Lynsey: Baby Loss Awareness Week

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.

For the last few years I have taken part in a project called Capture your Grief 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.  Below is a piece of writing I wrote for day 4 of the project.

Belonging

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.

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.

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 Sands Lothians and world wide.

Sands Lothians was my lifeline, finally I could connect.

Connect with new people you share precious memories with and even grieve with them.

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.

You form friendships and share a special bond that will last a lifetime.

It’s through our loss that binds us.

Gemma: Right Where I Am 2017: 6 years 1 month 1 day

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

~~~~~

You can read Gemma's previous blog posts here:

1. Right Where I Am 2012: 10 months 23 days or 328 days

2. Writing to you

3. Things to be grateful for

4. My Infertility Reality

5. One step forward and two steps back
6. A Grief-soaked Christmas

7. Right Where I Am 2013: 2 years

Clara: Right Where I Am 2017: 6 years 4 months 3 days followed by 5 years 3 months 13 days

It's been nearly 7 years since our 'life after loss' journey began. 6 pregnancies: 3 miscarriages, 2 stillbirths, 1 amazing sister who offered to be our gestational surrogate and 1 miracle now safely here with us.

It's mixed emotions this year. Our little miracle is starting 'big' nursery on Monday - she looks so beautiful and grown up in her little uniform. It makes me wonder what her sisters would have been like starting school and starting nursery. Grace should be starting school today and Molly should be going into Primary 2. I can't believe that amount of time has passed us by.

Cara brings such joy and happiness to our lives. She really is turning into a feisty, amazing, funny little person. She brings us smiles every day. It's hard not to wonder if her sisters would have been just like her or completely different. We'll never know - they only grow up in my mind and I can only imagine what they would be like now.

It's a different grief now and it still changes. It's those days when the loss hits you in the face again out of nowhere, echoing back to that raw grief - those days are tough. It's the days when a rainbow appears or a butterfly or a white feather - some little sign that has us smiling to the sky. It's the writing of their names in the sand when we go on holiday, our way of having them with us. It's the loss of what might have been. It's the guilt that Cara will most likely never have a living sibling.

In fact, this is what I have struggled with most in recent months. No living siblings for Cara. Sometimes people ask 'is she an only child?' and depending on who is asking or what the situation is, my answer changes. Sometimes it's a simple yes. This is met with various reactions, worst one being 'you should have more, it's not fair on her being an only one.' Sometimes it's a hesitant yes but then a quick follow up that we had two little girls before her who died. That saves the follow up about having more and lets people know just how special she is.

Ultimately, Cara is enough. She is more than enough. More than I ever dreamed would be possible.

It won't stop my mind from sometimes seeing 3 little girls together... what might have been...

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

You can read my previous Right Where I Am posts by clicking on the links below:

Right Where I Am 2016: 5 years 4 months 3 days followed by 4 years 3 months 13 days
Right Where I Am 2015: 4 years 3 months 1 day followed by 3 years 2 months 11 days

Right Where I Am 2014: 3 years 3 months followed by 2 years 2 months 1 week

Right Where I Am 2013: 2 years 2 months 2 weeks followed by 1 year 2 months

Right Where I Am 2012: 1 year 2 months followed by 1 month 10 days

You can read more about my condition and my story here:

Massive Perivillous Fibrinoid Deposition

My Story

When loss keeps on happening...

Nicole: Right Where I Am 2017: Nearly 6 Years

Nearly 6 years.  I can barely believe it.  And so I start the countdown again.  Today, the last day I felt well.  Tomorrow, the last day I felt you move.  The day after; the trip to the hospital, the false reassurance.  Thinking I was in labour, being told you’d died.  The day after that; your birth.  The silence.  Then the rest of my life; a life lived without you.

Some people probably feel it’s unhelpful to think like this – to remember all the details of what happened.  And god, does it hurt to remember.  But it’s the one time of year I allow all the memories to flood in.  And, other than a few moments from the pregnancy, it’s all I have.  All that pain, and my love for you.

Barney’s started to ask a lot of questions about you.  I try to answer as honestly as I can.  Yes, you died in my tummy.  Yes, we miss you.  Yes, we will never see you again, but we can talk about you, remember you, and look at the one scan picture we have of you.  Some of it throws me.  We can be driving along, or in the supermarket, or washing up, and he’ll suddenly ask me the one question I can’t answer; ‘Why did Xander die?’  I have no response that can truly satisfy him, because I have no answer that satisfies me.  I still have absolutely no idea why a death that was so preventable, so unnecessary, happened.  Why I lost you.

Sometimes, I can comfort myself slightly by reasoning that perhaps I wouldn’t have your brothers if you hadn’t died, and obviously I wouldn’t trade them for the world.  But it doesn’t follow that I wouldn’t have them, so it doesn’t satisfy me.

I used to comfort myself by thinking I wouldn’t have set up the support group for bereaved parents if you hadn’t died.  But of course the others involved might still have set it up.  And given that I moved away from it this year, and am grieving for the lack of it in my life, this doesn’t satisfy me either.

Truth is, nothing could satisfy me when it comes to finding reason behind your death.  It all seems so bloody pointless.  If I could go back to 6 years ago – when you were still alive and safe – I would.  I’d say to that younger, more naïve me, ‘don’t believe that midwife. Ask for another opinion.  Don’t be fobbed off.  Don’t leave the hospital.’  I’d change the decisions I made.  I’d deliver you safely.  I’d leave the hospital with a baby instead of a box.  I’d see you, touch you, hold you in my arms, kiss you over and over.  I’d take picture after picture of you. I’d watch you play with your younger brothers. I’d make those memories and I'd see you grow up.    I’d never have to answer the question, ‘why did Xander die?’

But I can’t go back.  I can never, ever be satisfied.  So I start the countdown, and I remember everything I can about those days.  Your last movements. Your death.  Your silent birth. Anything I can about you.  It probably doesn’t help, but it’s all I have. The pain, and my love for you.  Because you are loved, Alexander Marshall Kirby, my sweet baby boy.  You are loved.  X

~~~~~

You can read Nicole's previous posts here:

Right Where I Am 2016: 4 years 11 months 4 days
Right Where I Am 2015: 4 years exactly
Right Where I Am 2014: 2 years 10 months 25 days
Right Where I Am 2013: 1 year 10 months 25 days

Right Where I Am 2012: 9 months and 4 weeks