Garden Of Dreams Quilt

Every time, as each of my pregnancies failed, I found myself following the same pattern. Apart from the loss and grief and pain, I always found myself wanting something, needing something... something to honour each baby, something to 'remember' them by, I always felt compelled to make them a part of my every day life..... and I always did just that. The 'things' ranged from art projects, to jewellery, to trinkets and trinket boxes, to teddies, to an Angel Garden, to a fully set up nursery that nobody was allowed to enter because that was 'The Baby's Room'. 

When I had been through this ten times, each time more difficult than the last... I found myself surrounded by quite a lot of 'things' -Things that I thought that I was comforted by, I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought that was what I had to do. It took me a long time to realise that I was in fact, just surrounding myself with pain and grief and loss. I didn't 'need' the things to make me remember my pregnancies and my babies.... they are a part of me and nothing is ever going to change that. I had found myself having a lot of bad days, and taking progressively longer to come out of my bad days. It was the most difficult thing that I have ever done, but I had to put away the 'things'. Our house had become almost shrine-like, with there being something in every room that was a trigger to grief and sadness. I was living in my fertility history - I was my fertility history...

So, I still have all the 'things', but now they are put away in a box. I know where they are and I can take them out at any time if I want to. The nursery was dismantled and stored away and is now a beautiful spare bedroom. It's bright and airy and just a really nice room, a happy room.

Another thing I should mention..... I LOVE to sew. I find it to be so therapeutic and I just love every part of doing it. I especially love to make quilts. So... while I was in my negative... 'surrounded by grief and sadness' space, I thought I wanted to make a quilt to honour all ten babies.... But I could never bring myself to even start it. I didn't know where to start, or even how to start. 
One evening I found myself looking up different kinds of quilts and came across a book called 'The Healing Quilt' by Lauraine Snelling. I didn't read the book, just the synopsis... it was basically about how four women decide to make a quilt to raise money for a mammogram machine for their local hospital to help a relative of theirs who may or may not have cancer, and as they go through the process of making the quilt blocks and putting them together, they are confronted with the ragged pieces of their own lives and the whole process becomes a healing and cathartic experience for all of them. 

I decided that I didn't want to make a memory quilt, I wanted to make a healing quilt, a hopeful quilt. I spent hours and hours looking for the perfect fabrics and eventually found a range of fabrics called 'The Garden of Dreams' and they were just perfect. I ordered them all the way from China, and I think the girls at work thought I had officially lost it when these fabrics were delivered to my workplace. I was so happy, the fabrics were more beautiful and more meaningful and just more perfect than I ever could have imagined. This was early August 2013.

I vowed that I would only work on this quilt when I was feeling positive and hopeful. It would never be one of those projects that you just do because you've had a bad day at work and you just need to unwind. The first cut and the first stitches were made in that fabric on the day that we attended the Open Day at SIMS Clinic. That was the day that I truly believe that I had found Hope again. That was almost eight months ago, and true to my vow... I only worked on this quilt when I was feeling good and positive and hopeful. It did take eight months, but the last stitch went into that quilt tonight.

Do you wana see...???

I've worked on this quilt a lot this past week, and it has given me so much inspiration. It has pulled me out of the slump that I have been in for the past 4 months. Tuesday just past, as I sat in my sewing room, stitching away to my heart's content... I found myself thinking about all of the people who have been told that they will never be able to have children, but do end up having a child... because they didn't give up. I started to think about all of the women that I pass at Gordon's Clinic and how every single one of them is on the same journey that I am on, the same quest with the same struggles to just find any tiny amount of Hope that maybe, just maybe... it will happen.... and for the first time in a long time, I found myself thinking about the day that I bring my baby home from the hospital, home to a positive, nurturing environment, a place that is full of hope and belief that anything can happen. 

My thoughts kept returning to the other women at Gordon's Clinic. I have found myself many times, afraid to look up from my phone in the waiting room as another lady walks past... for fear of seeing a pregnant woman and having that throw me back into an oblivion of 'when will it be my turn...???'. I haven't really considered that maybe, just maybe... that lady walking past me could perhaps draw some comfort or hope or perhaps even some peace from even making eye contact with just another woman in the waiting room who knows exactly what she is going through. I know there are quite a few women who attend Gordon's Clinic who read and follow my blog, and now that I have discovered 'HOPE' again, I want to share it with each and every one of you. I want to share it with every woman who ever shed a tear in one of the treatment rooms at Aculife Clinic, every woman who ever felt that they just cannot do this anymore, every woman who ever got angry because of the path they find themselves on, every woman who has sat in front of Gordon and cried to him about all of the women surrounding you that are pregnant and how difficult that is for you....

Not only am I sharing my hope with you, I'm sharing my quilt with you.

I am going to bring this quilt to Cork tomorrow and I am going to leave it with Gordon. 

Oh..... I haven't told you the best part yet......

If you look really, really closely you will notice that I have stitched one thousand and eight cascading gold stars into the quilt. That's a precise number... a very precise number..... It is the number of babies that are currently in this world because of Gordon Mullins and Aculife Clinic. Hope and inspiration don't come in much bigger portions than that. 

(You do have to look REALLY closely though)

And... One more thing. This is the first quilt ever that I have given to anybody, that remains unfinished. If you look really, really closely... you will see that there is room for one more star. That star is my star, it is your star, it is the star of every woman who enters that Clinic..... 

I truly believe that this will be complete some day.

To the ladies of Aculife Clinic (was gona go with 'Gordon's Gals' but thought better of it ;-) ),

This is my gift of hope to all of you. I truly wish that you can find as much hope and inspiration in it, as I found in making it. 

Anne-Marie.xx.

(Btw, Gordon knows nothing about this........ yet...!!!)