I will be writing regularly to help me process my grief, and I write better when I pretend I am writing to an audience. It’s kinda like how it’s easier to talk when you have someone to talk to. Don’t feel obligated to comment, but if anyone’s wondering how I’m going, this is a good way to check in. Just please make sure you also check in with Blake, because this isn’t his outlet and his process will be very different to mine.

One thing that has been very helpful and interesting to me is learning that in a crisis, my focus slides towards others. It could be that it’s easier to worry about other people than it is to focus on me; this is certainly a common reaction to acute distress. But I also think that there is a confidence and a resilience deeply encoded into my person, nurtured over time by a loving family and reinforced by amazing friends.

I think that deep down, no matter what is happening, I know I will be okay. I might not be okay *right now*, but I am confident that I eventually will be. That I can get through it, it’ll just take time, and that letting myself feel how I feel is just part of that journey. So my concern then turns to others, because maybe I worry that they don’t have the same confidence or the same resources that I do. I worried about my parents and his parents, who had all been excited for their first grandchild and now have to face devastating grief. I worried about my dad, who happened to be away from my mum at the time. I worried about my mum, about to get on a plane and spend 6 torturous hours alone with no one to talk to. I worried about my mother-in-law, whose husband has recently had brain surgery and is still recovering in hospital. I worried about my father-in-law and his recovery, still in rehab after brain surgery.

I worried about our sisters, both eager to be aunts for the first time. I worried about my sister in Seattle, away from our family. I worried about my sister-in-law and the toll it has taken on her to be in hospitals practically every day, whether for work or to be there for her family.

I worried about my husband, whose father has been in hospital, who not long ago experienced tremendous upheaval in his professional life, and who would naturally feel even more powerless and helpless than I did in these awful circumstances. I worried also that people would focus too much on me and not enough on him.

I worried about my extended family, all of whom were excited for the first member of the new generation. I worried about Blake’s extended family, who had recently also been through a painful loss.

I worried about the nurse who was with me in the early hours of Tuesday morning when it happened. I worried about friends who are also currently pregnant who, once this news is shared, may feel the need to censor their joy for my sake... which isn’t fair to them, but as they are also loving people, would be a natural consideration that I urge them to ignore. I worried about the friends I know who have been through this themselves, not just because I now understand in part the utter devastation they experienced, but that now our news may bring some of those painful feelings and memories back.

I didn’t worry about me. In spite of my current grief and pain, I am grateful to already know that I will be okay. I am grateful that I am well-resourced. I am grateful that we are surrounded by such caring and loving people. I am grateful that I can allow myself to cry and for my heart to break, knowing full well that the tears will pass and my heart will eventually heal.

I think it’s why I find it helpful to receive messages from people who are able to send them. I am a very verbal person and words are how I process things, but it’s also like a reassurance that they are okay and that I have permission not to worry about them. (Even though I still will, cuz fish gotta swim, you know?)

I want everyone to know that we know we will be okay because of you. Knowing that our respective families, friends and workplaces share in our grief and are thinking of us means more than words can adequately express. It gives us such a safe space to just feel everything we feel without judgement, knowing that a lot of the process is learning how to sit with the discomfort of our complicated emotions.