Shona: Right Where I Am 2018: 6 years

As I write this on Sunday right where I am is full of memories of another Sunday exactly six years ago.

July is full of the before and after. On the surface I am a busy working mother of three facing the constant juggling that entails, particularly during the summer holidays. Not far beneath is another self, mostly hidden from the world at large.

A holiday in the Lake District is full of reminders of another much rainier July when I was happily expecting our third child but starting to wonder why my rain jacket wasn't getting any tighter.

Another trip to London this time and at a service station I am right back to the floods of 2012 and a journey back from my cousin's wedding, a party punctuated by observations about my small bump.

As we juggle the demands of holidays, childcare, long car journeys with the added bonus of chickenpox it's hard to find time for my real self to get a look in this year. But inside my thoughts are filled with the little boy who we barely got to meet but without whom I don't know where I'd be right now. Certainly I was a different me then. This year is the first where the days of the week are the same as that summer.

Six years ago last Tuesday I walked across the Meadows to Lauriston for a scan. I was 21+2 weeks pregnant. Having already had a late miscarriage in our first pregnancy I have never been excited for scans and after two healthy pregnancies since I had a feeling about this one. My rain jacket getting looser even - was I imagining that? I hadn't felt this baby move much either. As I walked to the appointment I was already trying to work out how I would word an out of office reply if there was a problem.

When you have a scan late in the afternoon and are given an appointment with fetal medicine for 9am the next day that adds to the knowledge that there was something very wrong. From the scans no one could tell us what was wrong but they all agreed on one thing, that this baby wasn't going to survive.

On this day six years ago I went first thing to obstetric triage to take two tablets.

Two days later we left our girls at nursery and went to the labour ward where a few hours later we met our only son. We didn't know he was a boy that day and we couldn't give him a name until two weeks later. We had so much more to learn about him.

Callum died at 22+2 due to to an inherited disease Smith Lemli Opitz syndrome.

It's amazing how many cars round here had the number plate SLO5 back then.

It was hard at first to know where I belonged. Hard to admit to anyone other than those closest that we had in fact ended our pregnancy. Termination is such a negative word and it has only been much more recently that I have been able to say or write it. Compassionate induction is a much more appropriate term but I only heard it very recently. I bared my soul more openly than before in a post I wrote before the Irish referendum earlier this year. I'm not going to get into politics here. Baby loss is hardly spoken about but this type of loss is even more hush hush. I want others going through the same to know they are accepted in the baby loss community, that they are welcome, and I'm proud to be involved as a befriender for SANDS Lothians in our group with ARC.

I have learned that grief doesn't go away, it evolves. I am happy. For a while I didn't know if that would ever be possible. It is a different sort of happy. People talk about finding a "new normal". Right where I am is a new happy. Grateful for three healthy daughters who beat the genetic lottery. Grateful for the youngest ginger whirlwind who we never would have met if Callum hadn't died. A new kind of happy that coexists with sad. Now the memories aren't all sad but tinged with happy remembering when he was still here, before. On Tuesday we will have a family day together and the whole me will be more visible, even the small blue piece of my heart.

Six years ago on Tuesday I forgot to kiss him goodbye, but a tiny part of him is with me forever xxx

For Callum 24/7/12

Natalie: Right Where I Am 2013: 8 weeks 5 days

Where I am today I never expected myself to be. There are two 'should be' outcomes; one before I got pregnant and the other once I'd got pregnant.

If you had asked me on 19th February 2013 where I should be today I would tell you I would be finishing my first year of my nursing degree eagerly anticipating the start of my second year.

If you had asked me on 20th February 2013 my answer would have been finishing my first year of my nursing degree weighing a couple of pounds heavier due to the 25 week old baby in my belly eagerly anticipating the arrival of my baby in October.

Sadly neither of these are true. Unfortunately life never goes quite how you expect it, sometimes for the better and sometimes for worse.

I had never planned on getting pregnant. I'd wanted to be married first, have a nice house, get a degree and a good job etc first but when the second line appeared on the pregnancy test I couldn't have been any happier.

Fast forward 7 weeks to the 12 week scan and my world came tumbling down. I was told my baby had a large cystic hygroma which occurred in babies with chromosome anomalies and I should have a CVS. I was terrified of the outcome and did research into what T13 T18 T21 and turners syndrome was. It's safe to say I was devastated at what Dr Google said. One way or another my baby was very poorly.

The CVS result came back negative for the 4 above problems but discovered a deletion from chromosome 7 which revealed I had something called a balanced translocation.

I had to make the heart wrenching decision to carry on with a baby with the possibility my daughter wouldn't survive to full term and if she did would have a life with no quality to it or to save my baby from pain and to terminate for medical reasons. Deep down I knew already what I had to do.

Friday 3rd May 2013 at 16wks+3 days at 19.44 my much wanted daughter Angelica-May was born sleeping weighing 110g measuring 17cm.

Today it has been 8 weeks & 5 days since she was born and 7 weeks 2 days since she was buried but there hasn't been a day I haven't thought about her.

So where am I today? I am sat in grieving unable to finish my first year of Uni facing the possibility of having to restart my first year if I can pull myself together. Cuddling the build a bear teddy I got with her heartbeat in it.

Not only am I grieving my daughter that never lived but I am also having to deal with the fact I have a chromosome formation that means this could happen again so easily. My only option is to have IVF PGD and if that fails ill never have my own children.

I may have made the decision to end my pregnancy but that doesn't make it any less painful.

Stacey: Right Where I Am 2013: 15 weeks

I have found during my short journey through child loss that this is often posed as a question; ‘how are you?’ My answer is, as always, with a smile on my face; ‘I’m fine.’ How can I say this? Well because I am, I am fine.

I no longer wait for my husband to roll over and fall asleep before silently crying myself to sleep for hours, I no longer wake up in the mornings thinking it has all just been a bad dream and I’m going to find that I am still pregnant with a healthy baby. I am no longer a prisoner in my own home afraid to leave the house, afraid to look at people, afraid to talk to them, afraid to answer the phone or open the front door to the postman. I am no longer unable to eat, to make decisions, to function, to laugh, smile, talk about my daughter, to see pregnant women or newborn babies.

I can go to work everyday with a smile on my face, I can serve my customers, manage my staff and make business plans. I can hold normal conversations without wanting to scream ‘how can you talk about such stupid things when my child is dead.’ I can laugh and joke like I used to.

I can do my crafting, walk my dog, clean my house, sleep alone when my husband works away, focus on something on the TV or a book I am reading, do the food shop alone, I can do all the ‘normal things’ that I used to do before I was even pregnant. In fact if you didn’t know me or spot the hand and footprint necklace I wear everyday you would never even know  that I had given birth to my beautiful little girl and then watched her die in her daddy's arms; that’s how fine I am.

Sometimes even I believe this. But when I am alone with my thoughts and I dare to scratch below the surface of how I am feeling, I know that I am anything but fine. Fine is the last thing I am feeling. I am wearing fine like a mask to protect me. Like if I don’t I will fall back down in those depths of hell and never get back out again.

If I am fine then why do I not dream at night, why do I touch my belly every morning when I wake, why do I have a desire to warn pregnant women of the dangers, why do I look at people who have newborns and wonder if they have ever had a miscarriage, interrupted a pregnancy, still birth or neonatal death. If I am fine why do I need my job so much like a pillar of strength, stability, self worth and routine but why do I hate it so much. I see no point to it anymore I am putting money in someone else’s pocket just to go home to an empty, silent house every night. A house once so filled with hopes and dreams now an empty shell, the silence so deafening, that room with all the baby things. If I am fine why when I craft can I not use pink wool anymore, why am I afraid to use it is it because I know it will make me cry. Why can I not write in my pregnancy journal, it still says that I am 18 weeks my last post was about how nervous and excited I was for the 20 week scan. Why can I not bring myself to write what happened during that scan, the news, the research, the decision, the birth, the after math. If I am fine why can I not bring myself to order my daughters’ headstone. Is it because I know it will make this real? Seeing my baby's name on a headstone there really is no denying it. If I am fine why do I look at my body in the mirror everyday and hate who I have become, how big I am, never have I been this big. But why do I not want to do anything about it? Is it because this is how pregnancy has shaped me and I don’t want to lose that, like it might be another part of my daughter that I have lost? The stomach, the thick glossy pregnancy hair, large breasts; I hate it but I need it. Why do I hide these thoughts and feelings. From myself, my husband, my family, my friends, my councillor, my colleagues and even other people who have lost babies. Why can I not just be honest.

When you ask me how I am why can I not just look you in the eyes and say ‘actually I am really sad, guilty, angry, lost I have no words to describe the pain that I feel.’

Is it because you have told me that I have to stop being sad now, I can always have another, it was for the best, at least she won’t live a half life in pain. Is it because you think I am insane, you move me to another workplace, demote me, take half my pay from me, tell me I am ill, that I need to get over this. You counsel me, you're meant to help me, but I know that you're paid by my company and that I cannot truly trust you. Is it because you just don’t understand and telling you the truth has already cost me too much.

You see your question of ‘how are you’ has damaged me even more, has made me become a liar, forced me to push my feelings aside and cost me my job. So how can you expect me to answer in any other way? This is the only way to protect myself so I will put my mask back on and tomorrow if you ask me ‘how are you’ my answer will be as always with a smile on my face ‘I’m fine.’