Would you know my name?

It's that time of the year, again.

Another year passed; another anniversary come.

Happy birthday, Monty xxx

I'm thinking of getting you a tree. Your big sister would like an apple tree. We could plant it at the arboretum and look at it each time we visit. We could have a plaque with your name and decorate it for you...
like we have decorated your rose bed in the front garden.


I think about you every day. I hold you close in my heart.

How is it that three years have passed?

I want you to remember

October is Baby Loss Awareness month. Next week is Baby Loss Awareness week. October 15th will see another Wave of Light ripple around the world. I will light my candle and post a photo.

At the end of this month, we will mark the anniversary of the day we realised that something might be wrong with our second pregnancy; followed by the anniversary of the date we found out that our baby had died; followed by the anniversary of the date that our son was stillborn.

Nearly three years have passed since we lost Monty. I wouldn't say that time has healed us but that we have got used to living with loss. I no longer wear bereavement like an open wound; it has been woven into the fabric of the 'new me', the person I have become since losing my son. I am forever changed and will live the rest of my life as a bereaved parent.

I have two beautiful daughters and they bring me immense joy. Yet, there is a gap between them. Not just an age gap but a sibling gap - the space where their brother should be. A space where he will always exist (or, at least, be remembered).

I want my son to be remembered. By his family, by our friends and by the people that we meet and with whom we share his story. He was real and he existed (albeit briefly and only inside me).

I want you to remember: Monty Turton (stillborn) 3 November 2012

Turning orange

June is SANDS Awareness Month. This year, SANDS aims to turn social media orange, encouraging people to change their profile pictures and upload selfies to raise awareness and money for the charity.

I'm doing my bit, too. This month, I acted as a lay-person reviewer for research proposals looking at attitudes towards post mortem examination for babies and children. Instead of accepting the fee for my work, I asked for the money to be donated straight to SANDS. I'm also still knitting and collecting blankets to send in for the SANDS memory boxes.

I have also written an article for the Willow Tree Centre newsletter, due to be published later this month, about how bereavement counselling helped me to deal with my loss and rebuild my life.

As more time passes since Monty's stillbirth, my strength grows. His loss is no longer a physical and visible wound; my bereavement is becoming more neatly woven into the fabric of my life. I still want something positive to come from my experience, so I look for opportunities to give something back, to raise awareness and to raise funds.

Always loved, never forgotten

#Sands2015

Counting conundrum

The passage of time does nothing to ease the burden of answering the seemingly innocent question: how many children do you have? In the past week, I have encountered this question three times in situations where I have not wanted to disclose the 'right' answer.

In general, my rule is that I will talk about Monty with people I am likely to form a friendship with or with whom I will come into contact often in the future. I have told other parents in the school playground, for example, as I don't want my son to emerge like a skeleton from the closet.

I don't tend to tell people with whom I am making a fleeting acquaintance because the revelation that my son was stillborn is usually met with an apology and condolences, followed an awkward silence. Then, I find myself saying that it's OK...

but it's not OK and it's never going to be OK.

It isn't that I dislike talking about Monty. In fact, the opposite is true. I love talking about him because I love him and talking about him preserves his memory and reinforces his place in our family. It's just that I prefer to talk about him on my own terms. Memories of him are all I have and to share them is extremely personal.

I am a mother of three, with two surviving children. I like to talk about all of them and to omit Monty feels wrong. Besides, I believe that being open about my experience of stillbirth helps to break down the stigma and taboo that persists around baby loss.

I still hesitate, though, each time the question is asked, when I try to decide how to answer. A moment during which I have to choose whether to be truthful or not.

The first time ever I saw your face: birth story #2

Baby 2: A son

It was a bright, sunny yet cold Winter's day. After lunch, my husband and I drove to the hospital. My overnight bag was on the back seat of the car. I clutched my V-shaped pillow and cried. We were on our way to the maternity unit to start the induction process and meet our second baby but I wanted to turn the car around and go home. I was not looking forward to what was to come: we were going to have a child that we would never raise.

I was 34 weeks pregnant and my son was dead. Two days earlier, I had seen the community midwife, who referred me to the hospital for a growth scan. By the time I got to the Assessment Unit, his heart had stopped beating. We had spent a night at home, trying to come to terms with how my second pregnancy was going to end and waiting for grandparents to come to look after our daughter.

On this November afternoon, we settled into the bereavement suite and talked through the induction procedure with the midwife. I was given medication to soften my cervix and sent home for 24 hours.

The next day, I returned to the hospital with my husband and my Mum. This time, I knew that, when I went home, it would be without my baby. We had a birth plan but I told the midwife that I was scared. I gave her a tiny vest and a fleecy blanket and asked that she dress the baby in them when it was born, to keep warm. I felt helpless.

The induction was started with a pill. The dosage was to be repeated every four hours until labour was established. We watched TV and waited.

Within two hours, I felt contractions and took some paracetamol. After four hours, a second pill was given. My labour then accelerated rapidly. I changed into an old nightie and asked to borrow a TENS machine. We moved to the room next door to the bereavement suite, the TENS pads were applied and I was given some gas and air. I knelt on the hospital bed. My husband held my hand and gave me sips of water. My mother mopped my forehead and the back of my neck with a cool, damp flannel. When I felt a dropping sensation inside, the midwife said the baby was coming. With a few short pushes, it was all over and my baby came silently into the world. "Let me look after this little angel for you" the midwife said. She put it in a crib and came back to help me deliver the placenta. She administered a hormone injection and within a few minutes, the placenta was out too.

I felt relieved that the pain was gone and empty that my baby was no longer a part of me. The midwife told us we had a son and we named him Monty. Like his sister, he had been born with his hand by his face but because he was so small I suffered only a small graze and didn't need stitches.

My mother went with the midwife to bathe and dress Monty. My husband made me a cup of tea. I drank it, then vomited and passed out on the bed through exhaustion.

When I woke up, a kind doctor was asking for permission to perform a post mortem and take samples for testing. I nodded consent and asked if I could take a bath. I washed and put on clean pyjamas. I asked the hospital porter to remove the clothes I had laboured in - I didn't want them back.

The midwife brought Monty to us. He looked as though he was sleeping. He was wearing his vest, wrapped in his blanket and was laid in a Moses basket. The midwife had given him a blue knitted hat. His hand was by his cheek, as it was when he was born. He looked tiny and frail but otherwise perfect. We stared into the basket and cried. My husband took some photographs and held his hand.

Eventually, we decided to let him go. The midwife took Monty away, to be transferred to the Chapel of Rest. We went back to the bereavement suite and had some tea and toast. I crawled into bed sometime around midnight but couldn't really sleep. Each time I woke up, I cried.

The next morning, it snowed. The midwife gave me a memory card with Monty's handprints and footprints on it and a lock of his hair. The doctor returned with consent forms for me to sign to give permission for the post mortem and disposal of tissue samples. The midwife read through my notes with me because the birth had happened so fast and gave me a pill to stop my milk from coming in.

I was discharged after lunch and we went home. I didn't want to leave my son behind - I thought he would be lonely and frightened without his mummy. The rightful place for a newborn was with his mother. I hoped the mortuary staff would take good care of him.

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

Keeping the conversation going

Over the past week or two, I have had a few opportunities to talk about my family, my pregnancies and my experience of stillbirth and bereavement stress. I am grateful for each and every one of these opportunities because talking about it reminds me how lucky I am, how far I have come and how much I can do to help others understand.

Thank you to the friend who has a shared and, in my opinion, greater experience of baby loss. It is always comforting to speak to someone else who has been 'pregnant again' and who understands the unspeakable weight of anxiety at a time that should be filled with joy. The long wait for your baby to be born safely and delivered breathing into your arms is difficult to navigate and so difficult for those who haven't lived through it to understand.

Thank you to the Willow Tree Centre for the invitation to attend your 10th anniversary celebration. I enjoyed speaking about how bereavement counselling helped me to deal with Monty's death and how I found the strength for a third pregnancy. I am brave because you helped me to rebuild myself.

Thank you to the friend who shared her experience of being pregnant again after miscarriage. I know what it feels like to no longer be able to hide the bump and to have to make small-talk with well-meaning friends, colleagues and strangers. I found it very hard to talk about my third pregnancy; to hear others tell me that it would all be okay this time around. I felt confused, anxious and very grateful for the increased support offered by my community midwife and the hospital consultant. Those who cannot listen to your fears cannot empathise. Find someone who can.

Thank you to the friend who asked me how old Monty would be. It was his second anniversary just a few weeks ago. I can't imagine what life would be like with a 4-year-old, a 2-year-old and a newborn! It was nice to re-live his story, to talk about what happened and to remember the positive stillbirth experience that we were so fortunate to have. I feel privileged to live at a time when stillbirth is not brushed under the carpet, when my son does not have to be a skeleton in our family closet.

It is important to keep these conversations going. I strongly believe that no-one should have to live through baby loss and bereavement alone. If those of us who are bereaved parents keep talking about it, the taboo will be broken.

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...

Do you believe in life after loss?

On the afternoon of the day that I was told my son had no heartbeat, a doctor reassured me that I could have more children. "We know you can carry to full term" he said "you've done it before." At that moment, it was difficult to hear his words and impossible to think beyond the inevitability of giving birth to a baby who would be stillborn.

He was right, though, and I have been lucky enough to have another baby.

After a year of grieving, I conceived. After post mortem test results, physical rehabilitation, support groups and bereavement counselling, I was given hope. After the anxious wait of an emotionally challenging and physically demanding third pregnancy, I have a second daughter.

Do you believe in life after loss?
I do.

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.

Missing out

I have concealed you twice now. I omitted you and, once, I fibbed. I didn't intend to; it just happened. 

It made conversation easier not to mention you.

I'm sorry.

******

It's not that I don't enjoy talking about you, it's just that the memories are bittersweet and telling new people can feel awkward.

Remembering how you felt, when you existed inside me is so special. How you moved and what you liked. Your big sister is delighted to know that you disliked marmite toast and cups of tea (two of my breakfast staples) so much that you would make me feel sick if I ate them! I don't think you were a fan of my singing, either, since you stayed ever so quiet during rehearsals.

But thinking about you and the plans I made brings back the memories of losing you, of how I found out that you had died, and how we had to say goodbye before we even said hello.

******

You should be 18 months old now. You should be toddling about and starting to play with your sister. 

You are missing out and I have missed you out.

I am sorry.

Losing my religion

No-one congratulated me on the birth of my son.

The room was quiet. "Let me look after this little angel for you" the midwife said, as she cut the cord.

I had delivered him on my knees. I gripped the bed rail and caught my breath. I felt relieved that the labour was over but sad that my baby was no longer a part of me and would soon no longer be with me.

***

The next day, the midwife said she was in awe of me.
I didn't feel awesome.

At home, a few days later, the community midwife told me I didn't have to be so brave.
I didn't feel brave.
I felt numb.

********

Grief changes shape, but it never ends
(Keanu Reeves)

No one feels another's grief

No one feels another's grief, no one understands another's joy. People imagine they can reach one another. In reality they only pass each other by.
(Franz Schubert)

********

One thing I have been conscious of since Monty was born is that I haven't had (or made) room for other peoples' grief. My primary concern throughout my bereavement journey has been my own health and the welfare of my husband and daughter. However, I recognise that many others have been affected by my son's death: our immediate family (the grand-parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and great-grandparents who were looking forward to his arrival), friends and colleagues.

At the very beginning, I could only focus on my own emotions and take account of my husband's and daughter's reactions. I couldn't process anyone else's experience of my son's stillbirth. Perhaps that was wrong of me? It seems selfish in retrospect but I just didn't have the emotional capacity to deal with external factors, I just had to concentrate on myself and my little family unit. So, I didn't solicit inputs to the funeral service, I just wrote it with my husband with the help of a bottle of wine (although my mother wrote a 'letter from the grandparents' that we later included). I was aware that other people needed a grieving process and so we organised the Festival of Light but there was no way that I could have organised or invited people to attend a funeral and wake. Maybe I should have done more to recognise others' need to grieve and pay their respects?

A few weeks after Monty was born, after the funeral had taken place but before the Festival of Light, my Dad phoned me. He wanted to talk about Monty but didn't want to make me upset. (I think I said that nothing he could say would make me more upset than I already felt!) He said he was struggling to understand what had happened and kept thinking that life shouldn't turn out this way - he ought to have four grandchildren and it wasn't natural that one had died before he was born. I didn't know what to say, except that I was struggling with similar emotions.

Then, my boss came to see me and she said that several of my colleagues had taken the news of Monty's stillbirth badly and sometimes became overcome with tears at their desks. I didn't really know how to deal with that!

Even now, 16 months later, I find it hard to understand how other people feel about Monty. I know that our family are extremely sad for his loss and wish that things had turned out differently but I can't imagine how they feel day to day about him not being here. Perhaps I should try to do more to engage with wider family and friends when I talk about my son and to empathise with their experience of grief in relation to his loss? It is hard, though, because I am still so involved in my own emotions.

Stillbirth remains a taboo subject for many people and not everyone feels comfortable talking about a dead baby. No-one feels another's grief but I want to break down some of the barriers associated with baby loss and bereavement stress and to try to help others in dealing with the emotional conflict that it creates.

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.

The Deafening Silence

A short film about stillbirth through the eyes of the mother has been made by Abigail's Footsteps.

My experience wasn't quite like this but it was similar.

If things had gone to plan, tomorrow would be Monty's first birthday.

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

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.

This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you...

When I was at primary school, we had to say prayers three times a day. It was a Catholic school, so prayer-time was compulsory. We said them at morning assembly, before lunch and before going home.

In Class 3 (when we were 7-8 years old), our teacher would allow the students to include a prayer or blessing of their own at home-time. We had to take turns. She would go round the classroom, choosing three or four students a day. Normally, it was something childish and simple, along the lines of "Dear Lord, please look after my puppy who has hurt his paw" or "Dear Lord, please let it be sunny tomorrow so I can ride my bike".

One day, one of the girls in my class said a prayer that started the teacher crying:

"Dear Lord, please look after mummy's baby, who was stillborn."

The teacher asked her what the baby was called.

"Vincent"

We were all sent home.

I didn't understand.

I asked my mother about it whilst she cooked dinner. She said that it was very sad because the baby had died. I was confused - the baby had been born hadn't it? My mother tried to explain how some babies die before they are born and, when that happens, we say there are stillborn. I still didn't understand. In my world, it wasn't possible for something to die before it had lived; if it was born, it was born! In my head, the word 'stillborn' didn't mean 'born still, unbreathing and unmoving' it meant 'yet he was born'.

Nearly 30 years on, I remember that day. I remember the girl. I remember her brother's name: Vincent.

Nearly 30 years on, I am still confused.

Since my son was stillborn, I have thought a lot about Vincent and his mummy and his sisters and brother.