On the 12th of September, I will be doing a phased return to work.
Speaking with Caz he said it was strangely normal when he went back to work. That you feel your world has stopped but everyone else's just carries on. You feel emotional and really quite consumed in sadness but you are able to just busy yourself and soon you find that it was almost like you were never away.
I know Caz has been through the same as me. He has lost his child too and is going through grief in his own way.
But one thing on his side is that men don't talk about these things. There is maybe a reassuring silence over not actually talking to people about everything that has happened.
I worry that at some point in the future it will just pop and all will need to be vented, but for now, he is back in his 'normal'.
For me, I am dreading the questions, the pitiful looks, the silences. I am expecting some people will find it too difficult and they won't know what to say and so they avoid me.
I know I will take it personally. I already feel quite alone in this journey. The hospital cast me aside with such ease without a single glance backwards. I was made to feel like this was all my fault and being ignored was my punishment.
I know I will have to have some difficult conversations and realise that I might not actually achieve much at all during my half day.
I expect that I will feel drained after the time at work - emotionally drained due to all the interactions I need to have and physically tired from driving that distance and having to concentrate for that many hours.
I've not really needed to think much in the last few weeks. I have purely been surviving. In between I have been seeing the occasional person for coffee but mostly I have cocooned myself away in my safe space doing as I please.
This will be really stepping outside of my comfort zone although I understand the 'routine' will do me good.
Some people at work won't have realised I was actually pregnant.
For the exact reason as has happened, you don't tell anyone until you are into safer territory.
I now feel ashamed that I didn't shout about it from the rooftops and that I dressed to cover my blossoming body.
Some people might have heard rumours I was expecting and not realise that I have lost my little bundle of joy. They may ask how it is going, how far along I am and I just won't really know what to say. Do you tell them the truth in that your little one has passed away, as no doubt that will make the other person feel so awful that they didn't know and have put their foot in it.
There might even be others that just don't know why I had disappeared - maybe they presume I've been to some amazing foreign isles sunning myself and having a wonderful time, perhaps they just think I have had the flu or something benign. There is perhaps the temptation to just agree with them, but that wouldn't be doing my Jesse any justice. It would be denying that Jesse didn't exist.
I know when I worry that I catastrophise and that typically nothing is as bad as I imagine. I know I might struggle to sleep tonight with everything that is swilling around my head... But I know I have to take this step as part of my healing process.
I will let you know how the day goes...
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