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)

Good mental health

Since World Mental Health Day falls in Baby Loss Awareness Week, I guess I might as well write about my mental health since my baby loss:

When I found out that my baby had died I couldn't believe what I was hearing. The sonographer and doctor told me that they couldn't find a heartbeat. I just kept thinking 'well, keep looking!' and 'why is nobody panicking?'. They offered me a cup of tea. I asked them to phone my husband. I screamed and cried.

That was just the start of my year of mental anguish.

The first few days and weeks passed in a blur. Time went wrong - too slow and too fast at the same time. I lost track of the days and weeks. I couldn't remember anything about anything. There were so many decisions to be made: about post mortem and tests; about funeral arrangements; about how and where and when to seek help. There was too much information and too little advice. I couldn't sleep. I cried and felt sick.

I lost my appetite. I couldn't make decisions - not even about simple things, like what to wear (answer: nothing fits, so maternity clothes or pyjamas?). I had to keep going for my daughter's sake and my husband's but for a long time, I just went through the motions of daily life. I felt depressed but everyone said it was early days and I should 'give it time'.

I felt that it was my fault. I worried about everything and nothing. I could think of little else than the baby I never brought home. I thought it must have been because I would have been a rubbish mum to two children - he must have 'known' and bailed out.

I blamed myself for his death. I scrutinised my pregnancy. I relived the last few days, looking for clues and missed signs that something was wrong. I hoped it wasn't my fault because I didn't think I could live with myself if it was but I couldn't see any other answer. The safest place for a baby should be inside his mother but, for my son, even that was not safe enough.

It took 14 weeks to find an answer, to know why my son died. Fourteen weeks that I spent hating myself and wondering how I could ever climb out of the black hole I was in.

Christmas was hard. Monty had been due just a few weeks beforehand. I just couldn't join in with the celebrations. On Christmas Day, I found out that a friend was pregnant and I cried. I told my husband that I thought I was broken and could never be fixed. That was the point at which I decided to get help.

When I asked for it, help came in spades; from the friend who counselled me over coffee to the physiotherapist who mended my divarication; from the GP who gave me sound advice to the SANDS bereavement support group; from friends and family who listened to my employer who made my return to work as easy as it could be.

I took 5 months off work but still felt fragile when I returned. It has taken almost a year to start to feel enjoyment in the things I used to love, like my singing. I have had to absolve myself of responsibilities and commitments beyond the most important and to ask people not to rely on me like they used to. I just don't know if tomorrow will be a good or a bad day.

There are fewer bad days now but they still occur. I still don't sleep well. I feel anxious a lot of the time. My self-confidence and self-esteem are low but improving.

I know I have come a long way since Monty died and was born but I still have a long way to go along my bereavement journey. We are approaching his anniversary and I can feel myself winding up to it. I still cry at night sometimes. Anything can set me off. I feel a mixture of fear and happiness when people tell me they are expecting.

To the outside world, I look normal. I eat, shower, get dressed, leave the house and have a routine. I take my daughter to nursery and extra-curricular activities. I go to work. I do all these things because I am a wife, a mother, alive. Because life carries on.

I have learned a lot since I lost my son. I have learned about life, about love, about myself. I want something positive to come out of my experience, even if I just approach life differently.

I never realised that bereavement stress was a mental illness. I do now.

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.

Wishin' and hopin'

My daughter seems keen for a sibling. She is a bit confused, though, and thinks that any future baby we may conceive will be Monty. I've tried to explain that Monty won't come back and that it would be a different baby, a new one. "A sister baby?" Maybe.

We talk about babies quite often. Many of my daughter's friends have younger brothers or sisters. Most of my friends from antenatal group have gone on to have second children. I had thought that I would be one of the first to 'complete' my family but now it seems I will be the last. I know it is neither a competition nor a race but I am beginning to wonder if/when we might be blessed with another baby.

I have kept all the baby clothes, equipment and books that I bought for my daughter. They were stored neatly in plastic crates in a cupboard in the spare room but, since Monty died, I have moved them up into the attic. I can't have them staring at me, reminding me of the baby I've lost and putting unspoken pressure on me to conceive again.

If we are to have another baby, I need serendipity. I can't try too hard - not like I did when I tried to conceive Monty. I desperately want my daughter to have a sibling to grow up with but I'm scared to make an emotional investment in a child that might never be.

I never thought that my second pregnancy would be my last and I would dearly love to be pregnant again and have another baby. So, I wish and hope that, one day, we will be lucky.

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.