He's my brother

She reached the photo down from the shelf for her little sister. She held the photo frame carefully and showed her sister the picture:

"This is baby Monty. He died."

This is how my 5yo introduced her sister to their brother.

I was proud of how she described him and how she shared this family history with her youngest sibling. I felt sad that she had to have a conversation like this at such a young age, with an even younger, almost-no-longer-a-baby sibling.

Seeing what isn't there

This photo, taken just over a year ago, makes me smile. It also makes my heart ache.

We had gone for a day out with my family: grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins. We found this fallen tree log and my mother suggested that the kids sit on it for a photograph. They duly hopped up.

At the time, I just thought it was lovely to capture a shot of the three of them together. It wasn't until later that I noticed the gap between my daughter and her eldest cousin. The space where my 18-month old son *should* be sitting.

To others, this photo is simply a memento of a happy day out.

To me, it is a reminder that there is always someone missing.

Birthday message

Dear Monty,

By rights, we should be celebrating your second birthday today. This should be a day of presents, cake and laughter and the sort of candles you blow out whilst making a wish.

What would you wish for if you were here?

What would I wish for on your behalf?

I spent your present money on gifts for an unknown child. A child who is less fortunate than others. A child who may not have parents or siblings. A child who may not be loved.

You are loved by your family, even if you cannot feel it. Your sisters would love to have their middle brother to play with.

I wish that we were wishing you a happy birthday today and singing you the birthday song. I wish that we were opening presents and eating cake and blowing out candles. I wish that you were here.

Love,
Mummy
xxx

Wish you were here...

It has been two years since you were born 'sleeping'.
[I don't like that phrase because it's not as if you could have woken up...]

Somehow, it seems that this second anniversary is harder than the first. It feels lonelier. Almost as if we should have 'moved on'...
but I could never leave you behind.

I remember the quiet of the delivery room and the midwife's kind words as clearly as if it were yesterday. If I close my eyes, I can see you, wrapped up cosily in the moses basket, wearing a little blue hat. You looked peaceful and, at first glance, it did look like you were asleep but you weren't - you were perfectly still.

How things have changed since then. I have been broken and become stronger. We have tried to come to terms with and understand your loss. You now have a younger sister, who is 10 weeks old. Your elder sister has started school. She asks about you often and wishes you were here because she likes being a big sister.

With you and your sisters, our family is complete. Your photograph is framed alongside theirs and I look at your image every day. I wonder what you would look like at two years old. What games would you play? Which words would you be able to say? What would be your favourite thing to eat? Would you cuddle up to me like your sisters do, or wriggle to get free and refuse my kisses?

I've been capturing my grief in photographs over the past month. Although I may appear healed on the outside, I am still very broken in places inside. I feel your loss as keenly today as I did two years ago.

I love you, Monty. I miss you.
I wish you were still here.
In many ways, I think you still are...

Wave of Light

Remember

October seems to be the new Lent, with campaigns for people to give up smoking and drinking alcohol for 31 days. It is also Baby Loss Awareness Month.

This year, the Wave of Light will take place at 7pm on Wednesday 15th October, at the end of Baby Loss Awareness Week. We will be lighting a candle in memory of Monty.

There is also a project called Capture Your Grief, which encourages people to take and share images along a set of themes as a way of healing themselves and expressing the grief they feel after the loss of a baby or child. I'm not a great photographer so I don't know how much I will participate in this project but I want to give it a go.

Today's theme is "Sunrise". I took this photo to capture the watery, Autumn daylight filtering through the leaves and branches of the tree outside my bedroom window. In the first few days and weeks after Monty was born, I would lie in bed, looking out at this tree and feeling the subtle warmth of Autumn sunshine. It was very calming and grounded me in the midst of my grief.

Guest post: Should have been...

This is a guest post written by my husband:

It should have been our son Monty's first birthday today.

We should have been watching his big sister "help" him open his presents, wondering with a smile how much worse it was going to be at Christmas, just a couple of weeks away.

We should have been wondering, one year in, if we were going to stick with two children, or try for the third one we'd always held as a possibility.

Instead, it's a year since we released Chinese lanterns into the sky to say goodbye to our stillborn baby. He came six weeks early, perfectly formed but small, too small. A common viral infection, picked up at the wrong time, damaged the placenta enough so that it couldn't support him as he grew. We had no idea anything was wrong until he had already died. The virus usually has no symptoms in healthy adults, certainly not anything distinct from the normal symptoms of early pregnancy, and is carried by a large proportion of the population. There was nothing anyone could have done.

We didn't find any of this out until three doubt- and guilt-filled months later. In this respect we are luckier, for want of a better term, than many parents of stillborn children, who never find out why their babies died or, worse, find out that they were in some way responsible. We also didn't have to spend months at a hospital bedside watching our tiny child struggle and fail to survive. In the awful club of bereaved parents, we're by no means the worst off.

I have learnt more about grief than I ever hoped to. I have learnt the uselessness of the one question everybody asks: "Is there anything I can do?". This is unanswerable - the only thing a grieving parent wants is not to be one, and nobody can deliver that. Far better to ask something that does not transfer a burden of having to think of an answer beyond yes or no: "would you like to come out for a drink / coffee / over for dinner?".

I have learnt that grief has physical symptoms as well as the more expected mental ones. We have both had the worst year, in terms of health, of our adult lives, and were told to expect as much.

We talk about Monty frequently, even with our daughter when she wants to, which is quite often. The raw wound has now become scar tissue - it no longer automatically hurts to probe it, but occasionally some circumstance or thought can slip through. On my cycle route to work I have a choice - I can ride past the hospital where his post mortem was carried out, or past his funeral home. A few months ago, I saw the converted estate car that is used for baby funerals pulling out. I gasped out loud in sadness and sympathy. Seventeen babies are stillborn or die shortly after birth every day in this country. The Maple Suite at Southmead Hospital, where Monty was born, is more or less continually in use.

I have learnt what my wife and daughter really mean to me: everything. Losing Monty put out the light at the centre of our family for a time. The three of us have worked hard together, and it is coming back. I cannot imagine dealing with a situation like this without these two amazing ladies by my side. Monty will always be a part of us, and we will never forget him. If we have another child, it will be our third.

It's not your birthday

Monty,

Today is your anniversary. One year has passed since you were born. Yet, it's not your birthday. Not to me. You weren't due until December - my Christmas baby! Instead, your early arrival was artificially induced because you had already left my world.

This photograph of us together is so special. I could be watching you sleep but I am not - I am meeting you for the first and last time.

Mine was the voice you heard. Mine was the love you felt. Mine was the strength you used to grow but it wasn't enough.

I wonder what life would be like if you were still here?

love
Mummy
xxx

Remember, remember...

Your sister remembers you. At least, she remembers that you grew inside mummy's tummy.

She remembers looking forward to your arrival and being confused when we told her that you wouldn't be coming home, after all.

She looks at your photograph. She holds your toy bear.

She asks questions about where you are and if you will ever come back.

She talks about you at nursery. Yesterday, her friends shared their stories of lost pets and grandparents.

She is proud to be your big sister.

I think she remembers that nearly one year has passed.

Wave of light

Always loved, never forgotten

(Baby Loss Awareness Day, 15 October 2013)

1/6205

This time last year, I was 31 weeks pregnant, in full-swing rehearsal for the LABBS Convention in Telford, and blissfully unaware that my baby wasn't going to make it.

Since then, 6205 babies have been stillborn or died shortly after birth in the UK. Monty is one of them.

This week (9-15 October 2013) is baby loss awareness week. I have bought a commemorative pin and, in the run-up to Monty's anniversary, I will be trying to raise awareness and break the silence and taboo surrounding stillbirth.

The blame game

I have been seeing a bereavement counsellor. A friend told me to go. She said I needed help, although I thought I was doing OK on my own. Anyway, I took her advice and I think it is helping. We have dealt with a range of emotions associated with bereavement: grief, depression, anger, guilt and shame. For the most part, I have been able to engage fully with the counselling process. I have cried lots of tears, admitted things I wouldn't say out loud in any other circumstance and done my homework.

Until this week...

This week's assignment is either to work through some grieving activities or to consider who I blame for Monty's death.

I've already done the former: I made a memory box; I wear a necklace that I bought in his memory; I wrote him a poem; I raised money for Southmead hospital maternity unit and Bristol SANDS; and Monty has an entry in the hospital chapel's book of remembrance. I look at his photo on the windowsill and I think about him all the time. It's the latter that bothers me because I don't hold anyone responsible for what happened. I can't list the people I think played a part in the loss of my baby or draw a pie chart apportioning blame because I don't think it happened like that.

The truth of the matter is that I picked up a virus. CMV is asymptomatic in adults and most people come into contact with it at some point in their lives. I could have caught it anywhere, from anyone. Unfortunately, I caught it at the wrong time - in the first trimester. It infected the placenta and my baby. The combination of these two things meant that the placenta failed and my son couldn't get enough food or oxygen. Even if I had been referred to the hospital sooner and delivered earlier, he probably wouldn't have survived because of the congenital infection and his smallness.

All the healthcare professionals were kind, helpful and supportive. They couldn't have spotted the problem any earlier because I was considered to be 'low risk' and all the scans and tests indicated normal development. I didn't know I was ill, I just felt tired, and I felt my baby move right up until the day I was told he had no heartbeat. I don't believe it was fate or God's will and suggestions along these lines challenge my 'beliefs'. If 'anyone' is to blame, it is Mother Nature but she's not a real person.

That which we call a rose

After Monty's stillbirth, a friend sent us a gift - a rose bush dedicated to his memory. It has just come into flower and it is beautiful.

A marathon, not a sprint

My husband's step-sister is running the London Marathon later this month. It's not the first time she has run a marathon and she has run the London race before. She is part of a running club but runs to raise money for charity as well as for fitness.

Normally, she raises money for Cancer Research UK in memory of her mother (who was also a distance runner). This year, she has kindly agreed to seek sponsorship to raise funds for Southmead Hospital maternity unit, in memory of Monty. Donations can be made via Virgin Money Giving.

Since Monty was stillborn, we have raised over £700 for the Mum's the Word appeal in support of the hospital's planned developments. It would be fantastic if Becky's marathon run could help us get that figure closer to £1000!

I still feel a huge debt of gratitude to the maternity staff at Southmead for they way in which they have helped and supported us. I hope that one day, I will enjoy their care again (and their new, improved maternity unit facilities) under happier circumstances.

Family tree

There is an heirloom tablecloth that Grandma would bring out on special occasions. At birthday parties, Christmas and Boxing Day dinners, any gathering that required two tables to be pushed together: the tablecloth would be brought out and take pride of place.

Originally a bed sheet, from when Grandad was in the Royal Navy, the cloth is good-quality cotton and has been laundered many times. After Grandad left the Navy and became a Coastguard, Grandma re-purposed the sheet as a tablecloth and embroidered her family onto it. Ma and Freddy (her parents, my great-grandparents) are at the centre and spiralling out from them are three generations of names - their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. There are some place names too, around the edge of the cloth, indicating how the family has spread across the globe, from Canada to Australia.

After Grandma died, my mother sorted through all her possessions and passed the tablecloth to me. I think she wanted me to continue updating the family tree but I've never felt able to - I wouldn't want to spoil it by not stitching as neatly as Grandma did. Besides, there are so many names to add now (the next generation is growing rapidly!) that it would take a lot of research for me to gather all the missing data. Finally, Grandma would unpick the names of people who died and re-stitch them in white and I can't bring myself to do that to her name. So, the tablecloth is wrapped in blue tissue paper and stored in my 'treasure box' in the bottom of my wardrobe.

I have been thinking about Ma quite a bit recently. She died when I was about a year old. There are a couple of photos of me, sitting on her knee. Her name was Mary Annie Giles. She married my great-grandad, Frederick Smith, and they had nine babies. There were 18 years between their eldest and youngest children! Six children survived to adulthood. Leonard and twins, Donald and Florence Mary, were the babies who never grew up. I wonder how Ma coped with the loss of three newborns? I wonder how she found the strength to go on to have more children? I wonder how she coped, years later, with the loss of a grandchild, Annette, who also died in early infancy?

I find it comforting that, within living memory, I'm not the only person in the family to lose a baby. I am glad that Leonard, Donald and Florence Mary, who were born more than 80 years ago, are not forgotten. I want the same remembrance for Monty, which is why his photo is on the windowsill, why I talk about him often, and why I will make sure my daughter knows about her brother. I have a memory box with photos, hand and footprints and a lock of my baby's hair - did Ma have keepsake mementoes of her babies, too?

Perhaps, one day, I'll feel ready to update the tablecloth and include the names of my children and nephews and fill in the rest of the gaps? Until then, the cloth will remain frozen in time, as it was nine years ago, when it was passed from Grandma to me...

(Pictured above: Ma, Grandma, my mother and me on my christening day)

Christmas: past, present and future

Nine years ago, in memory of our grandma, my sister and I started a Christmas tradition: the exchange of baubles. Grandma had a small, artificial Christmas tree, which she decorated with coloured fairy lights and tinsel. She also had a collection of mis-matched ornaments that she had accumulated over the years. I have some of them on my tree now. There were always two pots of sweets under the tree - one for me and one for my sister. Grandma would buy us a present each to open on Christmas Day and a dozen or so small presents (crayons, hair clips, puzzle books etc), which she would hide around her house for us to find on a Boxing Day treasure hunt. After she died, my sister and I wanted to continue the childhood magic of grandma's Christmas, so we decided that each year we would buy each other a Christmas decoration.

We have now extended the tradition to our children. I buy a bauble for each of my nephews and my daughter receives a bauble from each of her aunties. The idea is that each child will have a unique set of Christmas decorations to take with them when they have grown up and leave home. This year, my daughter received a fuzzy seal pup, a rag-doll angel and a wooden Santa.

I also buy a bauble each year for my daughter. The year she was born, I ordered a glass bauble with a Christmas tree inside, personalised with her name and birth year. It's too precious to put on the tree at the moment, in case it gets knocked off and broken. When she's older, I will give it to her. I'm hoping she'll take good care of it and put it on her own tree. This Christmas, I gave her a little snow globe.

This year, I ordered another personalised bauble, in memory of my son. I thought about buying a glass one but I decided against that because I wanted to put it on the tree and not worry about it breaking. So, I bought a silver one, with his name and birth year engraved onto it. It has taken pride of place, high up on my tree, alongside a similar ornament, engraved with his sister's name and birth year. I like being able to see my children's baubles together on the tree.

Christmas is normally one of my favourite seasons but this year I haven't felt like celebrating. We have had a nice time with family but it was not the Christmas I had planned. However, continuing the bauble exchange has reminded me how lucky I am to have close family and to be able to pass new traditions on in memory of those who cannot be with us.

Mum's the word

I am so grateful to our family and friends who have donated funds to the Mum's the Word appeal in memory of Monty. Together, we have raised over £700 (not including the gift aid!) and there's more to come as we have a promise of sponsorship from someone who is running the London Marathon in 2013. I am proud that we will have a hot air balloon dedicated to Monty's memory on the hospital's fundraising wall.

We feel so grateful for the kind and tender care we received when we found out that our baby had died and would be stillborn. All the midwives, doctors, and hospital staff made us as comfortable as they could and were sensitive to our feelings, needs and wishes. I can look back and remember the very special (albeit heart-breaking) experience of giving birth to my precious son and am glad to have received such excellent care.

I hope that our contribution will go some way to helping ensure that high-quality care will continue to be provided to other mothers, babies and families at Southmead Hospital...

...and, perhaps, one day, we will be lucky enough to receive their care again?

Festival of light

We have invited family and friends to join us today in remembering our baby boy. Since they are geographically dispersed and the weather is not great at this time of year, we have decided not to ask people to travel to Bristol for a remembrance event. However, we want to mark the date on which we were hoping to welcome Monty to the world and give those who care about us and have been affected by his loss an opportunity to say their own goodbye or prayer for him.

So, we're holding a Festival of Light this evening. We will be lighting candles and, if the weather permits, we will send up a few Chinese lanterns. Our friends and family will join us, from wherever they are across the UK and overseas, in lighting candles and spending a few minutes thinking of baby Monty.

I'll be thinking of my delight at discovering I was pregnant again, the plans I had made for another year on maternity leave, how my daughter practised at being a big sister, and how I was looking forward to being a mum of two. Although we never had the chance to develop a postnatal mother-son bond, Monty and I did a lot together in the 34 weeks that we co-existed. We climbed Skiddaw, rode on a Ferris Wheel, visited Weston-super-Mare, performed at Proms in the Meadow, competed at LABBS Convention, applied for several jobs (and got one!), and enjoyed a lot of cake! Monty would have recognised our voices and felt us stroke him through my bump. We have special memories of those 34 weeks that we can share as a family.

I will treasure the keepsakes in Monty's memory box and look at his photo on the windowsill. I will be reminded of him each time I look in the mirror and see my heart pendant. I physically carried him with me for nearly eight months and will carry his memory with me forever...

Creating memories

This week, I would have been 37 weeks pregnant - officially full-term and anticipating the arrival of my baby. Instead, we held a small, private funeral to say goodbye to our little boy.

We have created a memory box to hold the few keepsakes we have of Monty:

• scan photos
• hand and foot prints
• a few locks of hair
• the yellow baby-gro I bought for him
• ankle and wrist bands from the hospital
• cot card
• certificate of stillbirth
• photos we took after he was born
• a beautiful felt heart, embroidered with his name and birth date, made by a friend
• order of service from the funeral
• a copy of Monty's entry in the babies' book of remembrance at the hospital

We have bought two matching frames to keep a photo of each of our children on the windowsill, next to our wedding photo. I also bought a necklace with a heart pendant to wear every day in memory of my precious baby boy.

With Monty's due date in mid-December, I've had a silver Christmas bauble engraved with his name and the year. It will be hung on our tree so that we can think of him during the season of family togetherness.