Don't Make a Fuss
I took Felix to the cinema recently, and he dropped his popcorn all over the floor.
“Never mind,” he said instantly. “It doesn’t matter.”
He gets that from me. Don’t make a fuss. Don’t worry. Don’t sweat the petty stuff.
Before we went into hospital on Thursday morning, I went to the toilet again. I hoped there'd be something to see, because otherwise I'd have been making a fuss about nothing.
When the nurse asked questions about the blood, about the pain, I found myself wanting to exaggerate. Because what I had to report was so small, so vague. I didn’t want to waste her time.
After we’d found out the fuss we were making was about something and not nothing, we went home. That night, we got pissed. We got pissed and stoned and we made jokes to each other.
I was worried that one of the literary agents might read the announcement on my blog; might delay getting in touch out of respect. I wanted to go back and edit: “P.S. If you’re a literary agent, don’t let the fact that I’ve just lost a baby put you off. Call me!”
We both thought it would be funny. But people wouldn’t get the joke. They’d be appalled.
When bad things happen to people, everyone tiptoes around them. Don’t mention death, or babies, or blood. Don’t make jokes.
That’s fair enough: it’s hard to know what’s right. It’s your job though, not ours. Why should we be pussyfooting around our own selves? But we are. There’s a strong sense that we should behave in a certain way. We’re not allowed to get over it and move on, not allowed to make jokes, not allowed to be drunk and silly, not allowed to be ourselves. We have to mourn.
And of course we do, we are, we will. But...
We ended up posting this on the Big Chill forum, and it made us feel a bit better.
Still, I feel bad about this which was posted last night, drunk and stoned and depressed. It seems wrong, somehow. But why?
This morning I found my other post wasn’t shortlisted for Post of the Week, and it hurt. I was glad when it was nominated. Why? I’m not sure. There’s the ego thing, of course. But it’s not just that. And I’m not making any claims for the quality of the writing, really I’m not. I can’t begin to be objective about that: When I read it, all I see is the content - and even that through a salty mist. But I can’t help wondering... was it decorum that saw it excluded from the shortlist? Did the POTW editorial team think it wasn’t appropriate? Did they feel the need to protect me? Or their readers? Or maybe it was just a rubbish post.
We watched the pilot episode of Six Feet Under last night, which we have on DVD. There was a lot of death, mourning, blood, funerals. Nate and David, fellow sons of a funeral director, had a fight about propriety around a grave. What kind of grief is acceptable, appropriate?
And can you call it grief when the dead body is so tiny, so unreal? Was never actually a person?
And it wasn’t. I seem to have a deep-rooted instinct for self preservation on that score. I could never believe in Felix as a living human being until I held him in my arms - and even then it took a while. My mind bounced off all thoughts of babies, and I didn’t want to look at baby clothes or, in this case, use the name Felix gave it.
It’s the promise that’s lost. Not a human being, but the potential for one.
My mum said that when it happened to her, she thought about writing an article for the Guardian. She still remembers what she was going to say: that it wasn’t the loss of a person, so much as the loss of a way of life. She was in the middle of something, and then suddenly she wasn’t. And all those plans dissolved.
I have similar plans, maps and calendars in my head. All gone.
But I don’t want to make a fuss. Don’t want to be a nuisance. Don’t want to upset anyone, or do the wrong thing.
And right now, I think people might be annoyed with me. Because I told the whole world, before I reached twelve weeks. And it wasn’t ignorance - I know full well that a high proportion of pregnancies don’t make it past the first trimester. I reasoned that if anything went wrong, I’d rather people knew - and that way I’d be more likely to get sympathy and support. I’d heard that people regret having told nobody, because it means there is noone to understand.
And I have, I've had an astonishing amount of support. Emails, texts, comments, phone calls. You're all lovely. Please don't think I'm not grateful.
But perhaps some of you are thinking, “What did she have to go and tell us for? We could have been spared all this.”
And here I am, making a fuss.
But don’t worry, it’s only popcorn. It doesn’t really matter.
___
“Never mind,” he said instantly. “It doesn’t matter.”
He gets that from me. Don’t make a fuss. Don’t worry. Don’t sweat the petty stuff.
Before we went into hospital on Thursday morning, I went to the toilet again. I hoped there'd be something to see, because otherwise I'd have been making a fuss about nothing.
When the nurse asked questions about the blood, about the pain, I found myself wanting to exaggerate. Because what I had to report was so small, so vague. I didn’t want to waste her time.
After we’d found out the fuss we were making was about something and not nothing, we went home. That night, we got pissed. We got pissed and stoned and we made jokes to each other.
I was worried that one of the literary agents might read the announcement on my blog; might delay getting in touch out of respect. I wanted to go back and edit: “P.S. If you’re a literary agent, don’t let the fact that I’ve just lost a baby put you off. Call me!”
We both thought it would be funny. But people wouldn’t get the joke. They’d be appalled.
When bad things happen to people, everyone tiptoes around them. Don’t mention death, or babies, or blood. Don’t make jokes.
That’s fair enough: it’s hard to know what’s right. It’s your job though, not ours. Why should we be pussyfooting around our own selves? But we are. There’s a strong sense that we should behave in a certain way. We’re not allowed to get over it and move on, not allowed to make jokes, not allowed to be drunk and silly, not allowed to be ourselves. We have to mourn.
And of course we do, we are, we will. But...
We ended up posting this on the Big Chill forum, and it made us feel a bit better.
Still, I feel bad about this which was posted last night, drunk and stoned and depressed. It seems wrong, somehow. But why?
This morning I found my other post wasn’t shortlisted for Post of the Week, and it hurt. I was glad when it was nominated. Why? I’m not sure. There’s the ego thing, of course. But it’s not just that. And I’m not making any claims for the quality of the writing, really I’m not. I can’t begin to be objective about that: When I read it, all I see is the content - and even that through a salty mist. But I can’t help wondering... was it decorum that saw it excluded from the shortlist? Did the POTW editorial team think it wasn’t appropriate? Did they feel the need to protect me? Or their readers? Or maybe it was just a rubbish post.
We watched the pilot episode of Six Feet Under last night, which we have on DVD. There was a lot of death, mourning, blood, funerals. Nate and David, fellow sons of a funeral director, had a fight about propriety around a grave. What kind of grief is acceptable, appropriate?
And can you call it grief when the dead body is so tiny, so unreal? Was never actually a person?
And it wasn’t. I seem to have a deep-rooted instinct for self preservation on that score. I could never believe in Felix as a living human being until I held him in my arms - and even then it took a while. My mind bounced off all thoughts of babies, and I didn’t want to look at baby clothes or, in this case, use the name Felix gave it.
It’s the promise that’s lost. Not a human being, but the potential for one.
My mum said that when it happened to her, she thought about writing an article for the Guardian. She still remembers what she was going to say: that it wasn’t the loss of a person, so much as the loss of a way of life. She was in the middle of something, and then suddenly she wasn’t. And all those plans dissolved.
I have similar plans, maps and calendars in my head. All gone.
But I don’t want to make a fuss. Don’t want to be a nuisance. Don’t want to upset anyone, or do the wrong thing.
And right now, I think people might be annoyed with me. Because I told the whole world, before I reached twelve weeks. And it wasn’t ignorance - I know full well that a high proportion of pregnancies don’t make it past the first trimester. I reasoned that if anything went wrong, I’d rather people knew - and that way I’d be more likely to get sympathy and support. I’d heard that people regret having told nobody, because it means there is noone to understand.
And I have, I've had an astonishing amount of support. Emails, texts, comments, phone calls. You're all lovely. Please don't think I'm not grateful.
But perhaps some of you are thinking, “What did she have to go and tell us for? We could have been spared all this.”
And here I am, making a fuss.
But don’t worry, it’s only popcorn. It doesn’t really matter.
___
Labels: Babies, Blogging About Blogging, Miscarriage, Philosophisering
5 Comments:
Listen, it's YOUR blog, and you blog about the things that happen in YOUR life, and this is what happened.
I did exactly the same thing; blogged about the blood, the physical pain, the guilt, the tears... and it helped. Eventually.
x
It does matter, and it IS important. I'm glad you're dealing with it and I hope writing it all out helps.
And I'm sure no-one would dream of being annoyed with you for writing about the pregnancy early on. They'd have to be some kind of wanker not to feel anything but sadness for you, and want to comfort you.
Lots of people care about you, so if it helps you to spill it all out on the blog, do it. You can always delete it later if things change, or if you feel self-conscious.
Take care. Thinking about you lots.
xxx
Thank you. You are of course both right, but sometimes I need someone else to confirm these things. Thank you.
Clare, the POTW shortlist is drawn up by a different and unnamed individual each week, from a rotating pool of a dozen or so. It wasn't me this week, but I might have thought twice about shortlisting it - mainly because there would have been no way of knowing whether or not you'd be happy about having it as an entry in public a competition. OK, I could have e-mailed you, but then I know you better than most of my other team-mates.
The three judges would then have faced the same problem: hang on, is she happy about this? So I can see an argument in favour of sparing them from having to make that sort of judgement call.
I did toy with the idea of nominating the post myself, but thought it might be too intrusive, so I didn't... and then others did.
It was a stunningly articulate, honest and moving piece of writing. Of that, let there be no doubt.
Mike, thanks for that - I appreciate it.
And of course I knew really, that a difficult decision was faced - I thought by a group of people, but in fact by only one. It's so hard to know what the right thing to do is, in situations like this.
I got rejected by one of the literary agents on Friday (bad timing, but they clearly didn't know that) - so this just felt like another kick in the teeth. But nobody could have known that. And I really should give less credence to these things.
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