Shanelle talks about how difficult it has become to share many of her emotions with her impending due date of her subsequent pregnancy.
"It’s been an internal conflict ever since. Even now writing this.
Am I happy for what's to come or am I sad for what I have lost?"
I haven't written in months, not because I had gotten over my loss, on the contrary.
It became very difficult to share my emotions, even with myself as my due date came along. I was supposed to be holding my baby, not grieving for her and then just weeks before, we found out we were expecting again.
It’s been an internal conflict ever since. Even now writing this. Am I happy for what's to come or am I sad for what I have lost?
The biggest emotion I have now is fear. It has nestled itself into my life like an old friend, haunts me in my dreams and taunts me in my waking hours. It's inescapable.
I still think about Navie every day and the milestones that have come and gone and now with little less than a month to go til the anniversary of her loss, I am terrified of my reaction.
Her due date, Mother’s day was hard enough, but this? It consumes my thoughts.
I try hard to focus on the joy she bought my family and I, and how now, our newest addition kicking and tumbling in my stomach, was sent by her... but it isn't her and I find myself in a fog of sorrow, taking it day by day, breath by breath, waiting for my rainbow to ease the way.
Shanelle
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Shanelle Kay
Shanelle is a trainee counsellor and photographer based in Brisbane.
She believes the best sound in the world is her son's laughter and how he sings to himself when he wakes from a nap. She is also a proud mummy to an angel baby and through writing and various arts she is sharing her experience and finding herself, all over again. In her own words...
"I am all and I am nothing, but most importantly I am exactly who I need to be in this moment... and that is sometimes the hardest thing we have to accept, openly and honestly.. Ourselves"
HI Shanelle. January 5th 1981 was a day etched in my memory, the day I should have had my third child. However, this baby died in vitro at 16 weeks. I was so scared during my fourth pregnancy. Every twinge, difference, put me on "high alert". I am a trained family therapist and loss and grief counsellor as well as a Mental Health Trainer but there is nothing like lived experience to put theory into perspective.
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