Thinking about parenting – a new beginning.

It’s often unspoken. You’re pregnant, there’s joy, anticipation, trepidation and then you’re not. In my case, I know in my heart, I miscarried because I went down an indoor slide with one of my children. I remember the moment, even though I lied to myself for years that I didn’t. There was a jolt halfway down and something shifted. I was aware but I immediately moved it to the closed box inside myself. I left not long after, picked up a new car and packed for our camping weekend. A deep, deep unease settled over me. There was spotting whilst camping and again, I told myself it was just fine. I knew. I knew. I knew it wasn’t .

I wore a red dress on the day the much wanted foetus passed. When I put it on, I knew I would never wear it again. It felt right. A public declaration I was bathed in blood. By the time I got to the ultrasound, I knew the would-be baby was gone. I can’t bear to say it but I can write it. I had been to the bathroom 6 minutes before the ultrasound and I knew she/he/they was gone. There was nothing in my uterus when the scan happened. No mini human, no grouping of cells, no heartbeat. I don’t want to say ‘it’ as the baby was already embodied for me from the time I saw the eight cell embryo on the IVF screen. It’s an odd experience, IVF. You are connected to the idea of a baby right at this point and you have a photo of a cell, ready for implantation.

I myself back from the appointment, one hour in the car. I berated myself and cried, moving on far too early by the time I pulled into town. There was more blood loss than I expected so I took myself off to casualty and stayed there for a few hours. I hid under the guise of illness rather than loss. Another way we pathologize grief instead of honouring it. I laid on the couch for five days wearing a long hot pink singlet. I had a great deal of support but I have never felt despair like I did those five days. And still do when I think about it. Less of a sharp edge exists now – it’s a wound which never quite healed right and occasionally, like now, I pick the scab off and feel it freshly cut.

I moved back into my world. I had two other live children. It wasn’t as bad as what other people had to deal with. I might fall pregnant naturally (not likely). Lies we tell ourselves to be able not to feel. After those days, we barely talked about it. Except when we did and the 15th January is a day when I take pause, to remember, to allow for a new expression of this grief. I yearn for the missing part of our family.

Tips (not top ones as each person will view this in their own way):

1. Cry.
2. Cry.
3. Cry.

A great deal of literature and research exists on attachment. This is primarily a western concept but given my colonial background, that’s what I’ll focus on today. Attachment theory (Bowlby) says that a child needs a bond with a primary carer (usually a mother), to develop and make sense of the world. They learn about expressing needs and wants, love and how they can impact on their environment through this relationship. There’s the wars around this – controlled crying Vs co-sleeping Vs carrying baby with you all the time Vs routine Vs demand feeding. The list goes on.

At the core, it’s about relationship. This looks very different for each parent as the list above tells us. In lots of ways, it doesn’t actually matter how you do it. The questions we want to say yes to are:

Does my child feel love and receive love when we look at each other?

Does my baby know it’s basics needs for food, shelter, care and love are met?

Does my baby see joy in my face the majority of the time when I look at them?

The yes to these questions is the path of secure attachment. There’s so much loss to work through when we consider attachment. Often, there’s experiences of care, or lack of, from our own families to work through, consider, ignore. As humans, we tend to not do the work to understand our own attachment patterns, but rather move into parenthood with a view that we’ll do it mostly the same. Or mostly differently. Our own experiences often inform what we will and won’t do from gut instinct rather than insight.

By taking some time to understand our own attachment history, we can take a small short-cut through the rugged forest of understanding our attachment to our own children.

3 ways to begin this work – top tips:

1. Start a journal and write about what you remember from childhood – what were the rules about parenting, what were the gold nuggets you cherish and the dead wood you want to send down the river?
2. Therapy – undertake your own therapy to further understand your attachment history and experience.
3. Pay attention to co-regulation with you baby/child – the moments when it feels easy, joyful or painless. Hold onto these moments and honour their existence.

The children’s birthday party – as the years tick over we cherish them and want them to be memorable. As parents, we feel nostalgic for our childhood. We feel envious about what others have now and want to keep up. We just want our kids to have moments that stand out. Smiling at drop offs and politely chatting to hurried parents, eager for the two hours off. Making cups of tea for pick up when all you want to do is cuddle your child and explore their experience of the party.

The cake is full of sugar. There’s an odd mix of directions from anxious parents whose child can’t eat this and may have an intolerance to that. We try to cater and do our best. We mediate games – there’s the child who is committed to bloody death until the winner is announced; the child who really needs to win but never does; the chatterbox; the stirrer, the eager to please. We balance all their needs and wants with our eye on what matters most to us. The birthday child and their siblings – their enjoyment of the whole event. The minutiae distracts us from what’s in our heart.

The yearning to hold onto them for one more year. Going back to smell of a newborn (or maybe that’s the year you are at), the held breath of expectation when learning your expecting. Every birthday is a death knell – bleak I know, but it’s the little deaths or cuts of saying goodbye to that stage, that age and the beauty of their skin. There’s regret – “I wish I’d spent longer on….” and despair “have I done enough?”

Kubler-Ross’s stages of grief are played out in one day and that’s when the knowledge drops in. Each birthday is a step towards cutting the umbilical cord or stretching it further and further from us. The large wings we have been cultivating get stronger and stronger. We want them to fly, but not too far from the nest. The loss is consolidated and as the up-to-date grief research tells us, we learn to adapt to the new normal. Feelings will come up at unexpected moments and we can be okay. I know I am learning how to build my nest to accommodate new things – like yoga, like writing and getting to know my partner without the caring needs being as present with kids. We’ll see what this brings!!

Top tips:

1) Listen to your kid about their plans for the day. Make it a say yes day for them – you’ll see them delight in it and it’s catching. (Of course within reason and capacity!)

2) Take time to get to know who they invite. Their friends are often surprising and give you a new lens with which to view your child.

3) Pacing. Yourself, your kid and the guests. Don’t rush – there’s nothing to get to.

Children’s sport. The phrase which can make parents shiver in fear, worry and with excitement. The letting go of our dreams of being a VNL netballer, Australian Open victor, AFL grand finalist, sharp clay shooter …..and the list goes on, can consume us. I turn up to kids sport and I see hopes, dreams and sharp eyes – that’s just the parents. I see crying kids, too anxious to go on. I see cocky little mongrels with hair gelled up or pulled up in perky, exquisite braids which really improve their performance. I see lay ups, shots at goals, drop kicks, warrior arms and somersaults with double feet landing.

I see darting looks at who is scoring, watching, coaching, walking past; who is sitting together; who is not. The school yard politics are more prescient here and we all yearn for an inclusive, warm environment. A place to cocoon our kids and teach them about team work, good sportsmanship and cooperation. We get disappointed with ugly faces, scorn directed at volunteer umpires, coaches, participants and other children who don’t fulfil the roles we expect of them. Sometime even with our own.

The sense of loss can be a piece of week old bread in our mouth – hard to chew, harder to swallow. All our experiences flood us and this forms the foundation of the hopes for our kids. Winning, camaraderie and enjoyment – they all exist in the sporting arena. Some of it comes down to values. We want what we didn’t have for our kids. We want what we did have for our kids and we strive to make this a reality for them. At times, making sport a living hell for them and no better for us.

Top tips:

1) Decide on what type of sporting parent you want to be and why. At least then you know what’s driving you in terms of how you support, participate and promote kids sport in your own family.

2) Think about your hopes for your child in sport – ask yourself, do your actions and words support these?

3) Fun – think about if you are having it. And is your child having it?