A November Catch Up

So, it appears I haven’t written a blog all month – and have missed my monthly update… which I guess I’ll get round to at some point!

We were incredibly busy in October, doing #MilesInMemory – which was such a success. I think November hit and we just stopped and randomly, it’s nearly the end of the month, how exactly? And in that time Trump managed to win the election… *shudders*

The Wife has been away for work for a fortnight. We anticipated this being quite a big deal but in the end, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. We aren’t ones to complain about time apart, being military it happens and it’s happens more to others too. Yet, we’ve only spent one night apart since Leo died and was born, so I guess it was an untested activity?

Luckily for me, I have some amazing friends (with my favourite dog ever who is just perfect for duvet sofa days!) who fed me and kept me occupied.

Unluckily for The Wife, she camped in the freezing November and had this metal bowl in a communal tent and porta-loos to keep fresh! Lovely!

I was a bit concerned with this two weeks apart happening just a week or so after returning to work. It felt a bit too much like a double-whammy of hard stuff to contend with, and we don’t tend to load our plates up with too much stuff anymore, due to the whole grief thing making it stressful. However, I think working helped – go figure.

I’m still on a phased return to work – just two days a week until the New Year, and then four days after that. I haven’t written much about returning to work, even though I think at times it would be helpful. It’s an odd thing to write openly about, especially when this blog isn’t exactly private… However, this blog isn’t the only person who pretends to listen to me… so luckily, I can process all of the ups and downs of returning to work elsewhere.

The aspect that I have found particularly hard to process, is returning to a place I left happily pregnant just weeks away from giving birth. I left, so happy, on the last day before Christmas. It is the definition of my life before Leo and it’s an odd place to step back in to. Everything is the same at work – yet everything is different for me. In some ways, it’s like going back in time, but Leo is still dead. I’ve had to make some things different to help my brain understand that it isn’t going back in time, like a new work wardrobe (not hard for two days a week!) and a new driving route to work (despite the increased traffic!). Plus, being close to Caffè Nero Praline Hot Cholcolates is helpful!

I’ve also been able to meet up with a few fellow Baby Loss mums this month, which I’m so grateful for. As always, there’s something so freeing to spend time with someone who is also fighting this journey. The conversation doesn’t always have to be about Dead Babies, but it can be, and that is so rare in socialising these days.

The two biggest things for us to process at the moment however are Christmas and Leo’s first birthday. The fact that these two events are just weeks apart does.not.help.one.bit. I think both probably warrant individual blog posts to make sense of where we are with them both though. Christmas has obviously been around since… well, our conversations about it started in July! Because of this, we are slowly getting there with being okay with just general festivities, but Leo’s version of Christmas  is absolutely our preference – we can’t really care any less about Christmas for us. We have some things planned, so keep an eye on Instagram to see what we are up to.

As a result of seeing Christmas through Leo, we are loving the Waitrose advert and all the memorabilia that comes with it… the mugs, the bags for life, the book. Can you tell why?

With Leo’s birthday, I’m getting there. Ish. I want to thank those who have gone above and beyond for us this year, and I want to make memories and I want to celebrate Leo’s place in our life and our survival in grief. But what that looks like is still being decided!

In other random news.

I’m also now addicted to Gilmore Girls. Season three and working hard to binge.

We saw Tom Odell and managed not to cry in public at Grow Old With Me which was played at Leo’s funeral. Genuine achievement.

So… until next time when I manage to write a much more thought out blog post on something really important and meaningful.