Helen K: Baby Loss Awareness Week

“A life is a life, no matter how brief”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Minute after minute, more parents saying and showing their love for their child, so many names, so many lives, so many futures lost…

So many stars that will forever sparkle in the memories of those who knew them, however briefly.

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.

Say their names loudly, and with pride.

They matter. They will always matter.

Gentle wishes and kisses to the skies,

Helen Kennan, Mummy to Haydon, Euan and 2 tiny little angels,

www.haydonkennan.co.uk

Helen: Hold On

We walked today, my girl and I. Holding hands and but a little at a time. From one sofa to another and around the room.

Small steps. In purple leather shoes. Stripey tights and a shaky walk.

And the five year old watched. Wanting to know when his sister would run. Shout and chase and catch and fall.

By the look of things not long at all.

And I remembered a day, with this boy. 2010  - had I a time machine the last place I would go. A house with a window full of sun - some friends, their children and us. And a babe, I no longer recall which mother or name. But my son held my knees and whispered then, 'One day Mummy we shall buy a baby and he will be my friend'.

And it happened then. When blood rushes and goes to the head. When you lose your way and cry instead. And those around you stop - assuming in an instant it was something that they said.

And I wished - in that moment - that babies were trade. That someone would name me a price to pay. That I'd move on and we'd be whole again.

I can't remember now if we'd lost 4 or 5 babes then.

It worked out - in the end. In our girl. Who for a time I believed was not to come. And in a room with a consultant - a day or so from hitting the wall - I begged that something else be done.

Low dose aspirin. Increase the flow and thin the blood. Proof or placebo I frankly care not. Where others failed my daughter walks.

And lives and breathes and talks.

I grew stronger as those months went by. That which warms your heart and that which makes you cry.

'What's for you, won't go by'.

I believe not - one word of that. But rather, 'what we yearn for may yet be in our grasp'. Through perseverance - and sometimes - the questions we ask.

There is always tomorrow and there is always another door. Today my daughter held my hand and walked across the floor.

Life finds a way - when all has gone wrong.

When you can't hold on? Hold on... x

You can read more about Helen on her own blog All At Sea.

Helen: Missing

Driving this morning to my best friends house, a voice on the radio spoke of October 15th - Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. I did not know. How lucky I had the radio on. It stopped me in my tracks, as these things will always do - and for a short time shook again the settled peace of mind and positive demeanour of a normal day. She spoke of lighting a candle - at 7pm - to place in your window as a gesture of love and remembrance, for lost babes the world over. I will certainly do so. Five candles - and a time of our lives which became a recurring nightmare and hopeless situation for all involved.

My story is one of many, thousands, millions the globe around. A form of loss so cruel and commonplace, yet so taboo - even in today's open and liberal world - that there is no conventional way to grieve. Loss is a terrible thing, whenever it occurs - but the loss of a child, who we will never know, is the loss of a hope and a future. It is devastating in the cruelest possible way. My story has a happy end. I have a healthy boy and girl and I am luckier than many. But I know what loss is.

There are children who will not join me on the beach, who will not hear bedtime stories and who will never go to school. I love them none the less. A votive in my friends house bears the inscription, "Hope is eternal - all the darkness in the world can never extinguish the light of one small candle". If this story is your own, then October 15th will mean something special to you. Never lose hope of a happy end for it was precisely on the point of giving up that our luck changed. We have a son and a daughter who are strong, who are growing up.

Life moves on. But I will not forget. And neither will the rest. In your thousands - I extend my hand to you. Because you are not alone. Your neighbour, your friend or the woman on the street, knows a little of your pain. She knows loss of her own, and today I light a candle for you all - heartbroken families, missing babes and the healthy, living children you are yet to love and enjoy... x

You can read more about Helen via her blog All At Sea