The hole in my heart.

It was 2 years ago today that our darling little Grace was stillborn.

I don't know what to say.
It's 2 years of my life that have been filled with so much sadness, and heartbreak and grief. So much longing and so much pain.

She was such a beautiful little baby and I wish more than anything in the world that we got to see her grow up.

Perfect.

The strangest thing just happened to me.
I was lying in bed (of course!) and looking up pregnancy books on my iPad (iBooks).
I came across a book called 'High risk pregnancy - Why Me?' It was written by a woman in the US who had a little boy that was stillborn at 22 weeks, and later she went on to have 2 successful full-term pregnancies.

Her book is half emotional support for people dealing with cervical stitches, best rest and the worry that comes after having a premature stillborn baby and half a medical reference guide, as she has spent the last 4 years researching everything to do with premature labour, incompetent cervix, the benefits of bed rest etc.

This is the blurb from the back of the book:

'You're tired, stressed and frustrated. Bed rest seems like a life sentence, and worry drowns out the voice of hope. However, through her own emotional story, Author Kelly Whitehead will help you understand that it's possible to manage during a high-risk pregnancy.
'High-Risk Pregnancy - Why Me?' gives you the emotional reassurance and medical guidance necessary to face - and even enjoy - a high risk pregnancy.
Designed as the comprehensive guide for possible preterm mothers, their families and doctors, 'Why Me?' lays out the relevant medical information in an easy-to-understand format because it's written for you - a mother at risk of an early delivery.'

Could there be a book that is more perfect for me? I feel like it was written for me personally!
Crazy.

If you know anyone who is going through a high risk pregnancy (or planning to) please forward this post or send them the link to the website, as I know I would be so grateful if someone had sent it to me.

Random photo of some flowers that Sophie picked for me on her way home from school one day.

"I know how you feel, my dog died" and other things not to say to someone who gave birth to a dead baby.

I am not sure if I should publish this post.

I actually wrote it more than 6 months ago, but I thought it sounded a bit mean and insensitive so I never posted it, but Ill try and write without sounding too ungrateful.

There are a few things that people say to me when they find out about Grace that really annoy me. Like, annoy me to the point where sometimes I think I might slap the next person that says it to me. I always smile and say thanks, but I think to myself "Who the hell says that? I just told you my baby died and you said THAT" !!??!

Tom always reminds me that I can not get upset because no one means to upset me, they are trying to empathise with me and make me feel better. And Tom and I have always said that if it had happened to someone else, we would have no idea what to say, I mean what do you say? There are often no words.

But still there are a few things that people say to me all the time that annoy me.
The thing I get most often is "Oh well, at least you are still young". Now, if I am talking about infertility, then sure, I'm very lucky I'm still young but in response to learning that my daughter died!? When people say this they are reassuring me that I have plenty of time to have more children, but they are missing the point completely. It does not matter how many more children I have there will always be a great big Grace shaped hole in my life. Full stop.

The other thing that people say is "I'm very sorry, I understand how you feel.. my dad died last year". I know this sounds insensitive but parents are supposed to die before you.. Your children are NOT. There is something fundamentally wrong with the world when you bury your own child. I know this sounds cruel, I'm sure losing a parent is awful (My dad got given 2 months to live almost two years ago and I have watched him get worse day by day) but I just can not imagine that it is anything like losing a child.

Alot of people like to tell me that "everything happens for a reason". This is fine to say to someone if they have lost their car keys or missed their bus on the way to work, but really? The whole medical profession can not find a reason my baby died, but you think there is? Oh good for you. I think the only people who believe this are people who have never suffered any real tragedy in their lives.

And lastly (and this one might make me very unpopular), is that people say "I'm so sorry, I know how you feel.. I had a miscarriage last year". Now, the ONLY reason I can write this is because I had two miscarriages before Grace died and I can tell you that having a miscarriage is nothing like having a stillborn baby. NOTHING.
I know this sounds so awful to say and I am really not trying to take anything away from people who have suffered a miscarriage. I know that when I had mine they were devastating, heartbreaking beyond belief. At the time I thought it was the worst kind of pain. But then I went through hours of excruciating labour and gave birth to a dead little girl who I got to hold in my arms and that was a pain unlike anything else. The kind of heartbreak that makes you wonder if you can go on living. If you can go on breathing. If you will ever survive.

__________________________

So there. I said it.
I really hope that I don't sound like I am dismissing other people's loss as nothing. I don't mean to take anything away from people who have experienced a loss and I know that it is soo hard to know what to say. But people, things like "My dog died last week" or "Oh, you mean you had a stillborn, that's okay.. I actually thought you had lost a living child" or (when I returned all the baby clothes I had bought) "Well, at least you get some nice new clothes for yourself" are not cool things to say. Not cool.

This is a photo of Grace's coffin. It was taken exactly one year ago on this day. Sitting in the funeral parlour choosing a baby sized coffin while stuffing tissues down my bra to try and control the milk leaking from my boobs (the milk that was supposed to be nourishing my little baby) was the lowest moment of my life.

365 days

It was exactly one year ago today that our darling little girl was born sleeping.
Much too early. Much too small, but still so perfect.

I miss you everyday.

I hate this picture, but I love it too.

In a couple of days it will be my birthday. This is a photo of me on my birthday last year.
I was 21 weeks pregnant with Grace.
So happy. So blissfully unaware of what was about to happen.

I wonder if my birthday will always be a sad day for me from now on. Will it be my happy birthday or will it be 10 days before Grace died? I guess that is a choice I have to make.

28 sucked big time. But 29 is going to be the best year of my life.
(PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE).

I could not have said it better

'Lighter things will happen to you, birds will steal your husband's sandwich on the beach, and your child will still be dead, and your husband's shock will still be funny, and you will spend your life trying to resolve this.'

Except from 'An exact replica of a figment of my imagination' by Elizabeth McCracken

Pregnancy loss

This is by far the best book I have read on pregnancy loss.

And believe me, after two miscarriages and a stillbirth.. I have read a lot of books on the subject.
Pregnancy loss is a book that I keep coming back to over and over again. I highly recommend it for anyone who has experienced the tragic loss of a baby.


Grace should be almost 4 months old now. Instead I am staring at her ashes.

A life without Grace.

It's been 37 days.

37 days since my whole world came crashing down around me.

It was just over five weeks ago that life was close to perfect. We were super excited about our 4000km road trip across the country and couldn't wait to set up house in a new city. But most importantly, we were over the moon to be finally, finally pregnant with baby number two (after almost 2 years of trying to conceive and several miscarriages).

I spent the first few months of the pregnancy so worried about having another miscarriage. I had one at 8 weeks and another at 16 weeks, so even after my 12 week scan I was still nervous. But I had just had my 20 week scan and everything was perfect so I decided it was time to relax.
How wrong I was.

It still feels like some kind of horrible nightmare.

It all happened so fast. One moment I was out buying baby clothes and the next moment I was in hospital being told that my cervix was 4cm dilated and I would go into labour in the next 24 hours. We were then told that our little girl had no chance of survival. If she did survive the birth, she would die within moments of being born and we would have to watch her suffocate to death. There was nothing anyone could do.

Our whole world came crashing down around us. Tom and I cried more that night than we have in our entire lives.

We spent the next 48 hours in a tiny hospital room just waiting.. waiting for our little girl to be born. And die.

The labour was horrific. It was long and painful. It was the complete opposite of the labour I had with Sophie (a beautiful, drug free, 3 hour birth).
I screamed and cried. I was given (way too much) morphine for the pain which made me pass out in the middle of labour. I woke up a few minutes later and had no idea where I was or who I was. The pain was unbearable and the morphine made it 100 times worse. (I was told after the labour that "that can happen sometimes"!?) I begged them to make it stop and then at the end of it all I delivered a dead baby.
The room was silent.

We spent the next 2 days with our little girl. She was the most perfect little thing, just so tiny. We called her Grace.
She looked exactly like her big sister. I hugged her and kissed her. I wanted to take her home with me and hold onto her forever.

As the days went by, her little body grew cold and stiff. I have never felt anything so cold in my life. It broke my heart.
I wrapped her in blankets. I tried to keep her warm.
When the time came to say goodbye I felt like I would die.
Leaving her at the hospital and walking away empty handed was the hardest thing I have ever had to do.

I got home and cried for days. I cried because every single part of my body longed for my little baby.
I wanted her back so badly. I didn't think I could live without her.
And then just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, my milk came in. It was the cruelest part of all.
I felt so empty. Dead inside. I didn't know how the world could still go on and why everyone was still walking around like nothing had happened.

We organised her cremation. She had a little white coffin and Sophie asked "When will the baby come out of her box?"
I filled in her birth certificate. And her death certificate.
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I am not sure how to describe the past few weeks. It has been a roller-coaster of devastation, disbelief, horror, denial, incomprehension, anger and sheer heartbreak. The number of times I have asked myself why? Why me? Why me again?

The number of times I have been over and over every little thing I did or didn't do in those last few weeks of pregnancy.
But I have been told over and over again that I must not blame myself, this is just "one of those things".
No one understands why this happens.

Tom and I are trying to focus of the fact that I have every chance of having a healthy full term baby in the future.
And of course, it is very difficult to be upset all day long when you have a happy, healthy 3 year old running around who still needs her mummy and daddy.
We are so lucky that we have little Sophie and we are trying to remain positive for her sake. There are times when I still feel overwhelmed with grief, like I can't actually go on living anymore. But most of the time I am okay. I get through one hour at a time and then suddenly another day has gone by and I survived.
I survived.