That was hard, but good

Today we went to a service held for all those who have lost a baby. Since the miscarriage was in February, we have kind of put this to the backs of our minds. I thought I would be sad, but I wasn't really prepared for quite how overwhelmed I was. I am not really sure how many of the families there had lost babies they got to meet, but we did feel particularly sad when at the beginning we were given a card to put our baby's name on - our baby didn't have a "proper" name, just one of those silly names that you give something the size of a baked bean. We had been watching "Shameless" and there were the twins Nigel and Delia, so the baby became known as NigelandDelia. We know that it wasn't twins, because there was only one sac, but that's how we still refer to it. So I decided to put N & D on the card - but I'm not sure if everyone else had a name for their baby. It's hard to escape the feeling that ours was not a "real" baby.

It was moving seeing everyone there - particularly affecting to see women on their own, women with their mothers, one very young woman with what I assume was her friend - both no older than their early 20s, one in a student team sports top. There was also one lone man, with his son who looked like he had mild learning disabilities or cerebral palsy - it's hard not to speculate about people's stories.

Anyway we sang Amazing Grace and Lord of all Hopefullness, all the good ones, and had some lovely readings, and it is very hard to write in a non-clichéd manner about such things!

Yesterday we were at a wedding, with two of the pregnant people from our internet group - plus another couple of pregnant people, one of whom Mr Spouse knows fairly well, and who already has four children of her own, and her partner has two - and the youngest of her other children is 13, and she is at least four years older than me. Mr Spouse made me feel a lot better when he pointed that out! I bet her midwife loves her ("you're HOW old? and you've had HOW many pregnancies?")

And in about 3 weeks we have the infamous sister-in-law (she's very nice, really, though my mother doesn't think she's Good Enough for Her Amazing Son. Well, that's half the time.The other half she's the only one who does anything and my brother is a lazy so-and-so). Who, as I was reminded the other week may well be already showing at 4 months pregnant, as it's her second, and she's already been buying trousers at Mothercare. But I will probably be in mid-cycle leaping-on-Spouse mode so should have a moderately positive outlook at the time.