This is Me: Learning to accept a new version of me.
- Deborah Meyer-Lewis
- Nov 13, 2020
- 6 min read
It’s hard to accept I will never be the same again. When I think about Yaeli’s death, I think about the pain it’s caused. I know that someday I might feel happiness again. But in that happiness, I will be changed. My counsellor reminds me that today, everyone is a different person to who they were yesterday or last year or ten years ago. But what if you don’t want to be different? Feel different? How do you accept that feeling like a changed person is yet another thing that’s out of your control? Yaeli’s death may bring positive things to my life. For example, if I have a child at home in the future I imagine I may feel even more grateful than other mothers who don’t know what it’s like to lose or yearn for something so much.
But what do you do if you’re finding it hard to accept you have been forced to become a different version of yourself?
About three weeks ago in the throws of grief, I wrote the following….
How do I accept my baby has gone?
How do I accept my life will never be the same?
How do I accept that I am a changed person?
I don’t want to. But I have to, because it’s holding me back.
I don’t want to cry almost every day and to see the hurt in Ben’s eyes as he holds me.
I want to feel better, for Ben and for Yaeli.
Now everything I do, I do it for her too. All my life I will now be living for the both of us. And that (and Ben) feel like my only reasons to get up in the mornings.
But how do I accept what’s happened?
And how do I ever let go of the burning anger that Yaeli should be here?
Even a consultant Obstetrician has now acknowledged that had I had the required urgent scans at 36 and 38 weeks, they would have seen a tail off in her growth and I would have been offered an induction or C section between 37 and 39 weeks.
No, see. People; please don’t say everything happens for a reason.
It wasn’t part of some plan.
Except well, there is a reason it happened. My midwife simply fucked up and no one checked what she was doing. Once, I could forgive. But twice?
How do I accept that?
They say ‘Time’s a healer’ I don’t think it’s a healer. I think it’s a manager.
Time allows me to keep processing what’s happened and to keep writing letters to my midwife that I will never send – telling her she can never understand the pain she has caused.
And I’m glad she will never feel the pain. I hope she won’t. Because I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
Time will help me to manage my pain, yes. And to go on living. And to fill my head with other things in life. But healing? I don’t think so.
I wish there had been no explanation for Yaeli’s death. No mistakes.
Yes, the pain would still be the same. But the anger…. It’s something else.
I’m yearning for the old me.
But until I accept who I am now and my new reality, I won’t move forward (Not On) as fast as I’d like to.
Today. When I think about what I’m doing now as compared to a few months ago, I realise I have moved forward a lot. But so much of the time it’s still so very challenging. We went on holiday to Spain in early October and found ourselves living next door to a baby boy of a similar age to Yaeli, had she been with us. Torture. We awaited news of our newspaper article online online to raise awareness of Baby Loss Awareness Week – all the while I’m telling myself ‘I should be’ enjoying a holiday. I tried to enjoy ‘moments’ instead.
But before going to Spain I started volunteering with older people through a walking group. I only did three sessions but it got me talking to new people and having those conversations I’d been dreading when asked if I have children. This week I started a phased return back to work, a few mornings a week. Exhausted.
I knew I wasn’t ready to work during the summer. I needed that time to ‘just be.’ And now, I do need the distraction and some routine. Although, as I switched on my computer to work this week and realised what I’m doing, I felt sad that I’m returning to work without my baby being in childcare or without me being pregnant with Yaeli’s sibling. And then I just want to return to be with her. So In the same week that I start work and the same day (today) that I was doing a cardio workout in the park, I find myself drawn to take out Yaeli’s memory box, smell the blanket she was wrapped in and look at all the photos. Sitting in a pool of my own tears.
But this doesn’t mean I’m not ready to start work. I’m just stuck. I’m not accepting of what’s happened.
What’s this ‘acceptance’ they speak of in the grief cycle? I’m sick of feeling shit every time I get a period and I’m so fucking angry it’s unbelievable. I’m angry that my midwife made mistakes and failed not once, but twice. But mostly I’m angry that the maternity system means her mistakes weren’t checked, and that means Yaeli wasn’t saved. I’m angry that, sods law, the one time Ben and I conceive after only three months, I have a miscarriage. I’m angry that I now feel nervous I won’t have the two children at home that I want – or even one! And I’m angry that if I do have a child at home, due to my age I’m now going to feel rushed to try again. I’m also nervous that I am going to have some very mixed feelings about having Yaeli’s sibling at home. Will I feel happy or sad if we have another girl? If I have a boy, will I wish it were a girl? And Yes, I already felt old at 36 having my first child, but I still felt I had time on my side. I feel robbed of so much.
And then there’s talking to lawyers about taking on a legal case. When starting to think about doing this a few months back, I felt like I would be judged.
And I judge myself. Because when you take a legal case, you are asking for monetary compensation.
We want to try to make change and make a point – i.e the maternity system isn’t working properly when no one (or no electronic system) is checking what midwives are doing (or not doing). But as well as this being my main aim, I’ve gone from feeling guilty to thinking so what if Ben and I are compensated? (not that it's likely to be very much if we are successful). Ben and I are both paying thousands for counselling, which we would never had needed had mistakes not been made. I spend my time trying to be hopeful about getting pregnant and the prospect of not having another miscarriage like I did in July this year – and then I get angry again that I didn’t get to bring our baby home at age 36 and that I’m continuing to age. And then what happens if we need IVF in the future? And as the months have gone on I realise what Elle Wright meant when she started her blog and said something like ‘was I really meant to be back to my old chirpy self after nine months.’ During the last three or four months of continuing to feel like shit, I’ve been goading myself for it. So I am trying to stop telling myself ‘I should’ feel better now.
Women on Tommy’s Baby Loss face book group often talk about how they are struggling with pregnancy announcements and births. Some women try to make them feel better by saying ‘it does get easier’ or ‘I am trying to be gracious to others’. But I say to them just feel what you feel. I think it’s ok to find it difficult or fail to share in other people’s excitement. I do know I’m so very lucky that my friends and family understand and there’s no judgement.
I achieved something last week when I went for lunch with my friend and her toddler son. I COULD do it. But to be honest, I didn’t enjoy it. It was torture walking next to her pushing her buggy, feeling my empty arms. And as much as it hurts me to say I didn’t enjoy it, I was honest. And she understands.
My workplace is also incredibly supportive of my return to work and understanding that sometimes I will struggle in the months to come. I’m currently exhausted just from a few hours work this week. But the first work colleague I spoke to said to me, if you need to cry, cry.
So I say to those women on Tommy’s Face book group, if people can’t at least imagine why you feel the way you feel, then maybe they aren't worth having in your life.
Covid lockdown number 2 is here. I think acceptance is definitely an interesting notion at the moment to many.
I hope if you’re reading this and you are currently or have ever struggled with acceptance of something or someone, including yourself, be patient; be kind to yourself.
I’m trying to accept a new version of me. I really am. But I’m learning it takes time.
With so much love
Debs – Mummy to an Angel xxx

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