Brave, Open & Hopeful

I have 'graduated' from bereavement counselling: completed the programme; been signed off; released from the system, set free!

It has been a long journey. I wasn't planning to seek counselling but a friend told me I should go. She said that six months after Monty's death, I seemed angry. I didn't think I was but, looking back, I can see that I probably looked very angry with the world. I had just returned to work and wasn't coping very well with the annual performance review, setting forward objectives or thinking about 'where did I want to be in 5 years' time?'. In reality, I think I was extremely frustrated.

So, I promised I would attend a couple of sessions. I actually went many times over six months. I could have easily turned away for so many reasons but I kept my promise to my friend and actually found the process very helpful.

In the first session, I completed a depression scoring test. Guess what? I was mildly depressed! (No surprise there...) I set some aims: to deal with my anxiety and fear about a future pregnancy and to deal with my anger and frustration. I also expressed three desires: to have another baby; to achieve a work-life balance that would allow me to make the best of my time as a mummy and as an employee; and for something positive to come from my loss.

My last counselling session was in the early New Year. We looked at some emotion cards and I had to choose three that expressed how I felt when I started counselling and three that expressed how I feel now. There was a difference. (Phew!) At the end of the process, I said I felt brave, open and hopeful. Brave for having taken the plunge and sought counselling when I didn't want to. Open for having talked honestly about my experience and my feelings with a stranger. Hopeful for the future.

My life is different now in so many ways to what I thought it would be like. I never expected to be a bereaved parent but I believe I have learnt a huge amount through losing my son. I have made and lost friendships, I have found inner strength and I have developed new perspectives. I have navigated my way through a difficult first year without Monty and feel better equipped to face the second.

I hope to help others by sharing my experience.

It was the worst of times...

This time last year, I was newly bereaved. I was depressed. Not on medication but I felt like a zombie - just going through the motions of life.

Having lost my second baby, I felt as though the ground had fallen away under my feet. I thought I had let everyone down by not providing the longed-for child. I was convinced it would turn out to be my fault and had no idea how I would live with myself.

I felt I was letting my daughter down because I was unable to give her the attention she needed. She was two-and-a-half years old and confused. Why were her parents both at home? Why was mummy crying? Why were grandparents coming to stay? Where was the baby?

I thought I was the world's worst mother. Not only had my son died inside me, without me knowing (where was my 'instinct'? why didn't I notice something was wrong?) but I felt unable to function as a mother for my daughter. I didn't want to play or sing or laugh - I just wanted to curl up on the sofa and hold her close. I managed to take her to nursery, to gymnastics, to singing group but I couldn't join in with any of these activities. We had started potty-training but I had to put it on hold because I just couldn't cope.

One year on, I am feeling a lot better: I am looking forward to Christmas and have planned some family holidays for next year. I can smile, laugh, join in and have fun. There are still days when I wonder about my parenting ability but now they are fewer and farther between. I am no longer depressed, although symptoms of my bereavement stress remain. I'm nearing the end of my bereavement counselling and feel as if some of the weight of my loss has been lifted.

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.

Schrodinger's baby

Trying to conceive feels like being in limbo: always 'maybe-pregnant' but never certain until a period comes or two lines appear in a window on a little white stick.

I am highly aware of my cycle even though I'm not counting days, taking my temperature or peeing on ovulation sticks. I am careful about what I eat and drink. I take folic acid to carefully nourish the tiny embryo that might implant and grow. I know when my period is due and each month I hold my breath and cross my fingers that it won't come.

But it does. And it catches me out.

I had vowed not to go back on the Pill after my daughter was born but, following Monty's stillbirth, it was recommended by the family-planning nurse as a way of giving myself the emotional space to grieve. However, since I stopped taking it, in the Summer, my 'cycle' has been irregular. Three times now, my period has been late enough that I've dared to believe that I might be pregnant... but I'm not.

I feel like the butt of some cruel biological joke: I lost my much-wanted second baby at 34 weeks' pregnant and now I don't even know if/when I'm ovulating!

My mind is filled with trepidatious hope - "maybe this month?" - alongside fear and anxiety about how I would react if I were to fall pregnant. It's all I can do to try not to let this take over my life.

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.