tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-91002764053681888272024-03-13T11:48:12.648+00:00Loss Through the Looking GlassLoss Through the Looking Glass is a shared blog created by three bereaved mothers who wanted to share their experiences of life after loss. The blog also plays host to bereaved parents who have found their voice but not yet the place to share it. Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger215125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9100276405368188827.post-89386677442480705012019-01-20T09:44:00.000+00:002019-01-20T09:44:02.685+00:00Angel Names in the SandIt's been a while since we had any posts on the blog but this morning we received a beautiful email to the blog from someone who came across our page last year.<br />
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Felicia added her boys' names to our memorial page after her second loss and has now started writing names in the sand in Kauai, Hawaii to help other bereaved parents and bring them some comfort.<br />
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The email this morning was a lovely surprise as Felicia had taken the time to write the names of all our babies in the sand.<br />
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If anyone would like their baby's/babies names written, please contact Felicia via her blog...<br />
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<a href="https://kauainamesinthesand.blogspot.com/">Angel Names in the Sand</a><br />
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Thank you Felicia,<br />
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Clara, Gemma & Nicole xxx<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9100276405368188827.post-57779321826051394672018-08-09T21:59:00.002+01:002018-08-09T21:59:35.822+01:00Nicole: Right Where I Am 2018: Nearly 7 years<style type="text/css">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">And so it rolls round again.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Your birthday, and the anniversary of your death the day before.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I sit and stare at the blank page in front of me, wondering what I’m going to write, wondering how I can express what the loss of you means to me, 7 years on.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>The truth is, it means the same as it always means.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>It means blocking it out, whilst I don’t have time to think about it properly.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>It means the ever-increasing feeling of weight on my shoulders as we spin uncontrollably to the week I dread every year.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>It means the squeezing in time for reflection, in between work, and bath times, and putting kids to bed, and the one hour a day I get to speak to your dad.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>It means the panic, when I know I’ve got to write and I don’t know how to say everything I need to say to you.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>It means the need to do New Things, in your name.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>It means the feeling of relief, when the day comes around, when we get a small amount of time to think of you, to mark your birthday and honour your name.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">It’s the cycle of grief.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Rinse and repeat. I wonder how to make things feel different, but I find myself in that same pattern, again and again.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I am often ill, at this point.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I am anxious, constantly, and prone to panic.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I feel overwhelmed, more easily. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I find it hard to talk – yes, me, the talker, who never has any trouble expressing myself. I eat rubbish.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I put on weight.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I start to bite my nails, again.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I shout at your brothers, despite wanting to bite off my tongue when I do.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I tell people, ‘it’s a difficult time of year,’ but that’s a bloody big understatement. I say, ‘it’s better when we get past the 16<sup>th</sup>’.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>And it is, in a way.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>But in others, it isn’t. That cycle, swirling round and round each year, it bothers me.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>It marks my life, going on, whilst marking yours, which does not.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>‘He would have been seven’, is a terrible thing to have to say.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Oh, no more terrible than the other birthdays which preceded it but somehow saying it, every year, cuts me deeply.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">I am scared to change the cycle, to do anything differently.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>There is some comfort, in routine.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>A certainty amongst the vein of not knowing that runs through the rest of my life.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I don’t know what will happen to the other people I love.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>To your brothers, and dad, and grandparents, and all the others in your life.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>To me.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>But you?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I know what will happen to you.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>You will go on, not being here.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>And we will go on marking your birthday; we will go on saying, ‘he would have been 8, 9, 25, 40’.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>We will go on dreading the run up, doing the New Things, and feeling the weight and the panic and the relief. And I will go on missing you.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Not just at this time of year, but always. And the years will roll around.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>The cycle of grief. Rinse and repeat.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">The cycle of missing you, my baby.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Always.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">~~~~~</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span class="s1">You can read Nicole's previous posts here:</span></span><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span class="s1"><a href="http://lossthroughthelookingglass.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/nicole-right-where-i-am-2017-nearly-6.html"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Right Where I Am </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">2017: Nearly 6 years</span></a></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://lossthroughthelookingglass.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/nicole-right-where-i-am-4-years.html">Right Where I Am 2016: 4 years 11 months 4 days</a></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://lossthroughthelookingglass.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/nicole-right-where-i-am-now-4-years.html">Right Where I Am 2015: 4 years exactly</a></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; mso-spacerun: yes;"><a href="http://lossthroughthelookingglass.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/nicole-right-where-i-am-2014-2-years-10.html">Right Where I Am 2014: 2 years 10 months 25 days</a></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://lossthroughthelookingglass.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/nicole-right-where-i-am-2013-1-year-10.html"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Right Where I Am 2013: 1 year 10 month</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">s 25 days</span></a></span><br />
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<a href="http://lossthroughthelookingglass.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/nicole-9-months-and-4-weeks.html" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Right Where I Am 2012: 9 months and 4 weeks</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9100276405368188827.post-13551178716829109102018-07-29T20:27:00.001+01:002018-07-29T20:27:19.594+01:00Julz: Right Where I Am 2018: 6 years 3 months 27 days<style type="text/css">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1">Today is 28</span><span class="s2"><sup>th</sup></span><span class="s1"> July 2018. I am Six Years, three months, and 27 days since she died. That is 2309 days since I last felt her heart beat, since I felt her warm fuzzy face against my own. 55416 hours since we saw her pink cheeks fade away. Since everything changed. Nothing is at it was back then.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1">There are still the two lives which are before and after. “When we had Melody.” She was only here for just five weeks, but she impacted on us so much, forever.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1">Six Years and five months and three days ago, she was still waiting to be born, there was hope that we wouldn’t deliver as early at 28 weeks. She was alive she seemed safe.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1">Six Years and five months ago and three days ago, we weren’t quite parents of a premature baby, let alone a baby who died. . We were given a dangerous thing – hope. You don’t realise how important hope is, until it is snatched away from you in a moment.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1">This year I am at the point where I am not as drained as often as I used to be, I am not sure whether that is down to the time scale, or that I have made myself busy. I have increased my hours at work, volunteering, family life and plans with friends. Too busy to think, sometimes too busy to even breathe let alone think about the baby who died six years ago.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1">Then I get moments of guilt, because I haven’t thought about her for every minute of the day.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1">I have recently been involved with the new T<a href="https://www.tommys.org/together-for-change" target="_blank">ommy’s Campaign – Together For Change</a> through my own blog <i><a href="http://melodyandme.co.uk/" target="_blank">Melody and Me</a></i>. To say the least I am proud to have been a part of something special to raise awareness; to get people talking about this incredibly taboo subject. To help reduce the stigma behind the baby loss topic.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1">However I have found myself feeling completely detached from the whole thing. I have shared it across my social media to help break the silence. But I am struggling to see what any of it has to do with me. I can watch my interview; I can see the stills and read the pieces about our story. But I can’t for one minute feel like it is our story, or that it is me helping to make a difference.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1">I sometimes feel like I am talking to a brick wall, that the people who were around have disappeared, I often get reminded that they don’t matter – but they do. Some are the last links our daughter when she was alive, some are a reminder of all that was. The detachment from her death, is leading me to worry that my memory of her is fading. Those days when I don’t think of her or mention her, these are when for a moment I have forgotten about all of it – even her. I don’t want to forget her, I hope I don’t – but it is a strange feeling between wanting to protect myself from the painful thoughts that I do have a dead daughter; by letting her fade into the darkness. Or embracing what this is all about, and forcing myself to remember.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1">Sometimes, I just want to feel normal; sometimes I even wish I had never met her. But I can’t imagine my life not speaking about her, just as much as I cannot imagine a life where she is alive and well.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1">How is any of that right? This is not how I am meant to feel about my own child.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">~~~~~</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">You can read Julz' previous posts here:</span></div>
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<a href="http://lossthroughthelookingglass.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/julz-right-where-i-am-2017-5-years-3.html" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Right Where I Am 2017: 5 years 3 months 26 days</a><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://lossthroughthelookingglass.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/julz-right-where-i-am-2016-4-years-3.html">Right Where I Am 2016: 4 years 3 months</a></span><br />
<a href="http://lossthroughthelookingglass.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/julz-right-where-i-am-2015-3-years-3.html"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Right Where I Am 2015: 3 years 3 months 26 days</span></a></div>
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<a href="http://lossthroughthelookingglass.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/julz-right-where-i-am-2014-2-years-2.html"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Right Where I Am 2014: 2 years 2 months 3 weeks 4 days</span></a></div>
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<a href="http://lossthroughthelookingglass.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/julz-right-where-i-am-2013-1-year-3.html"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Right Where I Am 2013: 1 year 3 months 4 days</span></a></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9100276405368188827.post-26072534913625412572018-07-25T09:00:00.000+01:002018-07-25T09:00:10.087+01:00Lindsay: Right Where I Am 2018: 5 years 18 days followed by 4 years 11 months 3 days followed by 3 years 4 months 6 days followed by 2 years 9 months 10 days followed by 2 years 2 months 20 days
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">I'm finding writing this post much harder than in previous years. In the past I was just sad and over time I had worked out how best to cope and process those feelings. Now there's such a mix of emotions going on inside of me I can't pinpoint how I truly feel, it's such a jumble. On one hand I do know I'm happy, so that has to be a good thing. I have a lot in my life to be happy about as it's been 15 months and 7 days since we welcomed our third born daughter, Iris, into this world and 15 months 6 days since we brought her home from the hospital. On the other hand I'm not ok. I am not ok, but I don't know in which way. (I've typed, deleted and typed that again and again, but it's ok to not be ok, right?)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">As hopeful as we were, after several years and so many losses...well it's hard to cling on to a thread of hope. It takes its toll. And the grief... The grief which comes along with that degree of heartbreak doesn't just disappear. I don't think it ever will go away completely and I'm fine with that.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">The thing is, whilst I am happier now than I have been in many years, I still feel as if I'm grieving and I know to some extent I always will, but I don't feel as if those around me fully realise this. Apart from my husband everyone else was at least one step removed from the crippling pain that we went through after each loss. (If you're reading this and you've suffered your own loss(es) then you know the pain I'm talking about. The right in the middle of your chest, take your breath away emotional pain – often accompanied by the long silent sobs which can end up with you sitting in a crumpled mess on the floor...those ones. The ones you try for so long to keep hidden.) I still feel that pain sometimes and at the moment I feel as if I don't have a right to. It's as if everyone else thinks my grief is done with and everything is suddenly fixed because my daughter is here. She's amazing, but no child can ever replace another.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">I love being able to mother one of my children each and every day, but I still get sad. Not because of her, of course not, but because of all the things I know I've missed out on with the others. That's natural, isn't it?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Some days the sadness doesn't affect me at all, even when I'm thinking of my children who aren't here – my son, Hunter (who would have been going to school this year), my two daughters, Esmae and Freya, and the two little ones I never got to meet - I think of them with a smile.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Some days are hard.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">On the tough days I used to look on Pinterest for quotes that summed up just an ounce of how I was feeling and I'd share them on social media, almost as a cry for some support or a nudge to everyone around me that I was still going through this. I never wanted anyone who saw those posts to feel sorry for me. I just wanted them to remember (me), to understand. Each time I go to post something now I think twice as I can't afford to isolate myself even more from those around me (at least that's how it feels).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">At the moment I feel as if I can't reach out in the way I need to to the majority of my friends or family as (I feel) it's hard for them to understand that the past has not changed. To put it simply, I'm still sad. Recently I tried to let a group of friends know via a message that I was struggling. Perhaps I was too subtle, but as I saw each one of them read and not reply to my message my paranoid self shouted at me “they are sick of this (you)”, “you have your daughter, just be happy”. I hope I'm wrong, I'm almost sure I am…</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">I don't feel like myself, although who I am these days I'm really not sure. I barely remember the person I was five years ago and after such a long time and after so many losses I feel as if it's become too much for those around me to bear. My conscious paranoia feeds the feeling that I have pushed so many people away to the point of no return. Firstly by avoiding them whilst they were pregnant (only in a desperate attempt to keep my sanity and in a strange way to try to keep the friendships intact) and secondly in the way I have been vocal about what I've been through and how I still feel. I know this level of loss, this level of grief is difficult to comprehend (the emotive subject of baby loss is enough for people to want to leave you alone) and as more and more time passes it gets easier for others to ignore, but it's isolating.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">I feel as if I've lost my place in the world and I'm lonely. There are few who understand, and if they do then they're tackling their own grief.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">My thoughts circle constantly – all the good, the bad and the ugly which I feel I can't control. Those thoughts never stop. I sometimes feel them getting out of control, racing around in my head and whilst I can slow them down a little they never stop. They are full of anxiety, paranoia, gratefulness, happiness, household tasks, guilt, annoyance, shopping lists, stress…</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">I have to bite my tongue and push down the anger and hurt I feel each time my daughter is referred to as our/the 'first'. She is not. How can I have given birth to, met and helped name four of our six babies and only have one child?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">I struggle when someone else mentions their children, especially the children mine should have grown up alongside.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">I still get that lurch in my stomach when I hear about friends' pregnancies – I don't know if this is fear, anxiety, jealousy, an involuntary reflex... I am happy for them, but the news makes me think of my own pregnancies and this in turn makes me feel so selfish.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">I cringe (and then immediately feel guilty for doing so) each time I bring up my previous pregnancies or my other children with the new mum friends I have made. I hear them in my head saying 'she's not going on about this again…’</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">I feel guilty each time I breathe a sigh of relief when my daughter (the child I so desperately, desperately wanted) takes a nap just so I get some much needed time to catch my breath, to gather up some of those whirring thoughts...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">I'm already worrying about how anyone reading this who has no living children has taken that last statement.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">I worry about a lot of things - too many things perhaps.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Even with all of these thoughts going round and round I feel numb an awful lot of the time and that's the worst feeling. I stop and think about something and often there's just nothing. Maybe I developed such a good coping technique of blocking out so much of the world that it stuck.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">I used to calm myself by writing down how I was feeling, but I haven't made enough time for that recently and it shows. This piece is all over the place. And maybe that's where I am right now...all over the place, but ironically almost always here...stuck inside my head with the many, many frantic thoughts.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">~~~~~</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">You can read Lindsay’s previous posts here:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://lossthroughthelookingglass.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/lindsay-right-where-i-am-2016-2-years.html"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Right Where I Am 2018: 2 years</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> 11 months 1 </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">day followed by 1 year 2 months 20 days followed by 7 months 24 days</span></a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://lossthroughthelookingglass.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/lindsay-right-where-i-am-2015-1-year-11.html">Right Where I Am 2015: 1 year 11 months 18 days followed by 14 weeks 1 day</a></span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9100276405368188827.post-69452996385500126902018-07-24T18:05:00.000+01:002018-07-24T18:05:02.177+01:00Shona: Right Where I Am 2018: 6 years<style type="text/css">
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As I write this on Sunday right where I am is full of memories of another Sunday exactly six years ago.</span><br />
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">July is full of the before and after. On the surface I am a busy working mother of three facing the constant juggling that entails, particularly during the summer holidays. Not far beneath is another self, mostly hidden from the world at large.</span><br />
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A holiday in the Lake District is full of reminders of another much rainier July when I was happily expecting our third child but starting to wonder why my rain jacket wasn't getting any tighter.</span><br />
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Another trip to London this time and at a service station I am right back to the floods of 2012 and a journey back from my cousin's wedding, a party punctuated by observations about my small bump.</span><br />
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As we juggle the demands of holidays, childcare, long car journeys with the added bonus of chickenpox it's hard to find time for my real self to get a look in this year. But inside my thoughts are filled with the little boy who we barely got to meet but without whom I don't know where I'd be right now. Certainly I was a different me then. This year is the first where the days of the week are the same as that summer.</span><br />
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Six years ago last Tuesday I walked across the Meadows to Lauriston for a scan. I was 21+2 weeks pregnant. Having already had a late miscarriage in our first pregnancy I have never been excited for scans and after two healthy pregnancies since I had a feeling about this one. My rain jacket getting looser even - was I imagining that? I hadn't felt this baby move much either. As I walked to the appointment I was already trying to work out how I would word an out of office reply if there was a problem.</span><br />
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">When you have a scan late in the afternoon and are given an appointment with fetal medicine for 9am the next day that adds to the knowledge that there was something very wrong. From the scans no one could tell us what was wrong but they all agreed on one thing, that this baby wasn't going to survive.</span><br />
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">On this day six years ago I went first thing to obstetric triage to take two tablets.</span><br />
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Two days later we left our girls at nursery and went to the labour ward where a few hours later we met our only son. We didn't know he was a boy that day and we couldn't give him a name until two weeks later. We had so much more to learn about him.</span><br />
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Callum died at 22+2 due to to an inherited disease Smith Lemli Opitz syndrome.</span><br />
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It's amazing how many cars round here had the number plate SLO5 back then.</span><br />
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It was hard at first to know where I belonged. Hard to admit to anyone other than those closest that we had in fact ended our pregnancy. Termination is such a negative word and it has only been much more recently that I have been able to say or write it. Compassionate induction is a much more appropriate term but I only heard it very recently. I bared my soul more openly than before in a post I wrote before the Irish referendum earlier this year. I'm not going to get into politics here. Baby loss is hardly spoken about but this type of loss is even more hush hush. I want others going through the same to know they are accepted in the baby loss community, that they are welcome, and I'm proud to be involved as a befriender for SANDS Lothians in our group with ARC.</span><br />
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I have learned that grief doesn't go away, it evolves. I am happy. For a while I didn't know if that would ever be possible. It is a different sort of happy. People talk about finding a "new normal". Right where I am is a new happy. Grateful for three healthy daughters who beat the genetic lottery. Grateful for the youngest ginger whirlwind who we never would have met if Callum hadn't died. A new kind of happy that coexists with sad. Now the memories aren't all sad but tinged with happy remembering when he was still here, before. On Tuesday we will have a family day together and the whole me will be more visible, even the small blue piece of my heart.</span><br />
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Six years ago on Tuesday I forgot to kiss him goodbye, but a tiny part of him is with me forever xxx</span><br />
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For Callum 24/7/12</span></div>
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9100276405368188827.post-68164809077691687162018-07-23T09:00:00.000+01:002018-07-23T09:00:04.984+01:00Juliet: Right Where I Am 2018: 1 year 8 months 3 days
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">It's been a while since I've put my feelings about the loss of you down on paper, a while since I have written to you, as I used to do all the time. Realising that fills me with guilt. I'm sorry. I'm sorry my sweet girl.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">So where am I now? It's difficult to say, difficult to know. I'm sitting here now, your little brother asleep in my arms and I'm happy. I'm happy. How can that be? I'm happy that he's here, happy he arrived safely (after a bumpy start), happy the wait for him is over, happy because he was worth every second of worry, he was worth every tear. I'm happy I have your big sister and your Daddy, happy we are all together, happy because I love my little family. And for that I feel guilty. Guilty that you might feel left out, loved less, forgotten - replaced. None of that is true, it never could be, yet still the guilt persists.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">I'm happy, yet I'm still sad. Often when I'm alone, or just before I sleep, the familiar ache of your loss fills my chest. When I give in and cry, when I feel the pain, when I wonder and regret ~ what would you look like now? What would you feel like in my arms? What would you sound like? Why didn't I undress you again? Why don't I remember what you tummy looked like? Your legs? Your bottom? ~ when I am overcome with grief and sadness, I feel guilty again. Guilty because I know I'm blessed, guilty because I should be happy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Guilty because I am, guilty because I am not.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Right where I am now is learning to navigate a baby after loss. Learning to navigate life again. With you and without you. Our little family of five.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">My Grace you are loved. You will forever be loved. Please know that.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">~~</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">~~~</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">You can read Juliet’s previous post here:</span><br />
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<a href="http://lossthroughthelookingglass.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/juliet-right-where-i-am-2017-8-months.html"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Right Where I Am 2017: 8 months 15 days</span></a></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9100276405368188827.post-51454423046758720852018-07-22T09:00:00.000+01:002018-07-22T09:00:06.680+01:00Jessica & Laura: How do you remember the baby you lost?
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1">Jessica Zucker is a Los Angeles-based </span><span class="s1">clinical psychologist who specializes in women’s reproductive and maternal mental health. She is the creator of the </span><span class="s2"><a href="https://www.instagram.com/ihadamiscarriage/"><span class="s3">@ihadamiscarriage</span></a> </span><span class="s1">campaign. Find her online <a href="http://drjessicazucker.com/"><span class="s4">www.drjessicazucker.com</span></a> and on Twitter <span class="s4"><a href="https://twitter.com/DrZucker">@DrZucker.</a></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1">Laura Norkin is an editor at InStyle; her work has appeared on The Cut, Glamour and Refinery29. She tweets at </span><span class="s3" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 130, 179); text-indent: 0.1px;"><a href="https://twitter.com/inlauraswords" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 130, 179); text-indent: 0.1px;">@inLaurasWords</a></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; text-indent: 0.1px;">.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; text-indent: 0.1px;">This article is republished with kind permission from Dr Zucker and was originally published on <a href="https://www.elle.com/culture/a22106737/how-do-you-remember-the-baby-you-lost/"><span class="s4">Elle.com</span></a>.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">~~~~~</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Kay Kremer was in a therapy session for perinatal depression when she felt her baby stop moving. She was 32 weeks pregnant, far enough along that a fetus usually makes its presence known through near constant jabs and wiggles, even pelvic pressure signifying that it’s almost ready to press on through. That wouldn’t come to pass for the now 37-year-old makeup artist. Her son, whom she named Sullivan, was born still the next day, July 5, 2015.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">With the help of a bereavement nurse at her Shawnee, Kansas hospital, Kremer and her husband had photos taken of Sullivan, and planned an open-casket funeral at their church. “I want people to fully acknowledge Sullivan as my child and as a real baby,” she says. And so she set about to concretize this loss—to make real someone who had only been ephemeral; a life that wasn’t lived, but nonetheless existed, acutely, for her.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">“I got a tattoo. And then another one. And, well, let me count,” she says, before landing on the total of seven pieces of forearm art, nine hours under the needle. First came his name, then she added a foot and handprint. A few months later came the date and time of his birth. Over time she added angel wings, the letter “S,” blue jay and cardinal feathers, and finally a black heart with a puzzle piece taken out to represent what’s missing from hers. She says the process of getting tattoos was healing: the adrenaline numbed her pain, and the ink became a wearable memorial and an invitation for others to ask questions she was eager to answer. “It meant that I could share my story with people.” She also shares her story on an Instagram account, </span><a href="https://www.instagram.com/dedicatedtosullivan/" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s2">@DedicatedToSullivan</span></a><span style="font-size: small;">, where her followers will frequently see the black-and-white images of Sullivan’s still face, a family photo where a little-boy shaped silhouette joins the couple and their two living children, Layla, now 6, and Adler, 13 months.</span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">While there is no blueprint for how families manage this kind of loss, there are repetitions on a theme—take photos, make art, hold objects—anything to make meaning you can keep, hold, and carry. Several women interviewed for this story echoed this sentiment: We want to acknowledge our losses, and the way we do that—the way we each mother our dead children—is different.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">The American Pregnancy Association has a page devoted to <a href="http://americanpregnancy.org/pregnancy-loss/stillborn-surviving-emotionally/"><span class="s2">what you do when your baby is stillborn</span></a>—from how to “survive emotionally” to how to memorialize the loss. And nearly each idea (preserve a sprig of her hair; have photographs taken; jot down her measurements) represents a cottage industry that has sprung up. There are professional photographers, specifically practiced in the art of capturing the deceased baby to look like a sleeping one (which, while healing for some, is <a href="https://www.salon.com/2011/12/16/why_did_the_duggars_photograph_a_stillborn_baby/"><span class="s2">not without controversy</span></a>). A Google search for “stillborn baby keepsake box” surfaces 124,000 results, ranging from <a href="https://www.etsy.com/market/stillborn"><span class="s2">Etsy shops</span></a> and <a href="https://www.pinterest.com/mmhagen/memory-box-ideas/"><span class="s2">Pinterest boards</span></a> to <a href="https://www.hallmark.com/gifts/home-decor/picture-frames/baby-keepsake-memory-box-1BBY4476.html"><span class="s2">Hallmark items</span></a>; and charity programs from the <a href="https://www.sands.org.uk/support-you/how-we-offer-support/memory-box"><span class="s2">U.K.</span></a> to <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/after-stillbirth-moms-memory-box-program-helps/"><span class="s2">Seattle</span></a> to <a href="http://www.threelittlebirdsperinatal.org/stillbirth.html"><span class="s2">Philly</span></a>.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Samantha Gadd, 28, a loss mom (a shorthand way some women who've been through this refer to themselves) in Canton, Ohio, focused her grief on raising money to help other families in her area enduring loss. In early 2017, when she lost her daughter, Victoria, at 22 weeks, she wasn’t afforded a <a href="http://flexmort.com/cuddle-cots/"><span class="s2">Cuddle Cot</span></a>, specialized resting places that act as the opposite of an incubator: They refrigerate an infant’s remains “to slow down the decomposition process,” she explains. Each one costs $2,500 to be installed in a hospital, and it serves no medical purpose; it’s there to help parents honor their loss. “It buys families time to hold their babies and look at them, because the process happens so fast,” she says, adding that they're usually used for babies delivered closer to full-term, and that having hers dismissed as not legitimate in the same way sharpened her pain. And so raising money for a cot at the hospital where she lost her daughter felt like an urgent way to make her pain be of some use. “I was hoping it would be one of those hospital devices that sat in a corner and gathered dust,” she says, nevertheless needing it to be there, so her daughter’s name would be for a memory. Two months after it was brought in, that Cuddle Cot was used by a local family whom Gadd knows.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">There isn’t always a body to hold and look at, and so concretizing loss can also take less literal forms. Some look to the trees. After three early miscarriages, Paula Knight, 49, Bristol, U.K.-based author of the graphic memoir <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Facts-Life-Graphic-Medicine/dp/0271078464"><span class="s2">The Facts of Life</span></a> says she became drawn to seeds. She and her husband collected acorns and planted three oak saplings in The National Forest in central England, which was being reforested after, “rather fittingly,” she says, “the land had been left barren by mining.”</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; text-indent: 0.1px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">A page from Paula Knight’s graphic novel Facts of Life.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Writing her book about coming to terms with childlessness was a long term goal and a distraction, she says, though it kept difficult emotions raw for quite a long time. The trees, on the other hand, provided catharsis. “Trees last longer than people, and it felt good to be contributing to the future as well as to the environment,” she says. She and her husband did go back to visit their corner of the forest once, three years later, and she was surprised to find her trees now stood nearly leaf-to-eye with her. “They grow up so fast, don’t they?”</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">For Leata-Mae D'Avoine, 28, a London-based doula, a favorite tree became the final resting place for the idea of her daughter Ada—a pregnancy she lost at nine weeks along, and never got to know beyond what she calls her “womb life.”</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">“We wanted to have a goodbye ceremony because we never even got to say hello,” she says. So she and her partner made one up as they went along, burying under a tree a bowl in which they had placed pieces of their own hair (“to represent that she was part of us”), a rose quartz representing unconditional love, and a slip of paper on which they had scrawled the name Ada. Though it was too early to tell, she says she knows her fetus was a girl. Naming her, and speaking about her, was central to Leata-Mae’s healing, which she says is ongoing. She opened up to her family first, and then on Instagram. “Finding a community, one of silent understanding, helped me face my grief head on. You don't really heal from ignoring it. You have to face it,” she says.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; text-indent: 0.1px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Leata-Mae D’Avoine, pregnant with her daughter Iah, who was born in April.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small; text-indent: 0.1px;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small; text-indent: 0.1px;">“The only way I memorialize is through acknowledging I was pregnant,” says Imani Payne, 26, who works in human resources in San Francisco. She experienced an ectopic pregnancy rupturing her Fallopian tube before she had even known she was pregnant. “I didn't get to experience the joy of being pregnant before I experienced the loss of it,” she says. But she was fascinated by pregnancy even before that, which her ob/gyn knew, and so she captured a unique memento. “She took pictures inside of my ruptured tube and gave them to me so that I could have photos of this pregnancy,” Imani says. The proof that it happened is meaningful to her now, five weeks after the birth of a healthy baby. “I never wanted to act like my pregnancy with my son was my first.”</span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; text-indent: 0.1px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Imani Payne, pregnant with her son Leon, who was born in March.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small; text-indent: 0.1px;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small; text-indent: 0.1px;">Rachel Darlin, 27, a doula in Arizona, gave birth to her first son, Jameson, stillborn, two weeks before his due date, this March. Proving and remembering his existence is an urgent priority for her. “I wanted to remember every detail of my son... his hands, his hair, his feet, his body,” she says, and so she had a friend come take photos in the hospital. “His skin was paper-thin, and was tearing; but I wish I could have done more skin-to-skin and looked him over more,” she says. She was able to lay together in a queen-sized bed in the hospital with Jameson and her boyfriend, Tanner, before they chose to have his remains cremated. The hospital had given the couple a memory box, including some of Jameson’s hair, a cement footprint, ink handprints: “I kept anything he ever touched in the hospital: the blanket, his clothes,” she says.</span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small; text-indent: 0.1px;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small; text-indent: 0.1px;">After leaving the hospital, she and Tanner got matching daffodil tattoos, three of Jameson’s birth flower, to signify the three of them together forever. Six weeks later, for Mother’s Day, they took a trip to Hawaii. There, they had a wooden box hand-carved where they would place Jameson’s ashes. As part of her healing, Rachel pumped and donated 100 ounces of breastmilk, and now she feels a strong pull to work as a bereavement doula to help other mothers going through this. “We eventually want to buy a little plot of land and call it Jameson’s Garden and plant a tree and go there on his birthday, and eventually it would be a lush, full garden where other families can go who have lost a child, and you can see things people have left for their children, like stones.”</span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; text-indent: 0.1px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Rachel and Tanner’s tattoos memorializing Jameson.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small; text-indent: 0.1px;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small; text-indent: 0.1px;">The choice whether or not to bury a child was fraught for a lot of the mothers we spoke with. Samantha Gadd felt strongly that she and her family—Gadd has two older sons and a daughter, Abigail, born at the end of last year—have a place to return to to visit Victoria, their stillborn daughter. But, the business of it was a challenge. “I never realized, because luckily I never had to bury anyone, how expensive it is,” Gadd says over the phone while tooling around Target with her kids. “We were prepared to buy a crib, not a plot, a casket, and a headstone.” But they found a way to make it work, and they still return once or twice a week to check in. When Abigail was born, a friend decorated Victoria’s plot with a “big sister” banner. It’s a must stop on all holidays for Gadd’s family, but—as when grieving adults—some families see the finality of a gravesite as difficult to face.</span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; text-indent: 0.1px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Kay Kremer, Adler, and Layla visit Sullivan’s grave.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">“It’s my duty as his mom to visit him, I feel guilty if I don’t,” says Kremer of her son Sullivan. But it’s not an easy task. One can sense she undertakes the rather painful outing as a parental obligation to her lost son. “I have a love-hate relationship with the grave, because I could only visualize the casket for a while, the trauma.” Still though, she and her family come with picnics sometimes, and she says she decorates the tombstone. <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/Bk8e_KhlnYV/?utm_source=ig_embed" target="_blank">This weekend, for Sullivan’s third birthday, they placed potted flowers, balloons, and small toys around his headstone.</a> In short: “It’s just as I would do for my living children.”</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; text-indent: 0.1px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; text-indent: 0.1px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">For every grieving parent decorating grave sites and adding tattoos to their skin, there’s one who prefers not to lend any more tangibility or permanence to their loss. “I sat with my sadness, guilt, and anger, and wondered, did I do something wrong? I thought maybe I was even being punished for something,” says Janel Martir, 30, a doctor in New York City, who experienced a miscarriage early in her second trimester. In spite of her medical background she felt guilt, which she worked through quietly, often in her dreams. “It’s only recently that I have dreamt of ha</span></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small; text-indent: 0.1px;">ving a calm pregnancy and a healthy baby: a resolution to my fear and anxiety.”</span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small; text-indent: 0.1px;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small; text-indent: 0.1px;">There is a stigma and silence around this kind of loss. What these mothers have shown is that coming out from under that shame and trauma is an even more acute need, often expressed by finding something tangible to have, to hold—and to represent that so much has been lost.</span></span></span></div>
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</style>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9100276405368188827.post-3779106511263416722018-07-21T09:00:00.000+01:002018-07-21T09:00:06.780+01:00Fliss: Right Where I Am 2018: 6 years 5 months 12 days<div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">2355 days since our lives changed forever. Since I held her in my arms as she took her last breath.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I felt my soul shatter and I couldn’t understand why people could not see right through the hole within me.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">A lot has happened since then, another child has come into our lives, our beautiful rainbow who brings us joy every day, along with his brother, who still talks of his sister at times.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I’m not anywhere near where I was, that awful dark place is somewhere I never want to return to but is still there, in the shadows of my mind. Occasionally the memories rear up and the pain is there but on a daily basis I am able to function like an almost normal human being.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">I watch my children grow together, play together, laugh and fight together and it doesn’t break my heart as much as it once did.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I’ve worked hard to move away from the place I was, support workers, counselling, online support groups and finally after a lot of resistance (from me) I was prescribed medication.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Not for depression but for PTSD and anxiety that has come from the loss of my child.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">One of my biggest achievements I feel is making new friends, one has a daughter who is in the class Ayla would be in and I just know they would have been best friends.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>She has 2 brothers and along with my two boys and our other friends 2 sons, she is surrounded by boys.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>This does hurt. My heart aches when she mentions that she has no girl to play with.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>However, whereas before I would have pushed her and her mum away and actively avoid becoming friends this time I have stepped in, not allowed my pain to stand in the way of what has become a wonderful friendship that I truly value and has led to another equally valued friendship too.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I also have a relationship with her, she’s ace, we have a great time together and she runs to me for hugs and kisses.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>These have helped my playground life be a bit easier and not the nerve wracking fear inducing horror that they once were for me.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Ayla has brought some truly beautiful people into my life, some from afar, some much closer, some for a short while, others to stay the distance and show me what having true friends actually means.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>All of them I love and appreciate more than they will ever know and because of these people I know that I’m ok, Ayla lives within me, within her Daddy, her brothers and all the many people she has touched the hearts of.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>What an amazing girl, it is an honour to be her Mummy, even when it hurts.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">~ ~ ~ ~ ~</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">You can read my previous Right Where I Am post by clicking on the link below:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://lossthroughthelookingglass.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/fliss4-months-and-2-weeks.html"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Right Where I Am 2012: 4 m</span><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;">onths 2 weeks</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">You can read more my story here:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://lossthroughthelookingglass.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/fliss-incompatible-with-life.html">Incompatible with Life</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://lossthroughthelookingglass.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/fliss-baby-loss-aware.html">Baby loss aware?</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://lossthroughthelookingglass.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/fliss-letter-to-my-ayla.html">Letter to my Ayla</a></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9100276405368188827.post-39714659447061673352018-07-20T09:00:00.000+01:002018-07-20T09:00:09.334+01:00Lynne: Right Where I Am 2018: 4 years 11 months 25 days<style type="text/css">
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Right where I am... 4 years, 11 months and 25 days (written on 15 July 2018)</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Tomorrow 5 years ago is the day of the scan where our world fell apart. When we realised you were so sick that you would not survive. When we realised we would have to say goodbye before we’d even had the chance to say hello.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Some might say stop living in the past. Stop torturing yourself but dates and milestones are all we have. We don’t get to watch you and kiss and cuddle you every day. But you are part of our family, our lives, our past, our present and our future.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">I’ve learned to ride the waves of grief. I now accept I can be plodding along just fine, happy even, when crash the floodgates open and the pain resurfaces as raw as those early days and my heart aches all over again. Dates such as tomorrow are never far from my subconscious.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">But despite the pain Findlay I would never change any of it. I am so so proud to be your mummy. I treasure every single second you lived inside me, every second we spent together, taking in every single detail of you so that it would be forever etched in my memory, never wanting to forget a single thing. In some ways I welcome the pain as it makes it real. Makes you real.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">In two days time we will celebrate your little brother’s 4th birthday. He talks about you. It pains me that I will never see you play together but it makes me smile knowing you will always have a bond. We smile and enjoy family time but never a day goes by that we don’t think of you and wish you were here.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Every milestone we enjoy with your brother there is a dull ache knowing we will never experience those with you. You should start school this year. You would have the same circle of friends as your brother which is heartbreaking yet comforting all at once.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">20th July is your 5th birthday we will do something as a family. I know you will be with us.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">I love you and miss you more and more every day precious boy. Death cannot break our bond. I will always be your mummy and you will always be my son. The greatest privilege I could have ever dreamed of.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">I love you to the moon and back Findlay always and forever. Every breath I take I take for you. You will be remembered always.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Happy 5th birthday baby boy. Love Mummy xxx</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Right where I am: I am living life. I am happy. I am a very lucky mummy to two special boys.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">You can read Lynne’s previous posts here:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://lossthroughthelookingglass.blogspot.com/2017/07/lynne-right-where-i-am-2017-4-years-8.html">Right Where I Am 2017: 4 years 8 days</a></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://lossthroughthelookingglass.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/lynne-right-where-i-am-2016-2-years-11.html">Right Where I Am 2016: 2 years 11 months</a></span></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9100276405368188827.post-42215826976742530672018-07-19T09:00:00.000+01:002018-07-19T09:00:00.202+01:00Julia: Right Where I Am 2018: 2 years 5 months 19 days<style type="text/css">
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">2 years, 5 months, 19 days, 7 hours, 6 minutes... I remember in the early days after losing Caius being told it would get easier, that time was a healer; and I wanted to scream, because every day, every hour and every second felt like I was getting further away from him, from the strength of his kicks and the excitement before his arrival, from the warmth of his body in the moments after he was born to the cool weight of him just the next day.</span></span><br />
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Nearly 2 1/2 years on and I know what they mean when they say that, but easier isn’t quite the word. The overwhelming cruelty of losing a baby does slightly subside as an inkling of acceptance starts to nudge its way in, but when I really think about it, the raw pain is still there.</span></span><br />
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">But through the pain there is pride. I’m proud that I am able to function, that I can continue to be present for my eldest son Reuben, now 5 1/2, and not just present, I know I’m doing right by him, and while he still yearns for a sibling, it’s not as all encompassing as it once was. We are creeping towards acceptance that we will not have another baby.</span></span><br />
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">With this in mind, I’ve been thinking about selling the pram. It wasn’t bought for Caius, it was Reuben’s, but Caius was to use it, so it’s been hard to let it go, and equally difficult to let someone else use it, especially if there were a chance of me seeing them using it, that would be painful; Caius should just be outgrowing that pram now.</span></span><br />
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">I am now approaching my 36th birthday and will be glad to put 35 behind me. We always said that we would try for a sibling for Reuben until I was 35, because statistically, pregnancy is harder and more complicated after the age of 35. Of course we said that long before we knew what a journey our family would be on. As a result, turning 35 was a bit of a trigger for me, possibly also because Caius was born 1 day short of 35 weeks gestation.</span></span><br />
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">After 4 early losses, a 5th, Elliot at 14+2 weeks, losing Caius at 34+6, then another loss at just 6 weeks, the thought of getting to the end of our attempts at growing our family was overwhelming, heartbreaking, too much to bear. So as an epic distraction, I decided to set myself 35 ‘challenges’ to complete throughout the year, particularly challenges that I wouldn’t have been able to do had I been pregnant. I haven’t yet achieved all 35, in fact I’ve managed ‘only’ 15 so far, and with 4 weeks to go, I know I won’t manage within my set time, but I will complete them regardless, and it’s been an amazing experience, to do things I would never have dreamed of, and especially in memory of my baby boy. His legacy is very much alive and well and I’m proud of myself. I never imagined I would be brave enough to attempt a bungee jump or to climb to the top of Ben Nevis!</span></span><br />
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Sadly, I have lost friends within the last year, I guess as a result of my loss, an inevitable reality it would seem. I’m such a sentimental person, so each and every secondary loss I have felt deeply and I carry in my heart. Self care is so important though. Many friendships have been strengthened by the compassion they have shown, and I have a good network of friends and family, including fellow loss mamas, who are all amazing and who I would be lost without.</span></span><br />
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">So here we are. What amazes me sometimes is that I am still standing, that my little family of three living souls has survived so far. Sometimes it’s important to recognise the journey, how far I have travelled, and recognise that, while in those early days I felt further and further from Caius, I know that he is now with us, in our hearts, in our souls, in our very essence, and in every positive action every day.</span></span><br />
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Caius Jonah Hale, born 30th January 2016, 6lb 6oz, 53cm long, forever in our hearts.</span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9100276405368188827.post-17097271178927563792018-07-18T12:31:00.000+01:002018-07-18T12:31:15.034+01:00Kristen: Right Where I Am 2018: 5 months
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Five months ago today on the 18th February we met our beautiful daughter but not the way we ever imagined. Two days before, at 38 weeks and 5 days, we learned of Abbie's death. I had gone into hospital that Friday night with reduced movements to be told 'I'm sorry, there is no heartbeat' - the words that changed me forever.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Meeting Abbie was bitter sweet. She was perfect and looked like her big sister (our 3 year old, Holly). I couldn't believe we wouldn't get to take her home to meet Holly and the rest of our family.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Five months later and I wonder who Abbie would've been. Would she cry all night? Who would she look like now? Would Holly love her baby sister as much as we imagined she would?</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Getting through a day is a challenge but is made easier with having a toddler keeping me busy. It's evenings I find difficult. With Holly in bed and toys away the house is very quiet and feels very empty. Abbie's things should be all around us instead of packed up in her nursery. I should be enjoying the very little precious time to myself but instead I'm counting down the hours until the next day starts again.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">I still cry but not as often as before. I'm sad and miss Abbie more than I can express in words. I would do anything to bring her back and have her here with us.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">What is different now though is that I'm now hopeful for the future. Hopeful that we will bring another baby home. Hopeful that we can introduce Holly to a brother or sister. Hopeful that we can experience joy again.</span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9100276405368188827.post-17693738295418589482018-07-18T09:00:00.000+01:002018-07-18T09:00:04.338+01:00Emma: Right Where I Am 2018: 5 years 2 months
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">The first time I wrote a 'right where I am' was just 1 month after we had Oscar. In some ways it feels like no time has passed but in others it feels oh so far away. The death of Oscar has changed my world and my soul more than I can describe. I'm not that same person I was back when I was happily expecting Oscar, but I don't think who I am is a bad thing.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Since losing Oscar I very quickly got involved with our local branch of Sands. I couldn't dream of returning to my job in mental health but I needed my time to be filled. Then in January 2016 I became chair of that local group, a somewhat unwanted change but one I put my whole heart into. Then, just hours from it being 5 years since we discovered Oscar had died, I got a call that I'd been offered the job I'd wanted within the charity Sands. Just moments before that call I was sobbing on a train, wondering why on earth I hadn't remembered to take this day as leave. Then the call came that signalled to me Oscar was looking out for me.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">I've always been on the spiritual side and losing Oscar didn't really strengthen or weaken this. Late last year I went to a show of a medium I had been to before who is just amazing. I have seen many mediums who have given people such weak random messages but this lady is undeniable. Strangely enough on the way there that evening I'd given a little request to the sky and wanted my Nana to come through if possible. The lady came onto the stage and within seconds said she had a baby with her who was born sleeping and his name is Oscar. The gasp of my friend next to me led her to me and she continued to described his garden (grave) and the differences of him and his sister. He made a request for a tractor toy and told me he loved me. And then she was done, I had to sit for another 90 minutes listening to others messages when all I wanted to do was sit and digest the messages from my boy.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">That night on my drive home something shifted inside of me. I realised for the first time I'd been able to hear from my son, what he wanted and how he felt and that was incredible. Since that night something is different, my relationship with my son feels strengthened and I can cry less for him.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">So I realise that this 'right where I am' has been rambling but the message I guess I want to pass on is that 5 years later I still miss and love my son dearly but I'm ok. I've been led onto a different path and now work for a charity that is making things better for babies and families. I'm ok.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">~~</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">~~~</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">You can read Emma’s previous post here:</span><br />
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<a href="http://lossthroughthelookingglass.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/emma-right-where-i-am-1-month.html"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Right Where I Am 2013: 1 month</span></a></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9100276405368188827.post-65168740011257273192018-07-17T09:00:00.000+01:002018-07-19T18:08:13.593+01:00Clara: Right Where I Am 2018: 7 years 3 months 3 days followed by 6 years 2 months 13 days<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Every year I wonder whether to even write this. And every year I do, although I wonder where to start and I struggle to find the words.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">We are more than 7 years into this 'loss journey' now. I can't believe that amount of time has gone past. In the space of just 2 and a half years, we lost 5 babies - 3 miscarriages and 2 stillbirths, our precious girls Molly and Grace. Some days it feels like just yesterday that I held my girls for the first and last times. Those precious hours with them are so clear in my mind. It makes me smile as much as it makes me hurt.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The grief is still there. I don't think it every really goes away. But it changes all the time. It's both happy and sad. Days when it is raw, days when it just hovers on the edge, days when it's a little sign or a little reminder. It colours everything.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The grief will never go I don't think. How could it? How could anyone ever 'get over' the loss of a child? But life comes back in around it and time makes it easier to carry. Happiness comes back. Joy comes back. Life goes on. I remember talking to my gran after Molly died about her little girl who was stillborn in the late sixties. She was still grieving for that little baby. She was never allowed to see her or hold her or name her or bury her or talk about her. Although name her she did - baby Angela. I felt lucky that I had been able to hold my girls, cuddle them, dress them, name them, bury them. Molly's death gave us the impetus as a family to find out exactly where Angela had been buried by the hospital and we did. And 46 years after she was born, my grandparents were finally able to have her name added to the registry of stillbirths (at the time, stillbirths at full term - beyond 36 weeks - had to be registered, although they were rarely given names as it wasn't encouraged). They were also able to lay a stone at her grave. I know that brought my gran great comfort.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But back to me and my own personal journey...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I continue my involvement with <a href="https://sands-lothians.org.uk/" target="_blank">Sands Lothians</a> (albeit mostly behind the scenes dealing with their Twitter account), trying to give a little back in thanks to the lifeline they threw to me in those early years. I continue to dip in and out of online forums, trying to help and support others dealing with similar types of loss. I continue to research <a href="http://lossthroughthelookingglass.blogspot.com/2012/08/clara-massive-perivillous-fibrinoid.html" target="_blank">MPFD</a> and passing on that research to all who contact me - it makes me so happy to know that others have gone on to carry healthy babies despite this awful condition.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">My main battle over the past couple of years, however, has been living with the guilt that Cara will most likely never have a living sibling. And I am at the point where I have accepted this and it's okay. I used to find the 'is she an only one' and 'plans for more' questions really difficult, particularly when I didn't get a good response to telling people she will be an only child. Sometimes I explain why, sometimes I don't. Depends on the person and the moment. What I always make clear though is that she is such a blessing and a little miracle.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">She is a happy and funny 4 year old who finds absolute joy in everything. She occasionally mentions Molly and Grace in conversation but she doesn't fully understand. And how could she? How do you process that at 4 years old? I don't want her to know that babies die. She has the usual childhood questions about death, particularly around her great-grandparents. We tell her people go to Heaven when they are very old as their bodies don't work any more. She has accepted this to a point. She will say that Molly and Grace are in Heaven. She knows that she couldn't grow in my tummy because 'it didn't work properly' and that is why her big sisters are not here with us. But I dread her asking me why did this happen if they weren't old but so far she hasn't asked that question. Yet.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">(Cara checking out names written in the sand by big cousin Maia - Calgary Bay, Isle of Mull)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Ultimately though, we are surviving. We are living. We are happy. We have been lucky to have held and kissed all 3 of our girls and totally blessed to be able to kiss our youngest goodnight at every bedtime.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">~ ~ ~ ~ ~</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">You can read my previous Right Where I Am posts by clicking on the links below:</span></div>
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<a href="http://lossthroughthelookingglass.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/clara-right-where-i-am-2017-6-years-4.html" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Right Where I Am 2017: 6 years 4 months 3 days followed by 5 years 3 months 13 days</a><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://lossthroughthelookingglass.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/clara-right-where-i-am-2016-5-years-4.html">Right Where I Am 2016: 5 years 4 months 3 days followed by 4 years 3 months 13 days</a></span><br />
<a href="http://lossthroughthelookingglass.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/clara-right-where-i-am-2015-4-years-3.html"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Right Where I Am 2015: 4 years 3 months 1 day followed by 3 years 2 months 11 days</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="s2"><span class="s3" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://lossthroughthelookingglass.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/clara-right-where-i-am-2014-3-years-3.html">Right Where I Am 2014: 3 years 3 months followed by 2 years 2 months 1 week</a></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="s4"><span class="s1" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://lossthroughthelookingglass.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/clara-right-where-i-am-2013-2-years-2.html">Right Where I Am 2013: 2 years 2 months 2 weeks followed by 1 year 2 months</a></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="s4"><span class="s1" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://lossthroughthelookingglass.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/clara-1-year-2-months-followed-by-1.html">Right Where I Am 2012: 1 year 2 months followed by 1 month 10 days</a></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">You can read more about my condition and my story here:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="s2"><span class="s3" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://lossthroughthelookingglass.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/clara-massive-perivillous-fibrinoid.html">Massive Perivillous Fibrinoid Deposition</a></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="s4"><span class="s1" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://lossthroughthelookingglass.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/clara-my-story.html">My Story</a></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="s4"><a href="http://lossthroughthelookingglass.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/clara-when-loss-keeps-on-happening.html"><span class="s1" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">When loss keeps on happening...</span></a></span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9100276405368188827.post-50905314276628671732018-07-16T10:29:00.001+01:002018-07-16T11:55:01.844+01:00Lynsey: Right Where I Am 2018: 7 years 6 months<style type="text/css">
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">It’s been 7 years and 6 months.</span></span><br />
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">These last few months have been really difficult, facing grief again with the loss of my Granny. But I’ve tried to take in comfort in thinking Lilly’s being looked after.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">On the 21st January 2011 when we lost Lilly I felt it difficult to connect with people and it’s a very lonely feeling that you don’t really belong. Part of it I think was I put on a brave face and people couldn’t see I had changed. On the outside I looked the same but on the inside I was different.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Losing a child changes you and it takes time for you and others to accept that. You’re not the person you were before. I believe for the better. Part of that is I feel that when you go through an experience of losing a child little things don’t matter, people who can’t accept you don’t matter and you naturally surround yourself with people who do matter and accept you for who you are.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">This is a community nobody wants to be part of but I am so grateful to be part of this community not only on here but my local group Sands Lothians and world wide.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Sands was my lifeline. Finally, I could connect.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Connect with new people you share precious memories with and even grieve with them.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">I am so grateful to the people I have met and still meet on this journey. So many inspirational people who are always there and understand.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">You form friendships and share a special bond that will last a lifetime. It’s our loss that binds us.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">I like to believe that Lilly is with us in everything we do, is in her princess castle in the palace of dreams yet to happen and that Lilly takes comfort to know that we always say her name and carry her with us always in our hearts where ever we go and everything we do. Lilly is in the centre of everything. From time to time she likes to send us little signs.She is the wind messing up my hair and the sun warming my face.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>I imagine things were different</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>I imagine you hearing me say your name</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>I imagine reading you a story</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>I imagine you playing with your brother and sister</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>I imagine you playing a game</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>I imagine you being really cheeky</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>I imagine you dressing up</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>I still see your face</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>I still feel the pain</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>I still feel the ache in my heart</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Forever that will remain</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>In my dreams I see you smiling</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>In the sky you will forever show us your sparkle</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>You are in everything we do</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Everyday we are thankful</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Thankful for you</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Thankful for what you have taught us</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Thankful for everything you continue to teach us everyday</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>You have made us better people</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">~~~~~</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">You can read Lynsey’s previous posts here:</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://lossthroughthelookingglass.blogspot.com/2017/07/lynsey-right-where-i-am-2017-6-years-7.html">Right Where I Am 2017: 6 years 7 months</a><br /><a href="http://lossthroughthelookingglass.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/lynsey-right-where-i-am-2016-5-years-6.html">Right Where I Am 2016: 5 years 6 months 28 days</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://lossthroughthelookingglass.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/lynsey-right-where-i-am-2015-4-years-4.html">Right Where I Am 2015: 4 years 4 months</a></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9100276405368188827.post-10635685487558977342018-07-15T21:07:00.002+01:002018-07-15T21:07:41.722+01:00Right Where I Am Writing Project 2018<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Would anyone be interested in submitting a guest post to us on the theme of where you currently are in your loss journey?</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">We have been running the Right Where I Am project since 2012 and this is what gave us the initial impetus to set up the blog.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">We are in the process of writing our posts for this year's project and will be publishing them over the coming weeks. As always, we would love to feature some more stories too.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Your post should be entitled 'Right Where I Am' followed by the time that has passed since your loss/es. Here is a link to our posts from previous years if that helps:</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span class="s2"><a href="http://lossthroughthelookingglass.blogspot.co.uk/p/right-where-i-am.html"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Right Where I Am</span></a></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">If anyone would like to contribute, please email us at lossthroughthelookingglass@gmail.com or please feel free to comment below with any questions.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Clara, Gemma & Nicole x</span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9100276405368188827.post-56597377167663902302017-10-15T14:00:00.000+01:002017-10-15T14:00:24.666+01:00Gemma: Wave of Light
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">For a few years now I have followed the project capture your grief where for each day of October we have a topic to discuss about our loss. I wasn't able to do it this year; I didn't feel emotionally able to cope with it. I don't know why and not doing it has bought the usual worry and guilt about moving on and people thinking I had forgotten him but of course I have not and nor will I ever. I think if I'm honest it stems from my decision that we won't try again for any more babies and that means I will never have a straightforward pregnancy and go into labour like a normal everyday wife and mother and this has been tough. I have become practiced at saying "oh god no I'm done" and accept the usual well meant offered comfort of "well you have one of each now" but it has been a carefully thought out decision based on the fact that years of utter terror has taken its toll on me and also my husband who, shut outside the operating theatre when Ede was born, watching people running for more blood could only imagine the worst.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Today,</span></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small;"> Sunday 15th October, is international wave of light where it is asked that anyone who cares to, takes a moment to light a candle in memory of a little one who didn't get to stay; for an hour at 7pm.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">You may wonder, what difference will this make ? I can't explain for everyone but I can explain for myself. (Here I am again bleating on).</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">I have a handful of pictures, a handful of memories of my pregnancy and of Isaac after he was born and that's all I can ever hope for. I'm lucky that I can display these in my home along with my other children's pictures; I know sadly not all mummies are able to do this.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">As the years pass by there are times when the whole thing seems surreal, almost that I imagined another baby and I post the same photos and the same memories because I simply don't have any more to offer to keep him here.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">When you take a moment to think about him or any other baby, to say their name and light them a candle it makes them real, it gives Isaac a momentary presence in your home, a new memory of him here and now and a momentary lightening of my heart that he is still real, he still matters to someone other than Andy and I when he barely got to visit for a moment.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">With two bright and challenging rainbows I can often be found yelling "socks on" repeatedly or "get off her, put her down" like a deranged prison warden so it may not appear that I know how very lucky I am. I can assure you I do know and I am thankful for all three of my babies , and no matter who you are or how early your loss; your baby mattered and with every flying leap I make to stop Fletcher and Ede falling off the wall or sofa I remember how lucky I am to be able to do it and how much I wish I'd been able to do it the first time around.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">It also very much means anyone currently suffering and so often in silence knows they are not alone.</span></span></div>
LTTLGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14311798022193279485noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9100276405368188827.post-86503400639529875382017-10-15T12:30:00.000+01:002017-10-15T12:30:10.787+01:00Tara: Baby Loss Awareness Week... Buddy's Story<style type="text/css">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1">The one thing that unites us, that every single person has in common, is that they will lose someone that they love. Yet bereavement is something we rarely talk about, with baby loss being even less talked about. It is Baby Loss Awareness Week, and by breaking the taboo and silence that surrounds baby loss by talking about my own, I hope I can provide some kind of awareness, not just about baby loss but about how debilitating grief can be and highlight what helped me. Warning this is long.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1">I went for a routine appointment on 4</span><span class="s2"><sup>th</sup></span><span class="s1"> July, where I found out my baby had no heartbeat. The next day I went in to have an induction tablet then went back on the 7</span><span class="s2"><sup>th</sup></span><span class="s1"> to be induced. We both went on autopilot in those limbo days between leaving the hospital and going back. I was so distraught at losing my child I didn’t even think about the birth until I went in on the 7</span><span class="s2"><sup>th</sup></span><span class="s1">. The days in between were filled reading the SANDS website on what to do in the situation and feeling completely numb.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1">When we were thinking of names we really liked Buddy, and at the 20 week scan I referred to the baby as Buddy. We thought that was a nice name for a child or an older adult but maybe a teenager or young adult would not appreciate it. My baby will never get the chance to live through having a name they won’t like and we settled on Buddy because he will always be our little Buddy.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1">We went in for the appointment on the 7</span><span class="s2"><sup>th</sup></span><span class="s1"> at about 10am and I was given my tablets. We met our midwives, Mabel and Zara. We watched Kimmy Schmidt on our phones and ate hospital food that looked like a toilet accident. We met with the bereavement midwife who signposted us and gave us a SiMBA charity memory box. I was worried the labour would be long and of the silence in the room afterwards where a newborn should cry. By 10pm I started to contract.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1">I asked for pain relief and chuckled when they offered paracetamol. I had some form of opiate and then a really horrible anti-nausea injection shoved deep into my leg. I swore at that, which my husband afterwards said was quite funny. That was the most physically painful bit of the whole experience. I remember just getting comfortable when my waters broke. I started to cry because I knew that was it. I told James and we rang the buzzer and the midwives came. Zara was with me the whole time. Birth is not exactly the most relaxing experience and I couldn’t get comfortable. I stood up to walk and gravity took over.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1">I delivered Buddy myself with Zara next to me. There was no pain and the birth was quick. I remember when it happened I felt really proud and pleased that I was able to have given that to Buddy, and that it was something we experienced together, the two of us. It felt like the only thing I could have given him I was able to. That the first person to touch him was me. Buddy was born at 1.25am on 8</span><span class="s2"><sup>th</sup></span><span class="s1"> July.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1">As that is not what was meant to happen there was no silence in the room afterwards as midwives and doctors came running in. I remember one of them was wearing Crocs with a wheel pattern on and I mentioned that to Zara (I don’t like Crocs)! We got to spend some time with Buddy afterwards, he was placed in a cot next to the bed and my husband got to spend time with him while I slept. The next day we got to spend a bit more time with him, as did the grandparents. Buddy was tiny. He had dark hair like me. He had the most precious feet. It was the midwives that pointed his feet out. Due to Buddy only being 24 weeks old, he was very small and very fragile. I was the only person who got to hold him. That is my most treasured memory.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1">I asked the midwives how long their shift was. They said 12 hours. The shift they were on was to solely support four other women who had stillbirths too. 11 women a day have a stillbirth. 1 in 200 births ends stillbirth/death during or shortly after labour in the UK. A small percentage but one that equates to over 3,000 sets of parents losing their baby each year, every year. A study by the Lancet in 2011 indicated that the UK had the third highest rate of stillbirth in the Western world. 50% of stillbirths, like mine, are cause by placental failure. I went to the hospital 10 days before my scan to report reduced movement, like the 50% of women who also have a stillbirth after reporting reduced movement. If you do not feel your baby moving as much go to the hospital ASAP.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1">We met with the consultant who said that post mortem tests indicated the placenta was very small, and so was Buddy. He was very kind and took the time to explain things to us. He explained that even if they had spotted the issue with the placenta when I came in to say I had less movements, or at the 20 week scan, there was nothing that could have been done then because his chance of surviving would have been so small. I was told there was nothing I could have done to have prevented this. I do not smoke, had a good diet and exercised. I understand but that does not make it less painful.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1">If I’d have been in the same situation a week beforehand I would have been classed as a late miscarriage. I would not have had a death certificate, I would not have been able to have a funeral and I would not have been able to claim maternity leave to give me the time and income to grieve. 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage. Being silent about this does not help anyone.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1">Exactly a week after the birth the left side of my body went completely numb. My hand was spasming causing my nails to dig into my hand while my shoulder seized up. Paramedics were called and confirmed it was not a stroke but maybe an anxiety attack. I refer to these as the malfunction and they happened several times a day and stopped the day after the funeral. I also had pounding migraines that were so bad they affected my speech. I could not form sentences. My concentration was affected and my memory was terrible. I felt dissociative and like I was going insane. On top of that I would have had hormones from the birth. I also felt anxious and had lost my confidence.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1">The GP and consultant said ‘the malfunction’ was likely caused by migraines. I had no idea grief manifested in this way until I went through it. It just felt like a repeated betrayal by my body. It took me a long time to accept that I would not malfunction again and regain trust in my body. My GP was really supportive during the period and even when I felt I was going mad she reassured me that within the remits of grief these symptoms were normal. It is the body being overwhelmed by the grief and trying to protect you from the reality of it. If you are grieving I promise you that you will not feel like this forever. It is only in the past few weeks I have started to feel more like me.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1">Hate is not the opposite of love - grief is. The love you had for someone does not die with them, it lasts forever. Trying to work out how to channel that love, or how to let it manifest, and just how to get through life without them, while honouring them is really complex. There is no closure because that love will never end. I won’t get over this experience, no one that loses someone they love will, but I will get through the grief, even if at points it feels like I never will. Grief comes in waves, the loss doesn’t diminish but the horrific sting of the initial shock does.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1">The grief I am going through is nuanced in that I am grieving someone I never met and a life I will never share with them. I found that there was a lot of resource telling me how I may feel when grieving, but not much around how to cope with grief, strategies and exercises. I found an excellent bereavement counsellor who pointed out my central nervous system was completely shot and suggested exercises to work through to help me feel more like me. My confidence has returned and the anxiety has largely gone away although anxiety about the future remains, as do new issues about my identity as a parent without a physical child.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1">Talking did help with the grief, both to people that are my friends, my spouse and also professionals that I could offload everything in my head to. Some online forums helped, but for me they served a purpose and I no longer use them. Most local authorities provide free counselling which can be found through google, your gp should be able to sign post you to. I feel no shame in asking for help, it was the best thing I could have done.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1">The most helpful website I found was a Scottish NHS one called moodjuice <a href="http://www.moodjuice.scot.nhs.uk/"><span class="s3">http://www.moodjuice.scot.nhs.uk/</span></a> they had a workbook that for me was a lifesaver in the early days <a href="http://www.moodjuice.scot.nhs.uk/pdfGuides/Bereavement.pdf"><span class="s3">http://www.moodjuice.scot.nhs.uk/pdfGuides/Bereavement.pdf</span></a> the plotting of how I felt over the weeks showed to me that I was progressing even if I didn’t feel it, and the timetable helped me plan my time including weeping into a duvet time. Now, 13 weeks later I feel more like myself, I am still the same person, with the same likes and dislikes, same sense of humour. I am the same me but with something awful that happened to me.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1">The companion press booklets on healing grief by Alan Wolfelt helped. Setting aside a specific time to think about Buddy helped. I don’t adhere to this every day or even every week, as the tears creep up at night anyway, but doing that did help. Breathing out in an f and playing the I am noticing game of looking around a room and slowly saying in your head I am noticing the bright shade of yellow on the cushion, pausing and then noticing something else, working through each sense and looking at things in and out of the room helped me feel less anxious. The tentacles of grief are drifting off but there remains a core bereft sadness, but a functioning bereft sadness.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1">There are some things that can be said that will should be avoided such as anything to do with religion like it is gods will, how it was meant to be, or how they can have another child. People said these to me and made me feel even worse, no matter the good intention.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1">Things that made me feel better were spending time with people who would just let me be, whether that was to gossip about rubbish or cry and be cuddled, in person and via WhatsApp helped. Grief is exhausting and can make people act differently while they adjust to their new normal. Give them the acceptance and space to do this. In my case I may be blunter than my normal blunt self. Having had no energy I realise how precious my energy is, and want to focus on being happy and doing things that make me happy.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1">I sorted out the balcony, making it clear and looking lovely so I could make it a little garden for Buddy. We have ordered wooden names that would normally go on a child’s bedroom, but one to go on the balcony and the other to go on his grave. I hate that my new normal is buying an item for Buddy’s grave rather than his room. I started a pottery course, and have made some little fish pinch pots, which are slightly wonky and of varying degrees of quality. Buddy will have the best one on his grave and we will keep the other at home. My husband is running the London marathon for Tommy’s.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1">We both bought rings, my husband bought a celtic ring with mine, his and Buddy’s names in, with space for any rainbow babies, should we be lucky enough to reach that point. My ring is a star Ruby with diamonds either side. The ruby is the birthstone of July and at an angle when the light hits it looks like a star, because Buddy will always be our little star. The diamonds either side represent myself and my husband. This is our form of parenting, of fussing over our baby.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1">I will forever be grateful to the people who texted me and let me know they were there, who visited, took us out, cooked for us, people that told me they would ‘love to hear about Buddy’ and who wanted to hear my story, those that shared their stories, went to the shops when we couldn’t face it, bought me moisturiser when the hormones and crying made my skin dry, mentored my staff (!), watched trash tv with me, my pets for not leaving my side, friends that made me laugh and were just there when I cried and asked how my spouse was doing. Thank you.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1">From a work perspective those who sent cards, flowers, organised nice things for us, responded to emails I sent with ‘welcome back’, asked to meet up, sent texts asking how I was, who called me, signed off emails with thinking of you, having it made clear to me I could take as long as I needed off, smiled when I walked into the office, gave me hugs and in one case screamed (!). Thank you.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1">Avoiding someone is the worst thing you could do. Thankfully I have not experienced the haemorrhaging of friends that a lot of bereaved people do. While there have been one or two surprises in terms of people dropping off the face of the planet, I’m sure they had their reasons. The main surprises have been the people that I never expected to reach out that did. Someone going through babyloss, or any bereavement, wants to be treated the same as before, just with added sensitivity. The main thing I am taking from the experience is that of love.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1">Being pregnant with Buddy made me happy. Despite everything that happened, if I’d have known what would have happened and had the option of bypassing being pregnant with him I would not take it. I love him so much. His due date would have been on 18</span><span class="s2"><sup>th</sup></span><span class="s1"> October. I will be using the love that people have shown me to get through that day, and for difficult days to come.</span></span></div>
LTTLGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14311798022193279485noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9100276405368188827.post-65847167040368605222017-10-15T09:00:00.000+01:002017-10-15T09:19:19.374+01:00Helen K: Baby Loss Awareness Week<style type="text/css">
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">“A life is a life, no matter how brief”</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">These words have stayed with me since the loss of my 4 babies. 2 lost early pregnancy. One lost at 20 weeks. An infant son at 15 weeks and 2 days.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">I am a devoted mother to all of my babies, although now I fiercely guard their memory and their existence, instead of guarding their lives. Like a lioness protecting her cubs, I am theirs and they are mine, and nothing can alter that, not even time.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">I am now 5 years, 6 months and 7 days from the last time I held my son. The day he had no choice but to leave. I live each day as best as I can, but he is still with me every single second of every single day. If I close my eyes I can still feel his skin, hear his soft breaths, and remember everything he was.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Hearing people say his name if like a piece of heaven in my heart. Seeing so many parents receive a gift from his charity is beautiful but yet conflicted, their hearts are broken too. This loss is so large and destructive, unless you are a parent of a lost child most people still have no words or can’t think of anything to say. This loss is the greatest, but yet still the least talked about. Knowing this pain and the long lasting depth of it, I am trying to be a heard voice. Our babies matter. They will always matter.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">With ‘Baby Loss Awareness Week’ approaching, I am seeing more and more posts from heartbroken parents speaking their child’s name. Remembering them in the safety of a community that knows, that cares, that understand, that won’t tell us to stop. This community is the ‘Baby Loss Community’, sites and groups where parents can come together and speak loudly and openly, speak their child’s name clearly and proudly. We miss them. We will always miss them.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Minute after minute, more parents saying and showing their love for their child, so many names, so many lives, so many futures lost…</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">So many stars that will forever sparkle in the memories of those who knew them, however briefly.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">I light candles for each of my lost babies on the 15th October each year, and I light an extra one too. I say the names aloud of all the children who should be here and present, the names all chosen with love, the names being missed for eternity, visualising the empty chair in a room where they should be seated, I shall remember them all.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Say their names loudly, and with pride.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><b>They matter. They will always matter.</b></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><b>Gentle wishes and kisses to the skies,</b></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><b>Helen Kennan, Mummy to Haydon, Euan and 2 tiny little angels,</b></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><b><a href="http://www.haydonkennan.co.uk/">www.haydonkennan.co.uk</a></b></span></span></div>
LTTLGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14311798022193279485noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9100276405368188827.post-14869567554638144472017-10-14T15:00:00.000+01:002017-10-14T15:00:11.196+01:00Donna: Right Where I Am 2017: 2 years 7 months 3 weeks 3 days
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Our beautiful Maisie you’re a big sister now. Sophie has the same hair colour as you, she’s 7 months old now and into everything. Your older brother and sister adore her, which is beautiful to see but also painful, as they would have adored you too.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Having Sophie has helped us to heal a bit but opened up so many other wounds I didn’t know were possible. The mixed emotions are never ending and the rawness has come back again of missing you.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">I feel isolated once again, the dark clouds of grief are clouding me again. The why question is nearly always on my mind again.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Don’t get me wrong, I am so grateful for your baby sister, but the guilt I am finding hard to bear. When I’m woken by teething cries I wish she wouldn’t, and then the guilt sets in as you never woke me with teething you didn’t get the chance, so I should be grateful that Sophie does, and I mentally tell myself off for doing so, it’s a viscous circle.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Life is hectic most of the time but we always remember you and always will.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Our beautiful Maisie, your headstone is finally on order, I found what I could envisage and it will be perfect. Just as you are, those 55 minutes you spent with us I will treasure forever.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">You are the first star we see at night.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Mummy loves you baby girl xxxxx</span></span></div>
LTTLGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14311798022193279485noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9100276405368188827.post-25575963866721814522017-10-14T09:00:00.000+01:002017-10-14T09:00:15.579+01:00Nikki: Baby Loss Awareness Week
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">I can still remember a night shift 15 years ago where I sat on my break making the first set of baby loss awareness ribbons to sell to raise money and awareness of those who had lost a baby. I felt I was channelling my grief into every one of those pink and blue ribbons I made, that I had a purpose, a goal and that was to make people aware that I, and many others like me had lost a child and a piece of us too.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">15 years later the heartache remains, it's not as raw but it stops me in my tracks at times. Some people around me have forgotten about my first born son but I never will and Baby Loss Awareness Week helps me to remind people that I was made a Mum 15 years ago, not since my rainbow child was born but before him I loved and lost. I carried my first son for 9 months, I gave birth to him and held him for a few minutes, he was mine and I was happy. My life changed after that day, I changed. You may not see it but I lost a part of me and </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small;">Baby Loss Awareness Week</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"> helps me to honour my son and let people know that I am a different me.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">I use this week to let myself grieve again, to go back to the sites where I found comfort and courage all those years ago, to cry and remember how I felt. I don't allow myself back there often as I find myself going back to a dark place and I need to carry on for those still with me. I visit his grave and light a candle, not to show my son because he knows about my grief and how much I love and remember him, but to show the world.</span></span></div>
LTTLGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14311798022193279485noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9100276405368188827.post-79904933199740471572017-10-13T09:00:00.000+01:002017-10-13T15:16:08.698+01:00Lindsay: Baby Loss Awareness Week<style type="text/css">
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Before I lost my first baby I didn't understand what real grief, real loss felt like. I could only imagine what it might feel like to lose a much longed for child.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">I worried each day through my first pregnancy that something would go wrong. I was one of four friends who were pregnant at the same time, due a few weeks apart, one was even due on the same day as I. I had heard the statistic 1/4 and this played on my mind every day.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">As the days ticked by I started to look forward and although the worry never left I started to get excited.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">At 17+6 weeks I gave birth to my son.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Nothing could have prepared me for that experience. Nothing could have prepared me for the emotional pain that lingered far longer than any of the physical pain. The emotional pain is much duller now, but it'll never fully go away and I'm ok with that.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">After we lost our son friends and family didn't know what to say, but they tried. 'Everything happens for a reason.' 'At least you got pregnant quickly.' 'You can have another.' 'At least...' 'At least...' I quickly came to understand that there is no 'at least' when it comes to the loss of a baby. The deep feelings you experience can't be fixed or summed up in a few words.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">I cringe thinking about it now, but I clearly remember saying the usual cliches to one of my friends, some years before, after she suffered a miscarriage. I didn't know any better. I had no frame of reference. I knew these things happened, but it's not something that I'd had the chance to openly discuss. I had no knowledge. I was unaware of what she was going through and how she was feeling.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">When I lost my son I didn't know there was a Baby Loss Awareness week. I had no clue what the pink and blue ribbon signified and had never heard of the Wave of Light.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">In the weeks following my loss I joined various online support groups and my understanding of how baby loss affects people grew. It grew beyond my own experience. There were people out there who were talking about their babies, just as I longed to do with anyone who wished to listen. There were many different reasons and the stages of the losses ranged from a few weeks to neonatal deaths, but regardless of the circumstances each baby mattered. It was truly terrifying to realise all the things that could go wrong, but having access to those who understood, who were walking the same path, helped me immensely.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Through these groups I learned first about the 'Wave of Light' and then how this marked the end of Baby Loss Awareness week. If I only found out about this week after experiencing my own loss, then others could be forgiven for not knowing about it. Being open about my experience was important to me and I wanted to help raise awareness.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Over the past 4 years raising awareness has become increasingly important to me. You see, just over a year after losing my son I had an early miscarriage at 7 weeks. Eight months after that I lost my first daughter at 21+4 weeks, seven months later a second daughter at 13 weeks (we had to end my pregnancy with her due to a fatal fetal anomaly) and after a further seven months another early miscarriage at 5 weeks.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Five babies lost in less than three years. Each loss unrelated and unexpected.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">It's important for me to keep the memory of my babies alive. It's important for me that my friends and family remember them. I share how I feel, I blog to express the jumble of emotions I tackle on a daily basis. I raise money in my babies' names for Baby Loss charities so others can access the much needed support I received and also to raise awareness.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">This, for me, is still a work in progress. Baby loss is still a taboo subject, but when it affects so many of us, so many of our friends, family, colleagues etc. why is this still the case?</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">It's a subject which makes a lot of people uncomfortable. I have friends who have silently gone through miscarriages and don't feel comfortable openly talking about their own experience. I know my openness about my babies can make others feel uncomfortable, but with increased understanding this will hopefully change.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">That is why having a week designated to raise Baby Loss Awareness is so vitally important. It's affects so many it's something we should all eventually feel comfortable talking about.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">By talking about my babies, my experiences, my grief, I was able to keep going.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Last night I was fortunate enough to tuck my 6 month old daughter into bed. That is something I thought would only ever be a dream. Even on my better, more hopeful days, I could hardly imagine it.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Having one of my daughters with me changes nothing and everything all at the same time. It doesn't mean I will forget my other five babies, they cannot be replaced. It doesn't mean I will stop blogging about baby loss, sharing quotes and posts from Baby Loss charities. Having her here makes me even more determined to 'break the silence', to remember her big brother and sisters and to increase awareness amongst my friends and family. It is slow progress, but as always I'm hopeful.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">This Baby Loss Awareness week I am blogging about my babies and encouraging my friends and family to join me in the Wave of Light at 7pm on Sunday evening. I hope they will share photos of their candles so awareness of baby loss can spread.</span></span></div>
LTTLGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14311798022193279485noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9100276405368188827.post-23376348940601571742017-10-12T21:49:00.002+01:002017-10-12T22:03:53.424+01:00Lynne: Baby Loss Awareness Week<style type="text/css">
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">After losing Findlay in July 2013 I felt more alone than I'd ever felt in my whole life. How could I possibly live again. At first people were understanding and happy to listen to me talk about my much loved, much wanted, forever missed, son. The son I longed to see, to hold, to cuddle, to kiss, just one more time. The son I would have taken my last breath for just to see him take his first.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">I am blessed to be surrounded by supportive family and close friends who continue to remember Findlay and understand how important it is to recognise his existence and acknowledge that he is part of our family forever.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Some have been less understanding. Some have suggested I should move on, others have suggested I should distance myself from the friendships and support networks I've been so lucky to build up with other bereaved parents as they felt it was unhealthy that I kept talking about Findlay. That I was living in the past.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">I don't know one single parent that would be prepared to not talk about their child, share their memories, say their name. Why should that be different for children lost during pregnancy, shortly after birth or later in life? We do not have the privilege of making endless memories with our babies, have the pleasure of celebrating their milestones or watching them grow. Death, and the grief that follows, is part of their lives, part of their parents lives. The part that leaves a void in the parents hearts forever more.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">It may not be the easiest topic to talk about but to do so could mean the world to that baby's parents. The parents who have to live every single day of their lives hiding their broken heart. Baby loss awareness week is such an important event in the calendar. It helps parents feel empowered to talk about their babies, share their experiences, be reminded they are not alone. Please if you know someone who has lost a child let them know you remember and you care. Join us in the wave of light by lighting a candle at 7pm on 15 October. A little understanding goes a long way.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Findlay</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Every day I wish</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>That things were different</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>That you hadn't had such a cruel start</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>That you weren't so ill that you wouldn't survive</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Every day I wish</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>I could hold you in my arms just one more time</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>To kiss your perfect little cheeks and lips</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>And to look at your little button nose for hours on end</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Every day I wish</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>I was able to watch you grow</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Have memories of all your firsts</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>See you smile, crawl, walk, hear you giggle, laugh and talk</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Every day I wish</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>I could hear you call my name</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>That I could be there for you</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>To wipe your tears and hold you tight</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Every day I wish</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>I could tuck you in at night</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Read you a story</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Kiss you goodnight</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Every day I wish</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>You were here with me</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Playing with your little brother</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Going to nursery, watching you grow</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Every day I wish</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>The pain would go away</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>The ache in my heart</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>The void in my life</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Despite all of that</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Every day I am thankful</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>That you are my son</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>My precious first born</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>You made me a mummy</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Every day I am thankful</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>For all that you have taught me</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>For all that you continue to teach me</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Thankful for you</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Miss you Findlay. Love you to the moon and back forever and ever xxx</i></span></span></div>
LTTLGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14311798022193279485noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9100276405368188827.post-23439298713831816182017-10-11T19:30:00.001+01:002017-10-11T19:30:12.864+01:00Stacey: Baby Loss Awareness Week
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1">This week is Baby Loss Awareness Week. 1 in every 4 women will be directly affected by the death of a baby during their lifetime. Baby loss does not discriminate, sadly, it can happen to anyone at any time. It is time to start talking about our children because they deserve to be remembered.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1">Almost 5 years ago my first daughter died and baby loss wasn’t something I knew much about, I didn’t know anyone who had lost a baby, or so I thought. Turns out so many women and men have lost children, babies and pregnancies but we just don’t talk about it. After my daughter died it was like an open floodgate of friends and family telling me they knew what I was going through because they had experienced something similar. They, of course, didn’t know what I was going through as each person’s loss and grief is unique to them but sometimes it is helpful to not be alone in grief. To simply feel less isolated and to break the silence surrounding the taboo of baby loss.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1">That is what this week is all about, breaking the deafening silence that masks the horror of losing a child, reducing the feelings of isolation and, most importantly, celebrating our babies lives however short they were.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1">This week there are many local and national events but one I would invite everyone to join in on is The Wave Of Light. On Sunday 15</span><span class="s2"><sup>th</sup></span><span class="s1"> at 7pm wherever you are in the world you light a candle which burns for an hour creating a global wave of light lasting 24 hours. Whether you have lost a baby or are simply supporting someone you know who has this is a beautiful way to break the silence and show the world that our babies have left their mark and will not be forgotten.</span></span></div>
LTTLGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14311798022193279485noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9100276405368188827.post-58863842550613095492017-10-10T20:14:00.000+01:002017-10-10T20:18:34.769+01:00Lynsey: Baby Loss Awareness Week<style type="text/css">
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Baby Loss Awareness Week is a opportunity I feel for people to come together to share stories and stand together, united as one to help raise awareness of baby loss.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">For the last few years I have taken part in a project called <a href="http://carlymarieprojectheal.com/capture-your-grief-2017">Capture your Grief</a> which lasts the full month of October. I use this as a way to help raise awareness, bring support to others and it brings some healing in my grief journey as well.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Below is a piece of writing I wrote for day 4 of the project.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><b>Belonging</b></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">When I lost Lilly I felt it difficult to connect with people and it’s a very lonely feeling that you don’t really belong. Part of it I think was I put on a brave face and people couldn’t see I had changed. On the outside I looked the same but on the inside I was different.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Losing a child changes you and it takes time for you and others to accept that. You’re not the person you were before. I believe for the better. Part of that is I feel that when you go through an experience of losing a child little things don’t matter, people who can’t accept you don’t matter and you naturally surround yourself with people who do matter and accept you for who you are.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">This is a community nobody wants to be part of but I am so grateful to be part of this community not only on the event page but my local group <a href="http://sands-lothians.org.uk/">Sands Lothians</a> and world wide.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://sands-lothians.org.uk/">Sands Lothians</a> was my lifeline, finally I could connect.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Connect with new people you share precious memories with and even grieve with them.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">I am so grateful to the people I have met and still meet on this journey. So many inspirational people who are always there and understand.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">You form friendships and share a special bond that will last a lifetime.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">It’s through our loss that binds us.</span></span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9100276405368188827.post-11761803739434255022017-08-22T10:19:00.002+01:002017-08-22T10:20:19.741+01:00Gemma: Right Where I Am 2017: 6 years 1 month 1 day<style type="text/css">
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">I’m still here 6 years, one month and one day on. I’m still here and there are good days and bad; If I weigh them up I’d say that overall the good days have outweighed the bad over the last 6 years. Mostly I’m busy with work and Daddy and your brother and sister and I don’t have the time to sit and fall apart. There are so many happy days that your brother and sister bring me; Ede reduced me to tears of laughter the other morning, she’s so determined and full of life.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Right now though I’m struggling baby boy. I have a friend now who has a son called Isaac. I love hearing your name but this is someone else’s child called Isaac; I know it’s silly as it’s such a beautiful name and her boy is grown up now but you didn’t get chance to grow up and that makes me sad. I don’t want her to ever feel like she has to avoid mentioning her son or avoid saying his name because that wouldn’t be right or fair and when she does say his name, your name, it does make me think of you and I’m never sorry to think of you. Perhaps a time will come when it will be a blessing; certainly if I had called you a more common name I’d have had to get used to hearing other children called your name by now but it’s a special name like you were.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">I’m watching your little siblings grow and its shown me how much I have missed. Ede and Fletcher are so so different that its highlighted that I don’t know you. When I think about what you would look like I see an older Fletcher and that’s not right because your mouth was more like Ede’s or hers is more like yours ; I don’t know whether you would look at me with big sad eyes like Fletcher does when I tell him off and demand a snuggle or whether you’d wrinkle your nose and pull a big cheeky smile out of the bag like Ede does. The not knowing, the never having heard you laugh or cry, weighs on my mind.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">I often feel overwhelmed, and I don’t attend events that I should because I’m not sure how well my game face will hold up, my careful distance that allows me to speak openly about you being gone without opening that box but I know that this low point will start to peak again and I’ll do better about being around people once again. I have forever to practice this.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Regardless of this, we still keep you with us knowing you are never more than a whisper in the wind away from us. I talk to Fletcher and Ede about you and I know your Daddy does too. We find joy in the feathers you send us and the memory of you. I try and explain to Fletcher when he asks where you are and why you left; how you are a big brother even though we only have baby pictures of you and I hope one day they’ll tell people about their brother and that maybe you will help someone else through the worst of times.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">You will always be with me, I’ll always speak of you and wonder who you would be because, otherwise, forever is an awfully long time.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">~~~~~</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">You can read Gemma's previous blog posts here:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">1. <a href="http://lossthroughthelookingglass.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/gemma-10-months-23-days-or-328-days.html">Right Where I Am 2012: 10 months 23 days or 328 days</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">2. <a href="http://lossthroughthelookingglass.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/writing-to-you.html">Writing to you</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">3. <a href="http://lossthroughthelookingglass.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/things-to-be-greatful-for.html">Things to be grateful for</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">4. <a href="http://lossthroughthelookingglass.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/gemma-my-infertility-reality.html">My Infertility Reality</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">5. <a href="http://lossthroughthelookingglass.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/one-step-forward-and-two-steps-back.html">One step forward and two steps back</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">6. <a href="http://lossthroughthelookingglass.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/a-grief-soaked-christmas.html" target="_blank">A Grief-soaked Christmas</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">7. <a href="http://lossthroughthelookingglass.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/gemma-right-where-i-am-2013-2-years.html">Right Where I Am 2013: 2 years</a></span></div>
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