Nicole: Right Where I Am 2018: Nearly 7 years

And so it rolls round again.  Your birthday, and the anniversary of your death the day before.  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.  The truth is, it means the same as it always means.  It means blocking it out, whilst I don’t have time to think about it properly.  It means the ever-increasing feeling of weight on my shoulders as we spin uncontrollably to the week I dread every year.  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.  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.  It means the need to do New Things, in your name.  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.

It’s the cycle of grief.  Rinse and repeat. I wonder how to make things feel different, but I find myself in that same pattern, again and again.  I am often ill, at this point.  I am anxious, constantly, and prone to panic.  I feel overwhelmed, more easily.   I find it hard to talk – yes, me, the talker, who never has any trouble expressing myself. I eat rubbish.  I put on weight.  I start to bite my nails, again.  I shout at your brothers, despite wanting to bite off my tongue when I do.  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^th’.  And it is, in a way.  But in others, it isn’t. That cycle, swirling round and round each year, it bothers me.  It marks my life, going on, whilst marking yours, which does not.  ‘He would have been seven’, is a terrible thing to have to say.  Oh, no more terrible than the other birthdays which preceded it but somehow saying it, every year, cuts me deeply.

I am scared to change the cycle, to do anything differently.  There is some comfort, in routine.  A certainty amongst the vein of not knowing that runs through the rest of my life.  I don’t know what will happen to the other people I love.  To your brothers, and dad, and grandparents, and all the others in your life.  To me.  But you?  I know what will happen to you.  You will go on, not being here.  And we will go on marking your birthday; we will go on saying, ‘he would have been 8, 9, 25, 40’.  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.  Not just at this time of year, but always. And the years will roll around.  The cycle of grief. Rinse and repeat.

The cycle of missing you, my baby.  Always.

~~~~~

You can read Nicole's previous posts here:

Right Where I Am 2017: Nearly 6 years
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

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

Nicole: Right Where I Am 2016: 4 years, 11months, and 4 days

It seems like I am being caught up by grief again.  Not the gentle, ever-present lapping of sadness that has been with me since your death and birth nearly 5 years ago.  Nor the huge, crashing, might-just-swallow-you-up waves that nearly drowned me when we first lost you.  But a constant pulling feeling; like I’m always in danger of going under.  I’m swimming, just coping, just managing to get from one place to another.  But the threat is always there – one false move and that’ll be it.  It scares me.  I think it scares me because, in true ‘me’ style, I feel like it shouldn’t be happening.  I should be okay.  This bit of grieving should be over.  I remember when we lost you, after the first few terrible weeks, grief settled around me, making it hard to move through life.  I felt slow, heavy; the waters were thick like sludge, and it was hard to walk forward.  But over months and years, that started to change.  The waters became gentle, and it was easier to walk again. 

But lately, I don’t know why, but I feel it again.  Everything is taking effort.  I think of your birthday coming up, and I can hardly say the words, ‘he would have been five’.  Why does five feel so significant?  As an August baby, you would have gone to school last year, so it’s not that.  Maybe five seems like you would have been a child, not a toddler, not a pre-schooler. Perhaps it’s simply because it’s half a decade without you.   

When we talk about baby loss, we often talk about how you don’t just lose the baby – you lose all the stages your child would have gone through.  I have talked about that in such a matter of fact way, to so many people, but I can really feel it at the moment.  I have lost you the baby, you the toddler learning to walk and talk, you the big boy going off to school, you the teenager with your own angst and worries.  You the university student, you the worker- proud and possibly miserable at your first job.  You the young man, falling in love.  You the husband, you the father.  I have lost your children. 

I’ve lost your voice, your laugh.  I’ve lost holding your hand, kissing your face.  I’ve lost comforting you when you’re sad, and looking after you when you’re ill.  I’ve lost being frustrated at you because of your tantrums, and I’ve lost you telling me you hate me and refusing to speak to me.  I’ve lost you telling me you’re sorry and that you love me.  I’ve lost feeling useless because I can’t make everything wonderful for you and I’ve lost the guilt of feeling I’m not doing enough for you.  I’ve lost the pride in you when you get a sticker at nursery, a certificate at school, an award for sport or art or drama.  I’ve lost knowing what you’re good at, and what taxes you.  I’ve lost wiping away your tears.  I’ve lost knowing the colour of your eyes, stroking your hair.  I’ve lost knowing what it feels like to hold you, to feel the weight of you in my arms changing as you grow. I’ve lost having to tell you to set an example for your younger brothers and breaking up your fights.  I’ve lost the chance to photograph my three boys, all together.

I thought that these losses became easier to bear as time went on.  I thought I could compartmentalise my grief; that grief was a small but significant part of who I am.  That the waters would remain light and easy to wade through.  But I realise that sometimes it’s more than that.  Sometimes - for an hour, a week, a month  – the grief over losing you is almost everything to me.  And maybe that’s okay.  Maybe it’s one of the ways I can ensure you are as present a part of my life as your brothers are.  I just need to work on coming to terms with that.  Accepting, if I can, that the loss of you – of everything you were and could have been – is simply too great a loss to ever have it feel manageable for long. Maybe the pull of the water is the pull of not just my grief, but also of my love for you. Maybe I need the space and time to sometimes, just for a little while, close my eyes and go under.

~~~~~

You can read Nicole's previous posts here:

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

Nicole: Right Where I Am 2015: 4 years exactly

Where am I right now?  I’m in what feels like a really odd place.  I am mum to a boy who never lived outside my body, and who would have been turning four on 16^th August.  I am mum to a boy who is coming up for 2 and a half, who fills my life with joy and frustrations as only toddlers can do.  And I am mum to a third boy who – if we are really, really lucky – will be born next month, a last addition to our little family.

Four years on from losing Xander – from his death and birth (always, forever, the wrong way round) - my grief is manageable in a way that both pleases and angers me.  Day to day, the grief lies under the surface of my heart - barely noticeable, ultimately manageable.  It’s like a vague, dull ache – an awareness that something isn’t quite right in the world, something isn’t as it should be.  It is simply there, a fact that I accept and doesn’t hugely hinder my life.  I think of my first son every single day in some way.  It isn’t always heart-wrenching, it doesn’t always make me cry. 

But there are times – less frequent than they were, but still there – when the grief overwhelms me.  Sometimes it hits me by surprise – something reminds me of him, and the pain is so sudden it takes my breath away.  Other times I do it intentionally.  I take the pain of my loss, the utter hopelessness of it all, and focus on it. I know some people would wonder why I would do that to myself.  Well, simply because I need to.  Sometimes, in amongst this incredibly busy, rushed life of mine, I need to take the time out to focus on him.  On the desolation I feel at his death, the anger I feel at the lack of care we received, and - most of all - the love I feel for him. 

My second son, Barney, gets most of my time.  My love, my affection, my attention.   And, hopefully, my third son will share in that when he arrives.   But Xander?  My first, beloved boy, who would have been going off to school in a matter of weeks?   He gets so little of me.  He gets a few snatched moments where I can focus on him.  He gets our ‘week of new things’ which we do in the lead up to his birthday.  He gets a tattoo on my arm. He gets a plaque at the cemetery that we visit once a year on his birthday.  It’s not much when you think about it.  A mother likes to treat all her children equally, and in reality I can’t really do that.  So I feel like I can’t give much to him. 

But as for what he gave to me – it’s huge.  My children have been the best gift I could ever ask for.  Xander taught me so much.  He gave me a sense of renewed hope when I needed it most.  He made me treasure the people I have in my life.  He showed me what I am here for and gave me a purpose.  I don’t think I can ever really repay him for what he gave me.  But if taking time to think about him, to value him, and to give thanks for his little life is all I can do…well maybe, in time, I can learn to make that enough.  I really hope so.

Happy birthday my beautiful boy xxx   

Nicole: The Way I Love You

As we approach your brother's first birthday, I find myself thinking a lot about you.  Of course, I think about you every day, in different ways.  Sometimes it's reflecting on what you might look like, or behave.  Sometimes it's about what your first word would have been, or when you'd have started to walk.  Sometimes it's to simply miss you, to yearn to hold you with all of my being.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about love. Because I love you and Barney with equal power and equal amounts - but I don't love you in quite the same way.  I can't, you see.  My love for you is abstract. It builds up inside me, but there's no release for it, no home for it to go to.  I keep my love for you with me, and sometimes I feel like I might burst from it. Like my grief, occasionally I take it out and give it an airing.  Concentrate on it, focus my thoughts.  Give it the space my love needs and deserves.   

My love for Barney is different.  It too is overwhelming, but I can show it every single day.  Every kiss, hug, laugh, everything I do for him.   The games we play and the things we teach one another.  And having him hasn't minimised my love for you, or made it insignificant.  The capacity to love is limitless - my heart expanded to love him too. It encompasses you both.

The note I left in your coffin promised that I would keep your memory, and your love, safe inside of me until the day I die. And I will, my precious first son, always.  You gave me so many gifts, and my gift to you is simply to love you, forever.  It feels like a meagre gift to give to you, the boy who changed my life, but it's all I can do for you.  I just hope it's enough.       

Nicole: Happy 2nd Birthday to my beautiful boy

I can't believe two years have passed since we lost you, since you were born.  The moment when we were told you had died remains the worst moment of my life.  Nothing that happened afterwards: not the induction and your silent birth the following day, not leaving you at the hospital, not the funeral - nothing is as bad as that moment.  I've been trying not to think about that moment today.  I'm sorry for that, my sweetheart, but I needed to get through the day.  I've busied myself with tasks, with going out and doing things, and with looking after your little brother. 

I wish you were here to see him.  I'm sure you'd switch between being helpful, and fighting with him, as brothers often do.  But then, he might not be here if you were.  That thought bothers me - as I wouldn't be without him for a moment, but then, I hate being without you.  I am greedy, and I want you both. 

Tomorrow should have been celebrating, and balloons, and trying to stop your brother grabbing a handful of cake.  It should have been you playing with your friends, Arthur and Matthew amongst them of course.  I love seeing them.  It was hard at first, but now I have your brother they allow me to imagine what you might have been like, just a little. 

So instead tomorrow we will celebrate for you.  No cake, no party, no balloons.    Instead we will wear robot t shirts, all three of us, as we think of that as your symbol.  We will do another New Thing in your honour, as we have been doing all week.  We are going to visit Northumberlandia.  We will be outdoors, on that sculpture in the earth, and I will imagine you running around, about how you might have been.  I will think of you as you were until that last day- safe and warm in my tummy, moving about, kicking your dad in the face. Giving us both such joy.       

We will visit your plaque in the cemetery, and see your name in the book of remembrance.  We'll take sunflowers for you, my beautiful first boy who lit up our lives. We will give thanks, to you, and to the universe, for the gift that was you and the love you brought us.  Happy birthday, my wonderful boy.  And thank you. xxx

Nicole: Right Where I Am 2013: 1 year, 10 months and 25 days

Xander’s  death and silent birth are the worst moments of my life.  Those two days, in August 2011, and the weeks and months that followed, were pure hell.  Writing about him, about my feelings and my grief, became so important to me, and a year ago I wrote one of these posts as we launched this blog.  A year on, some things are still the same, and others are very, very different. 

So what hasn’t changed? My son is still dead.  That looks bald, harsh on the page.  But my grief is harsh, it’s bald fact that never changes.  He’ll always have died, I’ll always have lost him.  I said in my first post that life goes on, but so does death, and this still rings true for me.  Although I can now think of him and smile, and reflect how blessed I was to have him at all, sometimes my grief is so deep, so all-encompassing that I feel like I’m drowning in it. The missing him, the longing for my boy  can never be satisfied, can never stop.   

But what has changed?  I am so grateful to be able to say that I sit typing this with my beautiful rainbow baby Barney sitting next to me, on his dad’s knee.  He was born, safely, on the 6^th March this year.  He is beautiful, and crazy, and hard work, and just the most wonderful thing I’ve ever seen.  Sometimes I look at him and can’t believe we created something so amazing.

But of course my love for Barney doesn’t stop my grief for Xander – in many ways, having him makes me realise even more what I missed with my first boy.  And people really don’t get it.  Like the woman who said ‘yes, but you’ve got Barney now, so everything’s okay, isn’t it?’ or the card we got that said ‘congratulations, now your family is complete!’.  I don’t know whether this is ignorance, or innocence, or both.  It’s certainly a lack of understanding - brushing our loss under the carpet, like my son never existed. And as wonderful as having my lovely second boy is, lots of things still trouble me.

Like I think: Barney will never know his older brother.  But is Xander his older brother? Barney was older than Xander will ever be from the moment he was born.  Xander was my first, but he isn’t the elder, is he?

Then: How do I show my love for my boys equally?   Putting photos up of Barney was wonderful but tough – how could I do it when I didn’t have pictures of Xander to go up?

Also: Barney was born by caesarean section.  This was planned – I couldn’t face the thought of a lengthy induction, and the medical team agreed that it wasn’t wise to let me go past my due date.  When he was born, it was discovered that he had a true knot in his cord, as well as the cord wrapped round his neck.  A vaginal delivery could have meant a very different outcome.  I found this really hard to handle, and very few people understand why, saying I should forget it.  But why did Xander (perfectly healthy with no reason for him to die) leave us, but Barney (with two complications that could have killed him) survive? 

And: If Xander had been alive, would we have still had Barney?  Is wishing Xander was here like wishing Barney wasn’t (a thought I can’t even contemplate).

So, where am I right now?  I am unlucky, and lucky.  I am a bereaved mother, and a mother to a living boy.  I am the saddest I could possibly be, and the happiest I’ve ever been.  Part of me died the day we lost Xander,  and I am learning to live again.      

Nicole: To Carry a Rainbow

As I write this I'm currently just over 21 weeks pregnant.  I can feel my baby moving about inside my tummy.  It's magical, and amazing, but it's also the most terrified I've ever been in my life.  Since losing my son I've discovered these miraculous babies who are conceived after loss are often referred to as 'rainbow babies'.  I have read that they are called this because 'the beauty of a rainbow does not negate the ravages of the storm. When a rainbow appears, it doesn't mean the storm never happened or that the family is not still dealing with its aftermath. What it means is that something beautiful and full of light has appeared in the midst of the darkness and clouds. Storm clouds may still hover but the rainbow provides a counterbalance of colour, energy and hope'. 

This is the perfect description in my view.  This baby does not negate the loss of our son.  We still miss him, every single day.  Sometimes the joy I feel about this baby is immediately followed by sadness for the loss of my son.  This doesn't mean I don't love this baby as much, or want it as much, just that my sadness about the loss of Xander remains, and always will.  I think this might be difficult for some people to understand, but it won't seem strange to other bereaved mums at all.  I can feel extreme grief and sadness about the loss of my son, as well as my love for him, whilst still feeling joy, excitement and yes, even hope, for this baby.  Just like parents who are lucky enough to never lose a child don't love their second or third children less than the first.  There's no limit to how much you can love - your heart expands to include them all.

I don't know what will happen with this baby - will he/she be safe? Will I bring him/her home this time?  Will they grow up to be happy, healthy adults? The trouble is, we just don't know.  I know - no one ever knows.  But with a rainbow baby the fear is always there.  Xander died despite being healthy, and so much could go wrong with this one too.  I get bursts of positivity, but I also live with anxiety every day.  Of course it's worth the anxiety, worth the risk.  The chance for me to have a living child, though it seems remote and hard for me to believe at the moment, is worth the fear.

I love this baby already.  I love them like I loved their brother.  And if the fear, and worry, is what I have to go through then I will.  When I feel hope and excitement, I'll embrace it, and appreciate it.  But the fear will always be there.  As I keep saying to my rainbow - stay safe, baby, stay safe xxx

Nicole: Sometimes, I Just Miss Him

Losing my son has brought all sorts of feelings.  There's sadness, and lots of it. Sometimes it's a gentle thought about how he should be here, sometimes it's a bigger rush of grief - a tidal wave that threatens to overwhelm me.  There's guilt too - oh, masses of guilt.  All the things I should have done, would have done, if I'd known what was about to happen.  If I hadn't been so pliable, so calm and willing to believe the medical staff.  There's anger too - at the hospital, at myself, and (unfairly, probably) at the people who say truly stupid things in their attempt to make me feel better.  At the people who won't talk about him at all, and those who haven't supported me.

But sometimes, I just miss him.  It's there in the background all the time of course.  A nagging feeling of something missing - the things I can do because he's not here, and the things I don't do and never will. Sometimes the missing him is huge, like I could drown in it.  It can be sparked by walking into the room that was all decked out ready for him, now crammed with junk.  By seeing a friend's child who would be the same age, an age  Xander will never reach.  By spotting that cool superhero top his dad would have wanted to buy for him. 

Sometimes, there's no catalyst.  The missing him hits me like a bolt out of the blue.  I feel suspended in it, and it can last minutes, hours or days.  I've come to accept that missing him will last all of my life - whatever turns my life takes, whatever else I gain or lose, the feeling of missing him will never stop.  It's been hard to accept that, but I now know that the amount I miss him is equal to the love I feel for him.  Huge.  Universe-sized. Limitless. Infinite.    

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  

Nicole: Letter to my boy a year after his due date

My beautiful boy.  A year ago today was your due date.  Your dad and I were so happy - with both of us off work and me still feeling mobile enough for us to get out and do things.  We stopped in town for a coffee, and the woman who served us was pregnant too.  She was so excited when I told her it was my due date, making jokes about preparing towels and hot water.  You moved about so much that day - you were so wriggly and made your dad and I laugh with the weird shapes you made in my tummy.  I knew you weren't on your way just yet, I'd had no contractions, though you were headed in the right direction. 

When we first lost you, I couldn't think back to that time without bitterness, without thinking how stupid I was to have thought we were going to keep you. I found it impossible to remember those days and feel happy.  I'm so sorry for that.  Now, I think back to this time last year and yes, I am sad.  The day is tinged with grief, because I'm looking at it through death-tinted glasses.  But I also remember, quite clearly, how it was to feel you move.  How excited we both were, how complete and happy I felt, how I was brimming over with love for you all of the time.  I don't feel any of those emotions anymore, except the latter.  I feel love for you, all of the time.  I ache for you, I miss you, and I love you. 

I really wish you'd arrived that day, or sometime in the following week, because chances are we'd still have you now if you had.  But that isn't what happened, and to wish it makes me feel like I'm denying who you were, and what you mean to me.  I have those perfect, wonderful memories from before 15th August, and I'm so grateful for the time you gave us.  I've never experienced grief like it, but then I've never experienced love like it either.  Thank you sweetheart, for everything.  With love, always, mum xxx

Nicole: The Power of His Name

Clara's wonderful post and pictures got me thinking about how important it is to see and hear our children's names.  When my son Xander died, it wasn't long before I started to want to get his name out there into the world.  A plaque and rose at the cemetery, his name in the baby memorial book, a plaque at a woodland that my mum arranged, his name is even included in the notes of a friend's PhD, as she focused on stillbirth in literature - I was greatly moved by this gesture from someone I hadn't seen for years.  So few people mention him by name now that when they do I could weep with gratitude.

So why is it so important to me?  I think it's because that without us writing and saying his name, he has no way of existing in the world.  His short life had such a massive impact on me and his dad, but like ripples on a pond, that impact lessens as it spreads out.  We have to say his name, because he can't say it himself.  He'll never learn to write it.  He'll never have his name read out on the school register.  He'll never have it written on a certificate for something he's achieved.  He'll never have someone write it on a school textbook, encased by a love heart.  He'll never have me shout it to call him in for tea.  He'll never tell me that he hates it, and wants to be known as Alex from now on.  He'll never have it read out at his graduation.  He'll never have a lover whisper it softly, or scream it at him when he's upset them.  He'll never give his middle name to his eldest son, as his dad and grandad did.  He'll never have someone say 'that Xander, he's a  good bloke', or 'that Xander, he's a complete shit' (for I'm realistic that either would have been possible). 

A mother who has a living child eventually lets them make their own way in the world - they will make their own mark, their name will ring out in whatever way they make happen.  But for Xander that isn't an option.  His continued presence in the world lies in my hands.  It's a show of my love for him to keep his memory alive, to have his name heard.  I do it willingly and lovingly. My service for my son.  Alexander Marshall Kirby. 

Nicole: When's the right time to drop the bomb?

One of the things that I struggle with is knowing when it’s appropriate to tell people my son is dead, or what I refer to as ‘dropping the dead baby bomb’.  When people ask if I’ve got children, or want me to laugh with them about the indignities of pregnancy, or discuss the  pain of childbirth, I tell them, and the bomb explodes.  It kills the conversation, they look shell-shocked, sometimes they even run for cover. 

Last week I bumped into someone who I last saw a year ago, when I was going on maternity leave.  She remembered me and asked how old my baby was now.  I was unprepared, I stumbled over my words, but replied ‘he would have been nearly a year old, but he died.’  The bomb went off.  Her face fell.  I explained, probably in too much detail.  She said she was sorry, she grasped my hand.  It doesn’t always go like that.  Sometimes people back away, not knowing what to say to me, like they think it might be catching.  Sometimes they rush to say something, anything - ‘it obviously wasn’t meant to be’, I’ve heard, which is one of the worst things someone can say to me, or ‘will you have other children’, like that would negate the loss of my boy.  

At times, dealing with other people’s reactions is harder than living with my own grief.  I don’t like to make people feel uncomfortable, or sad, or scared.  I don’t want to upset them or make them feel unsure of what to say.  I don’t want to get cross with them for their often inadequate responses.  But I can’t deny my son.  I can’t pretend he doesn’t exist, that he didn’t live, that he isn’t relevant. He did, he is.  He’s imprinted on my heart forever and I need to be able to talk about him.  So I go on dropping that bomb, placing it down as gently as I can, and preparing myself for the fallout.      

Nicole: Right Where I Am 2012: 9 months and 4 weeks

Xander was Nicole's first baby, conceived after years of trying, and just when they were about to give up. After an uneventful 'text book' pregnancy, Nicole was nearly 2 weeks overdue when she went to the hospital thinking she was in labour, only to be told he'd died in the 10 hours since they'd last heard his heartbeat. He was born silently on Tuesday 16th August 2011, just before midnight.

Where am I now? Not where I should be. My son should be nearly 10 months old. He should be here in my arms, not existing only as ashes in a tiny box. It’s a funny word, ‘should’. I often catch myself using it - it’s when I temporarily exist in the make believe land where my boy is alive and my life is whole and complete. Where our house is full of noise, and smells, and Jim stubs his toe on the baby things left on the floor. Where the cats run away from our little lovely boy, to avoid getting their tails pulled. Where we’ve had to move things off the bottom shelves and fit stair gates, to keep him safe. This land doesn’t exist. Our house is quiet. The cats undisturbed. Our lives are much the same as before, but forever changed.

I think of him a million times a day. Everything reminds me of him. Sometimes that’s comforting. I can remember the love I felt when he was growing inside me and the joy I felt every day, and I feel warm and content in the memory. Sometimes it’s as far from comforting as it can possibly be. I miss him so much. I ache to hold him and I rush round the house trying to find something of his. But I’m thwarted at every turn. I have nothing that was his – nothing he touched. We bought a soft toy for him after the 20 week scan, and I sat with a couple of times on my bump, telling Jim I was letting them bond. This is the nearest thing I have to something of his and sometimes I sit with it, to try and be close to him. But it’s a poor substitute for a living boy. Sometimes I take the glass off the frame that holds his footprints, and run my fingers over the marks his feet made, desperate to touch something he touched. Nothing quite does it. Nothing can ever satisfy the need to see him, hold him, to mother him.

I keep having to remind myself I am a mother. It’s hard to feel like one when the object of my affection has ceased to exist. I am a different mother to all of my friends. I can’t possible understand their reality, and they can’t ever understand mine. I feel separate, different. I am a freak in a world full of normals. The sense of isolation is enormous.
I would love another baby. I hope that one day it’ll happen for us, but I’m not so sure. It took so many years before we had Xander. Sometimes I think he was our only chance at having a family, and I swear I can almost feel my heart breaking all over again. The road ahead is filled with danger – if we ever conceive again, will I miscarry? Will the baby be stillborn again? Will they die of SIDS? Will they die at age 2, or 5, or 15? The innocence of pregnancy is gone, and I can never feel it again. Sometimes I wish I could see the future, other times I’m glad I can’t – because if I knew more loss of this magnitude was coming my way I think I’d fall down dead. I worry about everyone in my life, especially my husband. If he has a headache, or a cough, or comes home a little late, I’ve half convinced myself he’s gone. I know that having one loss doesn’t protect you from another – there’s an unlimited amount of bad in the world, as there is of good.

People ask me how I am and I say ‘okay’. I’m coping. And I am. I’m not staying in bed, not avoiding the world, I’ve not lost my mind and I’m not trying to kill myself. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about all of those things, many times. But I get on with life. Hell, sometimes I even enjoy it. I go out, see friends and family - sometimes I enjoy things so much, or I laugh so hard, that life feels wonderful. Other times I am so sad I can’t stop crying. I want to sit very, very still and hope the world goes away, or spontaneously ends without me having to do anything about it. Apocalypse? Deadly virus? Gigantic asteroid on a collision course with earth – bring it on! Sometimes I’m so mad, so filled with rage at the world that I want to kick things over, shout at people, punch god in the face, or scream until I have no voice left.

So where am I now? I am coping. I get by. Sometimes I’m even living. But my reality is forever changed. Nothing and nobody can bring my boy back. I read somewhere that life goes on, but so does death. I know this to be true. I’ll carry the strength of his memory, and the weight of his loss, with me until the end of my days.