Guest post: Snipchat

This is a guest post written by my husband:

Kate and I have been together for as long as we haven't; we met on the first day at university in October 1996, halfway through our lives so far. For the past eighteen years, Kate has either been on the pill, attempting to conceive, pregnant or recovering from childbirth.

After having our three babies, we don't want any more children. The loss of Monty meant that the last pregnancy was particularly stressful and exhausting, despite the increased medical attention we received. While our rational scientific brains knew losing this baby was unlikely, it was impossible to stop worrying about it, impossible to imagine how we'd survive if the worst were to happen again.

We're older, tireder and in generally worse condition. Kate's abdominal muscles have taken a battering, coping without sleep is harder, and the thought of starting again again with another newborn is not appealing at all.

We are a partnership of equals. We both work, both cook, both take care of the children. Until now, though, the burden of contraception has fallen on Kate. I'm redressing this balance by having a vasectomy.

My wife has given so much to this family, putting us above her health, career and peace of mind. She is loved by us all for it, and it's time she had a break. No pills, no injections, no coil, no tube tying.

A vasectomy is a simple and straightforward procedure, done in minutes. We're certain this is the right thing to do. The common argument against it is that it's permanent, and you “never know” what might happen in the future. I'm fully aware of that and I'm fine with it. I consider our family complete and permanent.

Our lives have been in limbo for the past few years, with no real plans for the future other than to wait for the next pregnancy. We're done with that. Our children mean more to us than we could ever have imagined, and the next chapter of our family's story starts now, with the certainty that our daughters are at the centre, growing into the bright, independent young women we know they can be. We can plan for the future again. It's liberating.

The best laid plans...

I'm one of life's planners. I'm organised and always have been. I used to be embarrassed about this (as a child, my family teased me for setting lots of rules for the games we played) but I now see my planning skills as a huge advantage and I try to exploit them to maximal benefit at work and at home. I'm ESTJ and proud!

The disadvantage of being a planner is that I find it hard to deal with chaos and spontaneity. I prepared, before going on maternity leave with my daughter, so that I wouldn't expect too much of myself. It was hard to let go of my routines but I positively embraced the freedom of my year as a SAHM and learned a lot from the experience. My mantra was: any day on which we all get dressed and eat is a good day!

The last two months have challenged me in many different ways. I'm dealing with the emotional response to bereavement and my physical recovery from giving birth. I have felt alarmingly unsettled, to the point that I haven't known how to think about the future. The baby I longed for, planned to conceive and carefully gestated was stillborn and we may never know why. The coming year was supposed to be a second year at home with my young family.

It has only been 8 weeks since my son was born, which isn't very long, but I've had a nagging feeling that I should be doing something. I have imagined a question mark hanging over me - who am I now and where do I go from here? The bereavement pack we were given at the hospital contained some excellent advice: don't make any big decisions for at least a year. However, I need focus and cerebral challenge, I can't just sit at home all day, watching daytime TV, knitting and convalescing. My GP is right - I need to get out of the house and find social things to do to fill my time until I am fit to return to work.

Thankfully, over the last couple of days, I have started to feel calmer and less panicky. Perhaps that is the benefit of finally getting a good night's sleep? I can still work towards some of my goals but more flexibly and in a different order. I can make new plans; some of them may come to fruition. Most importantly, I don't have to rush into anything. I'm suppressing my J.

Although I don't make New Year resolutions, I am resolved to give myself a bit of a break this year. I need to adjust to the 'new me' and take time to enjoy the family I have.

One month on

This seems to have been the longest month of my life. Hours and days have elongated yet the weeks have passed quickly. How can one whole month have passed already since Monty was born?

It's hard to describe how I feel. I mourn the intimacy of maternal love for the baby growing inside and the lost potential of a life that never came to be. I am exhausted from lack of sleep and the effort required to get through each day. I feel incredibly sad and burdened by the thought that I have let everybody down.

The chaplain told me that it is perfectly normal for mothers to feel it is their fault when a baby dies. I have replayed over and over in my head the hours between my last midwife appointment and the scan at the hospital, looking for a missed signal that would have told me something was so terribly wrong. I feel I have failed as a mother in not being able to save my son, although medical advisors have said that, in all likelihood, no action on my part would or could have changed the outcome.

We are waiting for the results of the tests carried out postnatally on me and Monty and the results of the post mortem. We will be called back to the hospital to meet one of the consultants to go through all the results but have been told that, in the majority of cases, they are unable to determine the cause of death. It is important for us to understand if there was an identifiable reason for the loss of our baby and to consider the possibility of maybe trying for another child at some point in the future.

The world continues about its business but my life has been turned inside out. Plans, hopes and dreams have been shattered - the rug has been pulled from under my feet. I have never before felt so uncertain about my future. In a practical sense, we can continue where we left off but I know there will always be something missing and the unspoken, unanswered question - what if? When people ask me how I'm doing, my first answer is usually "OK" but friends who probe deeper and ask the right questions soon find out that I'm bewildered, confused, cast adrift, tearful...

Someone said to me "It's as if your life is a beautiful glass vase on a windowsill. One day, when the window is open, a breeze blows your vase onto the floor and it smashes into pieces. You collect up as many pieces as you can find but even if you try to glue them back together, there will be some pieces missing and it will never look the same again. So, melt the glass and make a new vase which, although different to the first one, can be equally beautiful."

And time goes by so slowly...

It seems as though time has slowed to a crawl this past fortnight. I hardly know what day it is, let alone the date or time. Two weeks ago, I waited for a call to attend a scan at the hospital and then my life was turned upside down.

There has been so much to do, think about and agree to. The only way I've been able to 'cope' is to break it down into chunks: deliver my baby; meet him and say goodbye; give consent for tests and a post mortem; register his birth; speak to the chaplain about funeral arrangements; and so it goes on...

I have never cried so much or so hard or drunk so many cups of tea.

I feel so desperately sad that I don't have my baby to hold, that my husband doesn't have his son, that my daughter is a big sister with no sibling. Our baby felt my love and care for 34 weeks but never got to enjoy the love of his extended family. If only I could have known that something was wrong - perhaps I could have saved him?

I have bad days and better days. One thing is certain, I couldn't have got through these last two weeks without the excellent and tender care received from the hospital and community midwives, love from my family, and support from our friends. We have received so many cards, texts, emails, letters and flowers - I am touched and comforted to know that people are sending us their thoughts and prayers as we try to understand what has happened.

The strength of love I feel for my husband and daughter is amplified; they keep me going.

The community midwife is coming to visit me today. I was supposed to be going to the clinic for my routine 36-week appointment but, instead, she is coming to see how I'm doing at home. I'm expecting to be discharged from midwife care and handed over to my GP and health visitor until my 6-week postnatal check. Somehow, over the coming weeks and months, I will have to find my "new normal" and learn to live in a different future to the one I had planned.

My husband said "The past is ours to remember, the future is ours to create..."