Baby smiles and broken hearts

Most readers will know already that we have a new addition to the Goodchild family. Our toe-hold becomes more established with the safe arrival of Harriet Edith Goodchild.  I'd kept the event fairly low key - the priority was just getting our baby out safely. We didn't know if it was a boy or a girl but that was the furthest thing from our minds.

It's so hard to comprehend that it has been nearly 2 years since our beautiful Pollyanna died.  And next week we will celebrate her short life once again and those terrible scars will be raked open anew. I have come to terms with the fact that neither Janet or I will ever get over the loss off Polly. She will always be ever present, in the background, just out of sight but never far from our thoughts.

I can fully understand why everyone else has moved on but of course for us, it hasn't been that simple. For, even as we move forward, if that pace is slower than all our friends, essentially, we fall behind.

It's hard to empathise.

And some people think that the arrival of Harriet makes everything better....

But of course it doesn't.   

It just makes things......different.

Having Harriet in our arms makes us feel centred as a family. Me,  Janet, Jake Harriet. And Polly... a faint twinkling star in the twilight: just out of the corner of your eye. As soon as you turn to look, she disappears. But you know  she's there.

The saddest thing is that we will never get to see Polly grow up. Harriet will experience life and gradually demand more focus as our child and then teenager. Polly will wait patiently: always the older sister and yet always our 3 hour old baby. How heartbreaking that we will in the fullness of time have to explain to Harriet why her older sister is a baby.

When Harriet falls asleep in my arms, her mouth slightly open and eyes almost closed, for a moment I'm right back in that Godforsaken delivery room staring back at Polly as she slips from us. Sometimes I have to jostle her to get her startle reflex and the comfort that she is just sleeping. I see shades of Pollyanna in Harriet every day and the joy to follow must surely be that as Harriet grows up, so too will a faint light shine on the face of Pollyanna.

So life with a demanding baby daughter has been fun. I've been variously tired, confused, tired, frustrated and tired but I am relishing this wonderful experience.  Harriet has kept me off the beers for 7 weeks and in the gym for 4. Life is new and exciting once more. We move forward as a family.

All of us.

And I find my faith which was so sorely tested to breaking point re-invigorated at the miracle of life.

And also in equal measure simply because to imagine an eternity of death without ever smiling on the face of Polly again would be too tragic to comprehend.


Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."