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

It's a family affair

Ever since our new baby cam along in August, my elder daughter has been fascinated by the concept of kinship and family.

When we brought her sister home from the hospital, she asked me "Mummy, do we get to keep the baby?"
I said "Yes."
"But we didn't get to keep baby Monty." she said "He died but he can still be in our family. I wish he hadn't died - I would have liked to have kept him, too."

She is very keen to understand what being a family is all about, as if we weren't a proper family before. "A family has a mummy and a daddy, a big brother or sister and a little brother or sister." she told me on the way to school this week. "We have a family because I am the big sister."

She has also asked why she doesn't have a big sister and finds it hard to comprehend that it's because she is our first baby!

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

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.