We aren’t a gushy couple – never celebrated Valentine’s Day, once Roy bought me some mountain biking shoes for a wedding anniversary and once I bought him a picture. We value each others’ presence over presents. But we love each other so much. Our love of adventure, the outdoors and our Derbyshire roots drew us together – at the tender age of 20 when our biggest problem was running out of mixer and drinking spirits straight. It’s really easy to…
Dear Lenny, 8 months since the best and worst day of our lives. 8 months since we arrived at the hospital, me having contractions full of joy and excitement. 8 months since we witnessed the shock and devastation on the faces of the wonderful medical team who tried so hard to save you. 8 months since you were born and then you died. There are lots of things about that day that I will never forget, like the look on…
Someone I spoke to about Lenny’s death before Bhai died shared with me some of her journey with IVF. One of the comments she made which stuck with me is that we have so little control over the whole of fertility, pregnancy and childbirth. We can’t “hard work” our way through it. This lack of control is something I have really felt since Lenny died. It felt like the ultimate example of how unpredictable life (and death) can be. A…
My birthday was less than two months after Lenny died. I absolutely dreaded it. Another cruel ‘milestone’ that I was supposed to celebrate with my son. Also, Lenny died on his birthday, how could I celebrate my birthday or anyone else’s ever again? A good friend advised: “you can’t just ignore it, it will still happen and you will still feel shit.’ So we planned something very low key and unbirthdayish just to ensure that I wasn’t alone on the…
Little Bhai gave us hope at a time when then world was the darkest place imaginable. Bhai is the name we gave to our second son – it means brother in Hindi. Let me explain – around 3/4 months after our darling boy Lenny died, we got a positive pregnancy test result. We knew that another child could never ever replace Lenny and that was never a thought. But our wish to be parents to a living child didn’t die…
I met Moy for lunch recently. We don’t generally meet in a public place since Lenny died. We go out in nature or drink tea at home and chat. So, I spent a long time trying to find a place which wouldn’t put gluten in everything and, if I’m honest, a place that I hoped wouldn’t be full of prams. Protecting them feels like a natural instinct. We ended up in a cafe suggested by Mim, which I suspected would…
Lenny’s death has recently been officially classified as a neonatal death. Before this, it wasn’t entirely clear whether Lenny died in the last seconds of labour which would be classed as an intrapartum stillbirth or a neonatal death. As parents you always want to know exactly what happened to your child but these small details don’t make a difference because the fact of the matter remains that we never held him in our arms whilst he was alive. In those…
When Lenny died we were in shock. We went to the hospital full of excitement (well Roy was, I was in the van thinking we better get there quick this baby is coming and it turns out I was right). The rest of the labour was quick and straightforward until right at the end when his heartrate decelerated. The doctors knew he needed to be born and were ready to offer a little bit of help. No one thought he…
I read a Guardian article which made me cross, well not the article but the topic. It is about something termed, ‘prolonged grief,’ the article is here: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/jun/16/prolonged-grief-disorder-diagnosis-us. The DSM is the Diagnostic Statistical Manual which categorises mental health disorders in the US, it is very influential in the UK, anyway now the disorder, ‘prolonged grief’ has been added. The article does discuss some general scepticism about the DSM (rightly in my opinion). I have some additional concerns to add…
When I was pregnant with Lenny, I remember the concern I had about reaching the magical 12 week mark where the risks of miscarriage decrease hugely. I felt nervous approaching my 20 week scan as sadly I do know people who have had later second trimester losses so I knew we weren’t yet out of the woods. However, entering the third trimester I began to grow in confidence and even more so as I had a scan at 38 weeks…