Fiona: Right Where I Am 2013: 1 year 2 months 3 days

Right where I am is in the scariest place I have been for a long time.  Tomorrow I will be induced with my rainbow baby boy and the nearer that hour gets the more I miss Max.  Max was my firstborn and always will be and somehow it feels like going through birth again will be another step away from that great and terrible day when he was born, it makes me acknowledge that time doesn’t move on for him, the photograph of him in our living room will never change, we will never have to choose his school or buy him shoes.

Marking Max’s first anniversary felt like a momentous event, we let a sky lantern go at the time he was born, bought a new memory box and had a slap up meal (including a glass of champagne despite being pregnant.)  It felt so good to have a day that was all about Max and we both felt that it was a good opportunity to release our feelings about him.  It also felt like a huge milestone, we had survived a year, we had had birthdays, Christmas, our first wedding anniversary and survived.  But my grief is never far from the surface.  A couple of days ago I was taken unawares by a song that we had at his funeral, fortunately being at home by myself I could let the tears flood out and take some time to remember him.

Max he taught me so much that I am already a different parent to this little boy.  In this pregnancy I have found out everything I can about this person, his gender and had a 4D scan to see his face.  He has a name that we use all the time when we talk to him – which I do non-stop, including telling him about his big brother.  I used to think that if you didn’t know those things it wouldn’t be as bad if something went wrong, but now I regret that Max died before I knew he was a boy, before he’d heard his name and I know now that nothing could make losing a child worse so I’m enjoying all the kicks and wiggles and the way he gets cross when he has hiccups and the strange positions he always seems to be in at a scan!

I am scared about tomorrow, about today...  that something will go wrong and this baby will stop moving, I suspect that I will be scared for his whole life however long it is, but I will also be grateful, so, so grateful for every minute that he lives, and I’ll be happy, and hopeful..... hopeful that he will plan my funeral and not the other way around.  I’m determined that Max’s memory will live on and be part of family life and story, he was my firstborn and nothing will ever change that.