Stacey: A Second Chance at a First Birthday

Birthdays: they should be full of cake, balloons, presents, laughter and nostalgia as to how another year has passed by so quickly.

What happens if you are invited to two birthdays and both are very different?

One is full of all these beautiful things. Friends, family, gifts, cards, a new party dress and a time that so many happy memories are created.

The other; gifts were a headstone and flowers. The birthday party is only attended by 2 people, the mother and father, who are desperately trying to make sense of how it could have been an entire year since they last held their baby who died.

What if the mother or father was you? What if there was no option to choose which party you go to, which birthday you want to be involved in? Both events must happen, for one child cannot live if the other survives.

However hard you may try, you desperately want to wish it wasn’t true, it is. One of your children would always have failed to live.  If your first child was alive and well you would never have had your second child. You only have your second child because your first child died. You cannot ever have both of your children.

But the latest party was a happy one, our rainbow turned One. An entire year of happiness and joy because she lived. Regardless of the circumstances, what we had to endure for her to exist and how different things could have been, we are forever thankful to have her in our lives.

To those who are currently travelling the lonely road in search of their rainbow, keep going. It’s hard, but they are worth every moment of pain.

Nicole: For my boy on the eve of his third birthday

I can't believe we're about to hit your third birthday tomorrow.  Like so many life-defining moments, your birth seems like it was yesterday, and yet also like it was a lifetime ago.  I normally write to you on your birthday, but this year I felt moved to write today, the day before.  I can't explain why, but I've learnt to stop questioning myself and go with what I feel when it comes to you.

I have been tired and short-tempered today.  I always struggle with this day more than your birthday.  Because your birthday wasn't the worst day of my life.  It could never, ever be that.  No, the worst day of my life was the day before.  Because that was the day you died.  I don't know when, but sometime after 2pm - when I heard your heartbeat, steady and true - and before midnight, you died.  Your heart simply stopped.  I hate that I don't know where I was when it happened.  Was I on the sofa?  In the bath? Moving around on my birth ball, trying to get labour started?  Was it when I was laid in bed, feeling so ill? Or was it on the way to hospital - did your life stop just as I arrived in the car park or laid on the hospital bed?  It does feel like a lifetime ago, but remembering a few short words can take me back there instantly, 'I'm sorry, but there's no heartbeat'. 

I have often told women who are at the start of this journey, who say 'how will I cope with the funeral, or the first anniversary, or telling people, or my friend's pregnancy?.  To them I say 'you have survived the worst already.  You had the news that your baby has died.  If you lived through that moment, you can get through anything'.  I stand by that, but I still think that everything else is horrible, and beyond difficult.  Telling everyone was hell.  Registering your stillbirth was sickening. And your funeral was utterly and totally heartbreaking. 

My nana, your great-nana, died a few weeks ago.  I adored her.  We had always been close and I miss her like crazy.  But her funeral was the first I had been to after yours, and it was poles apart.  Though sad, and moving, the funeral of a 97 year old lady, who had lived a good life and was mourned by her family, has a feeling of completeness and closure about it.  It is sad, but it is right.  The normal way of things.  I found myself smiling a lot during her funeral, thinking of her and how wonderful it had been to have had her in my life for so long.

Your funeral, my darling boy - there was nothing right about that.  We chose songs that felt appropriate, readings that fit, and we wrote a piece to be read out that so well expressed how we felt that we could never have written anything different.  But a child's funeral can never be right.   Everything about it is jarring, and wrong, like a horrible screeching flat note that ruins a piece of beautiful music.  I remember that note.  It sickens me to think of it even today.  I feel it, and I feel your loss, like a physical pain, every day.  Like someone cut part of me away, never to return it. 

But your birthday, my love? That could never be the worst day of my life.  That was the day you finally came into the world, after 9 long months, and 3 years of waiting.  You were amazing, and beautiful.  The memory of you - the wonderfulness of those 9 months we had together - and the lack of you - the way I miss you every day - has moved me to do so many things that I would never have done otherwise.  You know I wish you were here, more than anything.  But those memories of you sustain me.  The legacy that you have left - the new things, the shared blog, the forum I was part of and the support group I'm about to launch - they keep me going.  And the relationships I have developed - the friendships that grew stronger because of the people who simply listened to me, the individuals who remember you through cards, messages and doing new things, and the bereaved mums who are so integral to my life I don't know how I lived without them - well, that's all thanks to you.

I'd give anything for today's anniversary not to exist, but tomorrow?  Well, no one can take that away from me, or from you.  Happy third birthday, my beautiful, wonderful son. xxx 

Katy: Happy 1st Birthday

A message to our boys on their first birthday...

Dear Matthew and Oliver,

Today you would have turned 1. If you were here, I'm sure that we would have had a really fun day with all your family. I would have made you each a cake (as soon as we found out that there were 2 of you we had decided that you shouldn't have to share a birthday cake!) We would have also had a little party and you would have had loads of pressies. I often wonder what you would be like now, what we would have brought you for your birthday, what you would be doing and little things like what colour your eyes would be.

But you aren't here, because you will always be 6 days old. However, that doesn't mean that we can't still have a special day for you. Me, Daddy and your Sisters are going to go in to town and see your special butterfly on the wall at the museum. After that we are going to plant a lovely tree we have brought for the garden. It is a Japanese Maple and the leaves go bright red every autumn. This means that it will look fabulous on your birthday every year. It also has a colourful sign so that everyone can see that it is in memory of two special boys.

We have also got a little present for your sisters. It is a book all about you so that they can grow up knowing all about their big brothers. They are a bit too small to understand it at the moment but I'm sure that they will love it when they are a bit bigger.

Me and your Dad still miss you both terribly and Emily and Sophie, your little sisters, would have loved to have met you. But we will try and make your birthday as happy as we can, a wonderful celebration of the two of you!

You can read more about Katy and her journey in her own blog 1 in 10 Thousand

Nicole: To my boy on his birthday

My lovely boy.  So today is your birthday.  It’s been a year since you came silently into the world, a year since I last saw your face.  The last year has been the worst of my life.  Learning to live without you has been the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, and I feel the lack of you in everything I do.  You were with me for such a short time, but the impact of your brief life on mine has been huge. It’s left a crater in my heart, and an impression on my soul bigger than I could ever have imagined.  Yesterday it was a year since we lost you, and it was particularly hard – I miss you so much.  But I’ve talked a lot about my grief, so today, on your birthday, I want to talk about what you’ve brought me.  On a day I should be giving you gifts, I want to thank you for what you’ve given me.  
  

You have taught me so much.  I have changed in so many ways, yet in others losing you has restored me to who I really am.  You returned my natural optimism - gave me hope when I had started to think I’d never feel hope again.  You made me realise that giving up, out of fatigue and out of fear, is not an option for me.  You made me see the good in people – the overwhelming good in humanity as a whole, when time and experience had started to make me cynical.  Because of you I have found my voice again.  I used to write all the time, but I had stopped.  Writing to you, and about you, makes me feel like myself again. 

Through you I’ve met some of the most amazing women I’ve ever had the fortune of knowing.  We have been brought together by our loss, and united by our thoughts, feelings and care for one another. I’ve been able to get and give support like never before in my life.  I wouldn’t have met them, wouldn’t have been there, if it weren’t for you.

Our Year of New Things, which we’re doing in your name, has shown me that there are amazing experiences to be had, if you let yourself try things.  That it’s not worth putting things off – for when’s a better time to enjoy things than now?  We are inviting people to join in this week, and I love the thought that people will experience something new, all because you existed. 

You have confirmed the love that your dad and I have for one another.  We never doubted it, but losing a child can break a couple.  Not us.  We are more together than we ever were, if that’s possible.  You’ve also made me realise how important my lovely family and wonderful friends are – for what matters in life if not them?  People might think that losing a child would make you scared to love, to open your heart.  But I know the hard way that love is worth the risk of loss.  The grief doesn’t cancel out my love for you – I only feel so much grief because I feel so much love.  And I wouldn’t change having you for the world.     

I read somewhere that perhaps people get the time they need to achieve something  in this life.  Looking at the impact you had, the effect you’ve had on me, on your dad, people who know us and even people we've never met, perhaps those 9 months in my tummy were all you needed.  That your life was short, but perfect and complete.  
 
Of course, I miss you more than I can express, especially today on your birthday.  I wish we had presents, and spoiling you, and fun.  This day each year will always be your day, but it won’t be the only day that you exist for me, that I remember you.  Every day you will be in my thoughts, every day I will wish you were with me.  I struggle with not being able to hold you, to care for you.  I have all this love for you that I can’t do anything with.  So I will send it out into the universe, in the hope it finds you.  Can you feel it?  Does it reach you?  Happy birthday sweetheart, and thank you  xxx