Think Speak Run

Hello! It’s Monday the 28th of November 2011. It’s quite cold, so we have the heating on.

So Saturday was november 26th. 8 years since I got Ella back. And man does it still hurt. Still. David and I were talking about it last night. And I am still cross with You God for letting me go through all that. We just watched Bishop’s message from yesterday – it was as if he’d been in the kitchen with us last night! As so often this year, what he has preached on has been exactly what we’ve been facing or going through. And when it’s been a different preacher, what they’ve brought has likewise been directly relevant to us at that point. God seems to have tailor-made these words for us. So Bishop’s message from yesterday but which we just watched now was all about Nicodemus and the need to be born again. And it of course ties in directly with all I was saying to David last night. And with the text message of the verses from God through * on Saturday morning for me. God has answered many questions from last night – what is ahead is greater than what is behind. He was not killing me, He was pushing me. Like pushing to birth.

So I guess now it’s time to say how I feel God, now that the niceties of what You’re going to do are down on paper and have been confirmed also by Bishop. So here goes:

God I am hurting. So much. I find it hard to breathe sometimes because the pain crowds in at my throat. I feel strangled, and I know my voice comes out sounding strangled sometimes when I talk about this stuff. I feel so wretched with grief. I feel so helpless in the face of this pain because it is so large and all-engulfing. Like a big billowing boat sail that threatens to smother me or turf me overboard and drown me. So much for people being able to drown their sorrows. Mine are drowning me. My throat feels tight just typing about this. I described my life to * the other day as being like a watertight bubble that I’ve put around myself but the seams are starting to leak and the pain is seeping in and leaking in at the edges. I can’t control it all anymore. It’s too big and too much and I can’t keep juggling it all in the air. It feels like juggling with eggs where there’s going to be a massive mess if I drop any of them. Something has to break and it feels as if it’s going to be me. I can’t keep the water out. The water is the pain. I have all the rational reasons for this pain – no time to grieve after Ella was born. I was grieving I guess then, but then when I had her back I hadn’t even begun finishing the grief, and all of a sudden I had to stop grieving and get on with being her mother. Small wonder I wound up on the bridge. But all that was ever diagnosed was severe post natal depression. Not post traumatic shock [stress] disorder which I know I was in. And I never got the post adoptive counselling because in their eyes I didn’t give her for adoption. So I fell through the gaps. And You know I couldn’t cope with going to the counsellor and having to dredge up all the pain for two hours once a week, only to then stuff it all back down again so I could go and pick up Ella and be Mum again. Not do-able.

So I guess what I’m trying to say God is that I am grieving but I have no space to grieve, so it is taking over my life. I grieve at the edges. The edges are painful. And I need to grieve. Fully. But I don’t know how or when. And I’m not ‘working’ so I can’t get a sick note and be signed off work with stress and have time to cope and heal. There is no time to stop being a Mum. And I would need to start from the beginning because I have gone through the whole gamut of emotions and don’t know whether I’m grieving the original loss or what because of getting her back. It’s very messy. I feel very scribbly inside. Not in order.

Interlude while I entertained C and did a wee and made a coffee for me and a cup of tea for David.

So. It hurts Lord. Why did You let me go through with giving Ella up when You already knew I was going to get her back? And You already knew how much mess that would cause inside me. I don’t miss her NOW; I miss her THEN. How am I supposed to explain that? We’ve just come through the 7 and a half weeks again, from 6th October to 26th November, and this time I feel more of a wreck than usual. I think largely because I have C as a baby, reminding me of every single bit I missed with Roo. And realising that she irritates me so much because we don’t have that fundamental bond that I have with the boys, which is born(e)? out of just being with the baby 24/7 for week on week on weary week. It’s utterly exhausting, but that’s where the bond is formed. And with Roo, obviously I do have some kind of bond, but it’s not the same as with the boys. You know I feel bad about that Lord. And You know I can’t remedy that Lord. Please please help me. I know You have chosen me to be her Mum; David to be her Dad. Give me what I need to be her Mum well. To not have her damaged by that bond I cannot forge or fake, but which I so desperately need with her. She drives me up the wall much of the time, and I so want to be close to her like we used to be, but in a new and better way. Why do I feel so angry with her? Is it resentment because she hasn’t had to go through what I’ve been through at her age? And then couple that with the feeling that my life has been superseded by hers, and I have existed to perpetuate her existence. Maybe that’s it. And it feels so unfair – You knew I couldn’t bear to spend my life without her, but I didn’t know I’d be allowed to keep her. And I loved her because she was growing inside me – like what the woman preacher was saying about Rizpah – when everyone else was saying, “Rizpah, honey, they’re just bones now. Go home.” – she couldn’t cos she said, “But those bones grew inside me. I felt them move inside me.” God it’s like that. I felt her grow inside me. I saw her fluttering but definite and defiant heartbeat on the monitor screen at the scan at the hospital. I saw her yawn on the screen, and was filled with awe. I watched her uncurl her fingers and stretch on the screen. I felt her kick me when I wanted to sleep. I put my hands on my belly to cover her ears when I spoke about adoption because I didn’t want to hurt her. I saw her little crumpled blinking face. I looked down and saw that heap, and saw it was my daughter, and not Joshua at all. Like Abraham in the bit of the film of him that we watched at church, when You told him to take Isaac to Moriah – when he just cried out “WHY .” The pain that filled his voice; that is the pain that fills me. The pain that is constricting my throat right now. The pain that made it so hard to breathe when Marion sang that folk song about the mother and her baby, at *. I wanted to get up and run from there, and just howl out my pain, but I had nowhere to run to. The only place was somewhere I’d never been; 60 miles away, where a little tiny baby girl with a cry like a donkey hee-hawing was waiting. Waiting for me, or waiting for another family to claim her. And however much You may have been protecting me by not letting me physically see the months it feels like – weeks I missed, I don’t know what she looked like in all that time without me. I don’t know when she gave her very first smile; I just know her first smile to me. I don’t know so much of that time – her first bath, her first roll if she did it before she was back with me. I don’t know if I got her first laugh. I don’t know if she watched the little boy called *. I don’t know if she had particular lullabies or nursery rhymes that she liked. And the ladies in the service station who commented on her, and I felt proud, but also as if I was holding someone else’s baby, cos I didn’t know anything about her. I didn’t even know how to change her nappy, or how to hold her. I felt like a fraud. I identified with * last week that I have still been all this time trying to prove that I am her mother and have a right to be, and am good, and am the only choice of Mum for her. I know You said I’m her Mum, but I have lived listening to what other people have said for so long that I have been trying to prove something that no-one’s even asking about anymore. But they did at one time. And that missing bond is what makes me feel that the potential adoptive mum could have been better at being her mum than me, because she wouldn’t have had that bond either. She’d have had the bond of staying up with her, which * [foster mum] had, but not the physical bond of having carried her.

Oh screwy screwy this is so sore Lord. Why’d You make me go through with it as far as I did, only to then say actually, have some space and then you’ll change your mind.? ??? It was so unnecessary. So much unnecessary hurt and pain and separation. And she actually asked me on Saturday, the 26th, what was the hardest thing I had ever faced. And I hadn’t pointed out what the day was, and I didn’t want to talk about the pain with her so I said about the ram knocking me over and jumping on me. Why did You let that happen too? Why have You let so much happen to me? Why did You let my abusers and non-protectors force me into giving my own child away? Why let them win again? And now they are feeling the pain of separation from their child. And grandchildren and son-in-law. And good. But ow. It hurts. It hurts to be ripped from those who have hurt me so badly, cos I was tied to them by the bonds thicker than rope. And the bond with Ella that I have, it feels to me that it ripped but didn’t break, when she went from me to the foster mum. And maybe that’s why it feels as though there’s this great big open sore, gaping wound, devastating hole too deep to fill. And You’ll say something trite about our bond being stronger now, but I don’t want that Lord. I don’t want You to tell me about how wonderful the future’s going to be. I want You to answer about the past. I am hurting then and I am hurting now, and I can’t even think about the future until You start explaining about the past and why You hurt me so much and let me go through so much. And I want my daughter back. I don’t want the future will be so much brighter than the past, it’ll be everything you wanted and more. Hadn’t You noticed? What I want is in the past. I want my daughter back. I want my girly. I want me. I don’t know how anything can make up for that. I love M and C, but they are them, and they can’t make up for that. I love David, but he can’t fill that void. I love You, but You can’t give me that time back. So how am I supposed to heal? I don’t want this wonderful rosy future while I have a scratched raw past. Sort out my past and then talk to me about the future. But don’t expect me to cover this one over and make more excuses for You. I will not put up a facade. I am not ok; I am hurting. You cannot promise me things that will make me forget. Don’t You know, this is my child we are talking about? You haven’t forgotten Jesus, so how do You expect me to forget Ella? I cannot forget what I have lost with her. I can’t brush over it and move on. I’m rooted to the past, wanting You to acknowledge what has happened and what You’ve put me through. My life is divided like time into BC and AD – well my life is divided into before I gave her, and after I got her back. I am defined by this though I don’t want to be. I see everything in the light of her and what happened. And I don’t know how to move on out of this place of extreme pain. But I need it recognised – what I did, what I went through, what I sacrificed to be what was only natural in the first place – her MUM. I didn’t mean to do that in capitals. And I lost the pregnancy if You see what I mean. I didn’t spend it preparing for my baby. I spent it agonising over the finer points of adoption, and closed adoption, and not relishing it the way Elizabeth in the Bible could. Why Lord? At least if I was going to get banged up, at least afford me the joy of delighting in it. I did enjoy being pregnant with her, but not fully, and I was always aware that I was looking to the end point, just counting down the days and weeks and months until the horrible life-destroying separation would come. And then she was born. And she wasn’t Joshua. And I didn’t know what to do. And You have changed every step of this path of her life: abortion… no abortion. Adoption… no adoption. Baby with parents [my parents, to help me] … no baby with parents. Joshua… Ella. Foster Mum… searching for potential adoptive parents…. Joshua’s parents… Ella back with me. So what was the sodding point? Not that it would have been easy to give Joshua. But at least I knew that was the right plan for his life. And then You gave me Ella. And I love her. Very much. But talk about throwing a spanner in the works. What was I supposed to do? So I went through with the only thing that was in place, though You know it broke my heart to do so. My heart still hasn’t healed. I am heartbroken Lord, and I did all this to obey Your will. So where do I have left to turn but You, and ask You why the hell why?

I feel as if I’m just trying to grab hold of any strands of relationship with her as the blanket of our tapestry is ripped from my hands. The thread of her and me runs so deep the rending of it has caused me acute physical invisible pain. I hurt in my womb. There’s an aching emptiness and loneliness deep inside that only Ella could ever fill, because that was hers. That place was hers.

David and I have said for years that our lives are like threads in Your great tapestry. And you couldn’t pull out a single thread, a single colour, without ripping it and lessening the beauty of the tapestry. You could not undo our lives from each other’s without ripping us at our core. And that is what You have done with me and Ella. You have ripped us apart, and then stuck us back together again, but we’re not woven securely. The thread is weakened. The colour has bled. The parts we are meant to fill look sparse. I feel so threadbare and worn at the edges. I have lost my colour. My colour is gone. My vibrance is gone. My joy is gone. My girly is gone. I don’t know how ever to get her back. I love her so deeply and I hurt so deeply.

Validate me Lord. Validate my feelings, my pain. Tell me it’s ok to feel this way even though You let me change what I’m not sure was ever my mind in the first place. Tell me it’s ok that I originally wanted an abortion, and tell me it’s ok that I don’t know if I love her because she was a part of me, or because she’s Ella. You had me to the point where I couldn’t but love her. It was too late not to – she was growing inside me. There was no-one else to love her when she was part of me, and no-one else to love me. Tell me it’s ok that I didn’t want a child or a baby at that point, but I also desperately did. Tell me it’s ok that I don’t understand me. Tell me.