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?
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
Do you plan ahead? What’s your 5 year plan?
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In early September when kids start or go back to school it’s not so much the hundreds of photos of them lined up in front of either a front door or a fireplace that irritates me but more the stupid comment(s) that accompany them. So to save me from adding a passive aggressive and brutally honest blunt comment in reply to some of these posts I decided instead to write this, so hopefully if you care you will read this and think before you write that irritating social media post.
My aunty Jenny’s gorgeous front door – without a child in a school uniform
Here are those comments
“I wish he or she would stop growing” errr no you don’t because that would mean they would die and then be dead like my daughter who remains 15 months forever.
“Oh they’re growing too fast” at least they are growing there are lots of parents out there whose babies are sick and not growing fast enough. Be thankful you’re not them and don’t insult these parents by complaining when your child is healthy and thriving.
“Oh I wish they would stay as babies forever” errr no you don’t see my earlier comment above. Would you like it if they died then they would always be a baby?
“I miss when they were little” that’s why taking photos is so important but be thankful you don’t just miss them because they are no longer with you.
My fireplace without a child in a school uniform in front of it – “Back to school”
“It’s all going too fast.” You know what life tends to go fast when you’re enjoying and/or loving things. Try sitting in a hospital chair next to a sick child and your days seem to drag on and on. Or heavens forbid sit next to their grave. There are lots of parents sat in hospital with their school age child who is too sick to attend school and I can tell you their days just drag on. They would give anything to be doing a school drop off instead and waving goodbye to a child at the school gate rather than in an isolation ward as they nip to the loo.
“I wish time would stop” no you don’t because then you would be dead. Do you want your child or family to grow up without you? Think how extremely lucky you are to be alive now and living in the reality you have. Embrace every second and live in the present not the future because you certainly don’t want to be living in the past or to only be alive in someone else’s past.
Share those photos
So folks if you feel the need to share photos of your little darlings in their school uniforms to celebrate that they are growing, healthy and happy. To thank the universe that they were born to you in a country with free healthcare and education, so they can actually go to school then great share away. But please out of respect to those of us not in as privileged a position as you don’t wish for your children to stop growing, for time to stop or say that you are upset they are going to school. Be happy and be grateful. Appreciate the now and embrace the moment because you are right about one thing it isn’t happening again. Relish the time and moments. Take the photos, make the memories and remember to feel happy not sad. Embrace this exciting new chapter in you and your child’s life – hopefully there will be many more yet to come too.
A front door without a child in a school uniform – “back to school”
I know a hell of a lot of people who would love to be buying a new school uniform, waving their child off at the school gate and at the end of the day hearing all about how their first day went. Myself included. This September Violet should have been starting Primary School and that she isn’t hurts us beyond belief. We would do anything to have her here now. We know as a little book worm at 15 months that she would have loved going to school. So if your child is attending school this September be thankful and celebrate it but don’t for a second wish for something different.
Big love, Sarah
Always Violet Skies x
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At this time of the year my sleep (when I get any as my rainbow isn’t sleeping well and yes I get the irony given her name Aurora!) is peppered with a variety of different dreams all following the same subject.
Dream parties
It is always planning and arranging a birthday party. This year it’s one for a 4 year old as Violet would have turned four this June.
Violet’s 1st & only birthday – she loved it!
So far I’ve dreamt about lots of party themes including flower fairy tea party, puppy and kitten party, sleepover pamper party, Disney strictly dancing party, trolls theme, unicorn sparkles…
I think Violet would have loved Unicorns!
The dreams are all enjoyable in the main as I usually wake when the party is all set up ready before any guests arrive but I become upset when I actually wake realising that Violet isn’t here and I dreamt the whole thing.
Nightmares
Occasionally the dreams turn into a nightmare like last night when her little friends all started arriving with presents and balloons excited for the party to come. They were all asking where Violet the birthday girl was and we searched and searched shouting but she was nowhere to be seen. All her friends broke down crying and screaming then I woke up.
When I finally fell back to sleep again I started to organise a pool party in a hired swimming pool and so my dream party cycle began again.
Birthday balloons
Party girl to the core
I am a party girl at heart after all. I guess it’s a way my PR brain tries to be proactive in processing things and it could be worse I could keep writing the same press release over and over!
If anyone needs a kids party planning and arranging then just let me know, especially if it’s for a four year old as I can literally do one for you in my sleep! Violet would have had the best parties and I can assure you so will her sister.
Last year planning the Violet ball helped to halt these dreams, so I may have to start up plans for the Violet ball 2020, anyone fancy coming?
Love
Sarah x
Always Violet Skies
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Like most people I love bumping into people I haven’t seen for a while. Someone I used to speak to or deal with all the time perhaps through work or a project and who has simply drifted away. Now in these modern times, thanks to social media, quite a lot of these people are still kept up to date on the happenings in my life. They are aware of the sadness of recent times, however there are occasionally still a few that slip through the net.
Catch up
I met up with someone recently who I hadn’t seen for 5 years and initially I was so pleased to have ran into them, eagerly accepting the offer of a coffee in a nearby café. Then as I waited for them to get served with our brews my heart sank, as I realized the conversation I was about to have with them. I could forecast the surprised look then sadness before there would be pity and sorrow for my loss. Yes they would be sympathetic and the usual comments of “I’m so sorry” and “how have you coped” would be expressed. They would mention their kids and how they couldn’t imagine the pain of ever losing them. Then our entire conversation would take a different turn.
He brought the coffee and tea back.
I secretly challenged myself to see how long I could last before I would have to deliver the bad news to him. I asked him lots of questions, first about what had happened in the past 5 years in his life. He told me about his children growing up and how they were doing at school. About their different personalities with so much joy and passion proud of the people they were becoming.
My story
Then he asked “what about me” and I told him first about the happy things; our house, getting married, travelling the world and our three children. About Violet, Arthur and Aurora, then about the loss of two of them. I finished on a happy note talking about Violet’s fund, Aurora and our hope for the future.
Me and Aurora upset as she had to have her coat on.
I’m now adept at delivering the proverbial sandwich with the shitty grief filling in the middle.
Avoidance
It’s very easy for me to simply avoid catching up with people and avoid setting dates to meet up for fear that I’ll have to have the awkward conversation about what has happened in my life. Don’t get me wrong I’m getting better at delivering it now but somedays it is still very hard for me having to relive it over again along with the associated emotion.
I hate being thought of as “that girl” and “oh poor Sarah” as that’s certainly not me. My loss doesn’t define me as a person. Yes it may have shaped me into the person I am today and yes I feel the affects of that change every second of every minute but I’m still me.
I just wish I could hand that old friend an overview of what’s happened instead and say “here’s an update on me please read it and then we will grab a coffee to catch up”. That way I don’t have to relive anything repeating myself and having to observe their reactions too. It’s a little weird though and cold I guess so not me.
What do you think? How would you tell people if you were me?
A few weeks ago we were invited into St Mary’s hospital for a pleasant reason for a change. We were one of 180 sets of parents to be invited to attend Tommy’s the Baby Charity’s afternoon tea party for all the rainbow babies born in their care in 2018.
The parents and families (some siblings came along too) and 180 little rainbow babies all born in 2018 gathered together for the first time to celebrate life. It was so magical seeing all the people that had been helped by the charity.
Tommy’s Afternoon tea party for 2018 Rainbow Babies
About Tommy’s
For those of you who aren’t familiar with the charity it was set up to initially help those who had suffered stillbirth and multiple miscarriages. The charity spearheads research into the conditions and looks at preventative measures to try to safeguard pregnancy ensuring a healthy outcome for mother and baby.
Leonardo Di Vinci
This weekend I visited the Leonardo Di Vinci exhibition at Manchester Art Gallery and highly recommend it, as it is amazing. I always knew Leonardo was a genius but I discovered in this exhibition that his work actually led to changing the perception of how babies develop in the womb. He was the one that figured out that the umbilical cord feeds them too. He also discovered that the heart circulates blood around the body in the 1480’s and looked at how it feeds the main organs.
Leonardo’s study of human anatomy and specifically the circulatory system
Without Leonardo we wouldn’t have had the foundation for midwifery and then institutions like Tommy’s. What is a surprise I found is how little we have actually progressed since his discovery in the 1500s as the questions as to why babies die or why women miscarry are still needing to be answered today. Those answers are being discovered thanks to Tommy’s.
Our experience
Tommy’s Manchester clinic offered me careful monitoring during my pregnancy with Aurora, after our 20 week scan. To closely keep an eye on her but also to help me to manage my stress levels too. The aim is for those child loss victims, who have lost several babies, to get reassurance that any issues or changes can be spotted by regular scans. They also checked things like blood flow through the umbilical cord, that the placenta was working ok and checked the Aurora’s growth. Fluid levels in the womb and in my case, because of my broken heart, the blood supply into the womb too.
All of these checks helped to give me peace of mind during what was an extremely stressful and worrying time. I lived life while I was pregnant from one milestone to the next so each 3 weeks until my next scan was a mini countdown. We celebrated after each one gave us positive news. Although it still didn’t make me worry less as of course we had been told previously by experts during Arthur’s pregnancy in early scans that things were ok. We were also told by Violet’s cardiologist that her heart was ok “nothing to worry about” and then it contributed to her death. So to say I was skeptical about what “experts” told me was an understatement but you know what? The Tommy’s experts or as I like to call them Angels were right!
Afternoon tea
So the afternoon tea enabled the midwives, who had taken good care of us, and the head of the Tommy’s clinic Doctor Alex to finally meet Aurora in the flesh. The last time they had seen her she was on a black and white screen during ultra sound scans. It was great for then to finally get to hold and meet her. To find out that the little hyperactive baby on their screens was a fidget in real life too.
Aurora with one of our “Tommy’s Angels”
Tommy’s is a charity
Tommy’s also have places in the Manchester 10k so if any of you out there would like to run for them and raise some money to help others like us then we would be very grateful you can get more information to register here.
Unfortunately with my poor heart health we’re not in a position to be able to take part so we have pledged to raise funds for them after we hit our Alder Hey fund target in some other way instead. Would you come to a tea party in the summer perhaps and help us to thank our Tommy’s angels?
Also make sure you visit the Leonardo Da Vinci exhibition more details click here.
For those of you who regularly read my blog or follow me on social media you may know that I have been waiting for the news about my heart since before Christmas (see this blog post if you need a catch up). Anyway that decision was supposed to be discussed with me this week, when I was due to see my cardiologist about my MRI scan results from last year.
Snow
My hospital appointment was on Wednesday, the morning after the night the snow came that caused gridlock across the north west. It meant my cardiologist was one of the many people unable to get into work that day, so, alas again, I am still awaiting news as to what the future holds for my heart and for me.
Wednesday morning 6am
Frustration
Initially I felt really frustrated that I still don’t know what will happen and all because of a bit of snow! Then I remembered that this isn’t the first time Mother Nature has put a spanner in the works for me and, in the grand scheme of things, this time I feel a bit of snow is quite a minor one.
Other “Mother Nature” surprises
Previous Mother Nature surprises have included nightmares such as my first child Violet being born with a heart disorder that was 100% fixed, thanks to medical science, then only to die from an extremely rare lung disease. Then I am diagnosed with a heart disorder too, that it seems I was born with.
Violet’s butterfly in our garden reflecting the warm lighting from inside the house
My second baby was given the all clear as healthy at his 16 week scan. Then we were told at the 20 week scan that his brain hadn’t formed correctly so we’d need a TFMR. During both of these births medical procedures went wrong and I nearly died. Then I was told the issues both babies had were probably genetic and inherited from me. After tests it turns out the faulty gene is so extremely rare they can’t identify it as yet (of course it bloody is!).
Not all bad surprises
Then Mother Nature pleasantly surprised us with my third pregnancy, which we weren’t expecting as it was immediately after losing Arthur. This time it went smoothly producing the beautiful Aurora. Perhaps she felt she owed me one!
Aurora watching the snow – her first.
So Mother Nature continually surprises us on a frequent basis so I really don’t know why a bit of snow causing gridlock on the one day I really wanted to be able to see a consultant shocked me at all. I should be getting used to this by now.
Our neighbours snow covered garden so pretty
Ride the Wave
I need to remember to a certain extent to “ride the wave” or “go with the flow”, when forces beyond my control come into play and balls everything up. It really is like the shipwreck analogy of grief. I’ve been clinging to the “I’ll find out about my heart on Wednesday” piece of wood to stay afloat and buoyant for the last month only for it to suddenly disintegrate plunging me under the icy waves once again. Anyway now I’ve clambered onto the “meh so what” Irish whiskey keg barrel and seem to have recovered again!
All I can say is that if a higher power does exist they certainly have a very dark sense of humour with the twists and turns they deliver to me on a regular basis.
I’m just hoping I get to see my cardiologist soon and that he says I can have a keyhole procedure in the not too distant future.
Good job the snow is so pretty. Can you spot the birds?
Hope none of you were adversely affected by the snow and scuppered by our good old Mother Nature. Keep warm.
Big love
Sarah x
Always Violet Skies
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More of a mother – does a natural birth make you more of a mother?
All I want for Christmas is… keyhole surgery – doesn’t really have that nice a ring to it does it?
For those of you who don’t know I have a broken heart, and no I’m not talking about the metaphorical one I’m always bleating on about after having lost two babies, but my actual physical heart.
My discovery
I discovered it after I had lost Violet and was in the early stages of pregnancy with my first rainbow baby Arthur. I kept having dizzy spells and after my GP diagnosed an inner ear infection months earlier I thought nothing else about it until I saw a private consultant about something else and mentioned it. He said it sounded more like a blood pressure thing and so let’s check your heart. He did and low and behold it seems I have a congenital heart defect an ASD or hole in layman’s terms.
Of course I have a broken heart
I just remember laughing when he told me and said “of course I have a broken heart my daughter just died”. He explained it’s probably been there since birth but I’d just not had the symptoms accurately diagnosed before.
He read all the symptoms to me and they are basically all the symptoms every new mother has. They include lethargy, tiredness, weakness, dizzy spells (which are common for me due to low blood pressure – Olympic athlete level) and breathlessness.
Exhaustion
Even pre-baby I had lots of these all the time but I just assumed I was unfit (even when I attended a gym and had a dog so walked hills regularly) i often felt exhausted but put that down to being lazy & having an insanely mad busy job. Now I see there was clearly an underlining reason I hated PE at school, why I was rubbish at sport and maybe it was instinct that told me to cheat at cross country so I didn’t have to run? Apparently if I’d been an extreme sport enthusiast or a marathon runner I’d have collapsed.
Anyway this week I headed into hospital to have a much needed MRI scan (since the issue was spotted I have been pregnant pretty much ever since 😆 with my two rainbow babies so couldn’t have a scan). They are now deciding how to fix it, as if I don’t it will begin to deteriorate further and then will be unrepairable. So big moment really will it be a keyhole procedure or full open heart rib breaking surgery?
Meh
It’s now dawning on me that this is a huge thing as I’ve always just shrugged it off with a meh what will be will be but now I’m like “oh shit let’s hope it’s not full open heart I need”? Quite like my rib cage as it is.
The black humour part of me says they’re going to fix my broken heart well good luck with that one what are they going to do bring Violet back? I wish! 💜 here’s hoping for good news from the specialist this Christmas.
