Right Where I Am Writing Project 2016

Would anyone be interested in submitting a guest post to us on the theme of where you currently are in your loss journey?

We have been running the Right Where I Am project since 2012 and this is what gave us the initial impetus to set up the blog.

We will soon be writing our posts for this year's project (usually publish them all through July and August). As always, we would love to feature some more stories too.

Your post should be entitled 'Right Where I Am' followed by the time that has passed since your loss/es. Here is a link to our posts from previous years if that helps:

Right Where I Am

If anyone would like to contribute, please email us at lossthroughthelookingglass@gmail.com or please feel free to comment below with any questions.

Clara, Gemma & Nicole x

Lynsey: Five years ago...

Five years ago today we were bursting with happiness for you

Five years ago today we had so many hopes and dreams of what you would be and become

Five years ago today we saw you for the first time so small and perfect on the screen

Five years ago today we found out you were 12 weeks and due on 5th July

Now five years on everything is so different we wonder who you would be what you would look like

Now five years on we miss you more than ever but over time it's more gentle, your name like a melody flowing through me

Five years on I hope you know you were worth all the pain to be able to get the chance to hold you and kiss you even though it was goodbye

Now five years on I hope you know you took a piece of me when you went, you completely changed our life's for the better

I hope you know that I won't let death win, it won't shatter me and hold me down forever, I promise to keep standing

I wish so much to be able to hold you and have just a minute with you

Now five years on we carry you and all our hopes and dreams for you in our hearts.

I love you so much to the moon and back

Forever and ever

xxxx

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.

Stacey: Right Where I Am 2015: 2 years 4 months 3 weeks 5 days

Well firstly I am late, by almost a month, my sincerest apologies but hopefully by then end of this blog you will all understand why.

So it has been a long time since I last blogged for Loss Through The Looking Glass, my last post was just after my rainbow daughter Florence was born, after writing every week about my pregnancy I definitely used blogging as an outlet for my hope, fears and darkest thoughts. That is what I love about this page it is a safe place for those who have lost a child to write and read thoughts shared by those who are years on from having last held their child inside them and some who are only days on from this life changing event. The death of your child.

Where am I right now then?

Rambling I guess as I am not entirely sure. My life is so different now to how it used to be, I see myself as many different people; before Maisie, after Maisie, during my rainbow pregnancy and after. These events have changed me into a different person each time and I can never go back. I cannot be the person that I was before I lost Maisie because I know too much now. My innocence and naivety is gone. I can never be that person who doesn’t know about pregnancy and infant loss, I can never be that person who looks forward to announcing a pregnancy as soon as possible, I can never innocently go through life thinking that nothing will go wrong and that only good things will happen to me. After all child loss isn’t something that happens to you it happens to someone else…

Until it does happen to you.

So I am a different person now, am I a better person? The big question is has the death of my first daughter somehow enriched my life, made me a better person and in some sick way am I ‘glad’ that it happened?

Yes, no and sort of to all those things. She enriched my life because she taught me true love, the love a mother feels when she holds her child in her arms; this love is no less just because I never got to hold her alive. She lived for such a short time and there was such panic to get the placenta delivered that I never held her during her short life but the time I did hold her I will cherish in my memories forever. She taught me patience, she taught me understanding, she taught me forgiveness, she taught me not to allow others to hurt me so easily, she has made me a better mum. She showed me the strength of the bond my husband and I have that we can survive something so awful and become closer and stronger together. Because of her I don’t take anything for granted, I cherish every second of happiness in my life because I now know what true heartbreak is. Not the small meaningless upset but the true, deep, dark, monstrosity of horrendous heartbreak that comes from seeing your child die in your husbands arms, planning a funeral for your baby who never really lived, buying an outfit in a shop full of happy pregnant women to bury your daughter in and watching your husband lower a tiny white coffin into the ground with your child inside. That is true heartbreak. That has made me a better and stronger person.

So no I am not glad that my daughter died, but I am glad that she lived. I am glad that she chose me to be her mum, although it was only for a short time that I carried her inside of me and held her in my arms, I will carry her in my heart for the rest of my life. And I am glad that for the rest of my life I get the chance to honour her memory and make sure that the rest of the world doesn’t forget that she, Maisie Rose Davis, is my first child.

For those of you who have managed to read this far through my ramblings well done! I said at the beginning of this blog that I would share why this post is a month late. For those of you who followed my pregnancy blogs last year you will know that there is a certain point in any pregnancy that we have to reach before we know whether the pregnancy is 80% likely to have a positive or negative outcome. Well, I’ll let you work it out yourselves…

~~~~~

You can read Stacey's previous posts for the blog here:

Right Where I Am 2013: 15 weeks
Trying Again
Christmas
A Rainbow Pregnancy: The Start
A Rainbow Pregnancy: Weeks 4 to 8
A Rainbow Pregnancy: Weeks 9 to 12
A Rainbow Pregnancy: Weeks 13 to 16
A Rainbow Pregnancy: Weeks 17 to 20
Right Where I Am 2014: 1 year 13 weeks 6 days
A Rainbow Pregnancy: Weeks 21 to 24
A Rainbow Pregnancy: Weeks 25 to 28
A Rainbow Pregnancy: Weeks 29 to 32
A Rainbow Pregnancy: Weeks 33 to 36
A Rainbow Pregnancy: Weeks 37 to 38
A Rainbow Pregnancy: My Birth Story