I keep writing posts in my head which has helped me cope but I need to type today. The solicitor sent me a letter nearly a fortnight ago with numerous incorrect details and I am feeling that as well as not being able to protect my baby before he was born I am not doing the best for him now in my (his?) fight for compensation. Why do I feel that? Because I am not managing the process well? The solicitor wrote the unprofessional letter so why do I take the blame? The midwives and doctors acted unprofessionally at the birth so why do I take the blame? I should have stood up for him. I should have stood up for him. Now every day feels like a fight. I am angry at the wrong people. Who am I angry with? Well today - not just today - this is perhaps the reason I need to type, I am angry with N. I need to understand why. Because he knows I am angry with him I told him I blame him and he refused to say anything? Probably both. I am constantly flitting between wanting to leave him and wanting to forgive him. I think I hate him but my boys need him and I need my boys. Is all this because the midwives didn't do their job and provide a standard of care that could be reasonably expected?

and so it begins

nearly seven years has past and yet some days it feels like just yesterday. i struggle with the love i feel for him as he is now and the pain i have for the boy i should (um, should why should...) have had. i feel i should have had a different boy, a boy with the ability to write his own name, call me 'mum', play with the other boys as they run round the playground. here we are though, he is different, WE are different. did i want to sit with other women discussing the only thing we had in common - birthing our children - able to join in and reflect on 'well at least you both survived'? did i want to have the 'sleeps through the night' champion? did i want the boy who could talk before all the others, walk early and read before he started school? no, no, no but that doesn't stop the hurt from having the possibilities, what he could, should, have been taken away before he even left my body. while i was still responsible, when i should have spoken and demanded better treatment. sometimes that birthing process we went through together is hard to forget and still nearly seven years later i blame it for my almost daily sadness. i am going to write all my thoughts about it down in an attempt to recover.