It is my great pleasure to have this wonderful soul over on the blog today. Kelly contacted me earlier in the year, when my blog was new, my head and heart were still submerged in grief, and I didn’t know which way was up.  Her kind words and honest take on life lifted me up, and her journals have given me a wonderful way to focus my mind and calm my anxiety each day.  For this I am eternally grateful.  She truly is one of the good ones in life, and I hope you’ll all give her a warm welcome……

In our house, the Christmas tree won’t go up until at least the first weekend in December, sometimes after that. Two reasons; one, that we always get a real tree, and I think we all know that if you favour the tradition of a real Christmas tree then even with the super-swankiest-anti-drop-treated number, if you get it too early then that bad-boy is likely to be dropping and drooping long before Santa Claus comes to town. The second reason is that growing up, my parents never put our tree up until at least mid-December; I would imagine for the same reason; so I like to feel that I am carrying on that tradition.

Will I?  Or am I?  This sentence is something I am starting to hear all too often as I write and speak openly about our desire to have more children after losing Teddy.  I find myself staring at those words or hearing them over and over again in my mind.  Is it that people don’t realise what they are saying, or are they simply saying I’ll make a good mother to a baby who actually gets to be physically mothered by me?  The truth is, I’m not sure.

I’ve been thinking about how to write this without coming across as the most unsociable and ungrateful person to ever grace the world of blogging.  The truth is, I am sure there will be parts of this that make me sound like both; but I can assure you that I am not.  I’m just a mother, still trying to come to terms with the unexpected death of her baby. Someone who wakes up each new day with the hope that she’ll feel strong enough to do everything she has planned for that day; and lives constantly under the cloud of doubt that they’ll be days when she simply cannot.