Thank you Matt!

Matt,

today is my birthday, another beautiful blue sky day in the Alps. We have a good day planned. I miss you as ever, and think back to this time last year. It would just dawn on us in a couple of days time that you were coming along. What a cliche, but really, what a year!



And I have something else to tell you.

I believe you would have been generous and warm-hearted, from my dream of you, so can trust you to take this the right way in time: I am now carrying another little one. The pregnancy that is nurturing her is 14 weeks old.
When I found out about her at first, it felt good, peaceful, calm. It was as if a void had been filled, with what ought to be there. But I must apologise to both of you two, born and unborn: that feeling did not last long at all - and it seems as if I have spent every waking moment since grieving you Matt. Thinking of you, missing you.



Congratulations on the new pregnancy, although well meant, felt surreal. In anycase it was all so unfair on you. I am in good company apparently, as this is a predictable reaction in a subsequent pregnancy, according to every piece of research out there I have read. It is still an unexpected reaction until you think about it, so it is as well to be prepared for it: we may not have not seen the last of it. Its made me think about parents of twins where one sadly dies at birth: how to celebrate a birthday of a loved child, when you are grieving for the one you lost at the same time? It must be so hard, so conflicting. And all this, and she has not even remotely got to the point where she can be be born yet. We have still all got a lot to get through.



She? Well I don't know for sure, and I am quite happy to be wrong: all we can hope for is a safe arrival of whoever is on their way. But at this point I can remember so clearly how it felt to be carrying you, and this is very different. Or I should say, you were so very different, and at times it was a unique experience for me. I was changed by you. I benefited from having you.



I remember one incident, and you were also just 14 weeks. I remember how it felt as if it were yesterday - not because of what was going on but because of how differently I was reacting to a minor, petty difficulty.



I was in a new kid on the block at work, and a colleague was attempting to bully and manipulate me to pick up the pieces of a bad hand long-previously dealt: a large dose of known legacy problems, and who knows what other hidden skeletons in the closet. Just standard bad behaviour at work. I had an inkling it was a minefield from the urgency but not quite how far the unexploded bombs stretched, and the full explosive power. Clearly this person felt unfairly treated historically. (Most probably they had a case. I have good reason to suspect there was of unfairness, but that's very much for another time). In any case horsetrading with a disgruntled colleague just to keep the peace seemed futile, even if I did have to see them daily. You see, normally that alone would have influenced me. But for maybe the first time in my life, I felt the resolution of conflict to be incredibly simple. I refused calmly; reversed the question and asked why it would be for me to deal with? I could see there was a problem, but I too had my own job to get on with and needling me was not going to get me to agree to concessions I did not really understand. Without you, before you, I would have probably gone round the houses, tying myself in knots, trying to see it from their point of view, suggesting ways things could be changed, looking in vain for a hopeless compromise.



But I did not like the approach, and so, simply did not have to buy it.

It may be a complete load of rubbish, but I have read somewhere that at around weeks 14 of pregnancy, if it is a boy, then there can be surge of testosterone. If that's what it was, it certainly felt different; not dramatic just uncomplicated but powerful. I was fascinated by the easy assertiveness that came. Is that what it I would have been like as a male? Perhaps quite different then! A small incident but one that taught me so much. I no longer have that phantom supply of testosterone (or whatever it really was), but I do remember how easy it was to stand my ground coolly. Having felt it once I am sure it will be possible to recreate the mood if necessary.

So...on my birthday, I would like to thank you for this present, and what was a unique insight!

xx