitments and childcare thanks to the support from family and friends.  There’s no way we will risk losing this little girl too.

New parenting territory

It sounds strange but today I feel a little relieved because yesterday our rainbow reached the exact same age Violet was when she died so today she has surpassed her sister’s age by one day.  It makes no logical sense why I feel relief at this but my stress has lifted slightly.

Is this normal with rainbow babies?  Anyone else feel this way too?  Or am I just odd?  Please let me know.

So now we’re on totally new parenting territory as we have the oldest living child we have ever had and it’s all fresh new sailing for us from now on.

Hope you’re having a great start to your month!

Love

Sarah x

Always Violet Skies

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