Posted in Aching Arms, baby loss, baby loss awareness, grief, Jason, life after loss, motherhood, Mum Blogger, mummy blog, Neonatal Loss, parenting after loss, stillbirth

Primary School Offer Day

In an ideal world I’d have been one of those nervous parents waiting to find out what school my boy had gotten in to. In an ideal world he’d have been accepted to the primary school where I work! In an ideal world I’d already have his uniform, or parts of it in preparation and be excitedly making him try it on for pictures. In an ideal world we probably would have had to put Jason in to the special needs school because that is where he’d have the support he needed. In a less ideal world we’d have to settle or appeal the decision.

I would give so much to be able to take that less ideal world. To be one of those excired/nervous parents dying to know.

Things like this shouldn’t cause me grief, I probably wouldn’t even acknowledge it if I didn’t work in a school however when September comes and I see all those parents and little reception newbies on their first day I know it should be me there too. I will see their anxiousness and wonder whether I’d have felt the same or whether we would both be ready for him to start school. I feel like Ellie is ready to start nursery so I know she will be fine but I will never know what Jason would have been like.

My life with him seems further and further away with every milestone that we don’t hit together. I’ve missed his first words, first steps, first hug, first smile and now ill be missing his first day at school too.

Of cause I miss him constantly and the ache I have to have both of my children here is never ending but sometimes days are harder to deal with than others and there are some days where you just can’t help but think how fucking cruel the world is.

Posted in parenting

Crowdfunding

In exactly 77 days Jason would have been 4 years old and I have lived 1386 days without him.

This seems bizarre as the day he was born I wasn’t sure I was ever going to be able to live without him. I had spent 35 weeks awaiting his arrival, getting to know his little nudges and feeling a love I had never felt before. The day he was born was one of the happiest and THE worst day of my life; I couldn’t comprehend making it to the next day and couldn’t imagine any future. Yet here I am, managing to live a somewhat “normal” life as a wife and a mother.

Jason’s birthday never seems to get any easier and I don’t suppose it ever will but I always try to focus on something for him, I do something in his memory and to raise awareness that stillbirth/neonatal/child loss happens and it happens to people who don’t deserve it and it happens to more people than society likes to admit to.

To celebrate Jason’s life on his 4th birthday I have decided to purchase books that will help support other local families who are in a similar situation to us; families who have suffered the same fate but aren’t as far down the line as we are; families who will feel exactly as we did 4 years ago, alone, distraught and unable to comprehend what tomorrow will bring. These families deserve to be given all the information they can, which sadly we weren’t.

When Jason was born our local bereavement support worker was on holiday (it’s totally allowed!) but that meant nobody was able to support us, we were sent home with nothing, no baby and no memory box. Just us two trying to figure out what we could have possibly done wrong in our lives for this to happen. During the past 4 years I have found so much information and talked to so many other parents who have supported me in ways I never thought was possible, they themselves have written books, attended seminars and universities to raise awareness of baby loss but also to help medical professionals feel comfortable supporting families like mine.

I want this kind of treatment to be available at my local hospital, I want families to feel like they are not alone and this is more common than they think (although I wish more that this didn’t happen at all!!) and so with that I am hoping to purchase some books that have been written with families, parents, siblings in mind and donate them to our local hospital through our bereavement support worker.

There are so many books I am looking at buying already but unfortunately I am not able to do it on my own which is why I have set up a crowdfunding page. For anyone wishing to help me I will include the link to the page below.h

Posted in Aching Arms, baby loss, motherhood, Pregnancy, pregnancy and infant loss, Pregnancy Loss, stillbirth, Uncategorized

Miles In Memory

Throughout October we remember:
All the babies born sleeping.
Those we’ve carried but never met.
Those we’ve held but could not take home.
The ones that came home but could not stay.

Help break the silence. Help remember our Angels.

October is National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month and on the 15th the whole world can take part in the Wave of Light where we light a candle in memory of our own babies and all those babies who sadly are no longer with us for whatever reason. Jason was one of those babies who I held but could not take home and I miss his cute little face and gingery hair every single day.

Throughout October a very special charity Aching Arms are holding a fundraiser called Miles in Memory. For those who are unaware of Aching Arms, they are a charity run by a group of bereaved mothers wanted to raise awareness of baby loss and the impact this has on family, friends and others. They also bring comfort to bereaved families by sending Bears to hospitals and to people who have requested one themselves. My Aching Arms bear has brought me so much comfort and has helped get me through some very hard times in my journey.

Their challenge Miles In Memory is running throughout October and is a fun way to help raise funds for the charity. I have set up a team of extremely amazing people who are going to help me contribute as many miles as we can in Jason’s memory by either walking, running, cycling or swimming. I am going to be doing as much walking as Bean will possibly allow me to do to get those miles in this month and would be grateful if anyone could donate or just share our challenge and get the word out as Aching Arms have been so helpful since losing Jason I want to give back as much as I possibly can.

Throughout the month I will be blogging about #teamjason and how the team are getting on with their challenge and updating this post with pictures when I can. I am so excited to get this challenge going tomorrow and finding new places to take a walk and show Jason some of the wonderful places I have locally to me.

To donate the website is: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/team/jasonsfootprints

 

Posted in baby loss, motherhood, Pregnancy, Uncategorized

Celebrations.

Celebrations are a funny thing when grieving. Sometimes they are filled with dread, a birthday, a due date, the anniversary of the death. Even happier times can be dreaded, holidays without that person, anniversaries etc. Our Anniversary wasn’t dreaded, for the first time ever we were looking forward to our anniversary. Something we haven’t had the luxury of doing since our first wedding anniversary was spent still desperately sad from the death of our Son.

Continue reading “Celebrations.”

Posted in baby loss, motherhood, Pregnancy, Uncategorized

Have you ever been alone in a crowded room?

Yesterday I found myself sat alone, in our spare room (hopefully soon to be Baby Bean’s room) on the floor crying. I was still crying when Hubby got home from work. I hated feeling so vulnerable, especially after i’d had such a lovely day resting. There was no need for me to suddenly feel so low, so broken. I miss Jason all the time so why was last night so different?  Continue reading “Have you ever been alone in a crowded room?”

Posted in baby loss, motherhood, Pregnancy, Uncategorized

Pregnancy Announcements After Loss…

Everyone deals with loss differently. Everyone deals with social situations differently. For me, when a pregnancy announcement has been made I feel a stab in my chest, I have to catch my breath and I feel anger. Not anger towards the person making the announcement, don’t misread what I type, I am usually genuinely happy for said person, however I am angry that I know their baby will not die, they will get their happily ever after and I didn’t. This is what makes me angry.

Since losing Jason, I have been lucky that most of the announcements made have been subtle and easy-going, close friends who know my situation and are thoughtful enough to not throw it in my face. This linked with my deactivating my Facebook account has meant I have been able to avoid the happy comments, scan photos etc. This doesn’t stop me from snooping. I love to torture myself, I must enjoy looking for signs as this is what I do, I snoop. I delete people who I know are expecting a child to stop myself. It doesn’t work.

Today I found out an old friend (who used to be a very close friend) has had her baby. A little girl. I don’t know whether her having a girl is easier or harder. Nothing about hearing another person’s announcement is easy. I convinced myself she’d have a boy and everything would be fine and she’d get exactly what I deserved. You see, her story was similar to mine. Got married, got caught with her first pregnancy straight away and was expecting her baby before her first wedding anniversary. A fairy tale. That should have been my life. It should be me who got my fairy tale ending. I’m not bitter and I don’t wish this on ANYONE but why didn’t I deserve it? Why does she get her baby and I don’t? Even knowing I’ve been so blessed with our rainbow and she’s wriggling inside me as I type this, she isn’t my first, she isn’t my son, she’s our second child and she should have her big brother here to protect her when she’s older. I will never forgive myself for not doing more to save Jason and bring him home, I can’t.

Grief doesn’t stop just because you’re having another baby, despite what people think. Unless you have been in my situation you won’t ever understand and I hope you never do. Time might distance me from the moment I gave birth, held, kissed and said goodbye to my son but grief doesn’t work in a specific time period it will be with me forever, until I can see Jason again and hold him in my arms.

I just hope that the next pregnancy announcement I read is my own, telling the world my daughter is here and she is safe. I long for that day so much.

A x

Posted in baby loss, Uncategorized

What if…

“What” and “if” are two words as non-threatening as words can be. But put them together side by side and they have the power to haunt you for the rest of your life.

On this journey of grief it is easy to get lost, in yourself, in your surroundings, in your mind. I find myself lost most of the time, I forget what I am doing constantly as my mind wanders to thinking of what if. Sometimes I don’t even know I am doing it. I get so engrossed in my own thoughts that I don’t even hear when people are talking to me. It doesn’t matter whether your grief is through losing a grandparent, a parent, a sibling or a child, these are things grief does to you without you even noticing. I find that even when I’m having one of my “good” days I still often drift in and out of conversations and goings on to think about my own what ifs.

What if Jason were alive?
What if I’d have tried harder to protect him?
What if I’d have been a better person before him?

None of these questions have answers, the truth is, I’m not a bad person, actually i’m probably as “good” as anyone gets, I’ve never smoked, done drugs, can count on my hand how many times I’ve drank alcohol and can honestly say I’ve only ever been drunk once so there is no reason for this punishment. As with all bereaved parents, nobody deserves to lose their child.

I found the quote above completely true with regards to my grief, I constantly ask what if but never get the answers i desire. I never will. What and if are two words that bereaved parents ask themselves regularly, yet it doesn’t make the process or the journey any easier. Without answers the questions are invalid, yet we ask them anyway. Even now, I find my mind has wandered so much focused on my own “what ifs” that I’ve written absolute gobbledy-gook and haven’t the foggiest how I’ve come to type these words.

A year on, I’m finding it easier to hide when i’m in my own world, to hide when I haven’t really listened to what people are telling me but answer them as if I had, people seem unaware of it as it happens so much they probably just think it’s me. It isn’t. I was always so switched on and would take everything in before my loss, now all I want to do is go in to my own little dream world and be with Jason. It’s a lovely place I’ve made up in my head, where it’s always night-time and the stars shine as bright as the northern lights and I cuddle my little boy to sleep and listen to his breathing, I imagine it sounds very similar to my husband’s own breath at night when he’s dozing off to sleep. We silently sit there together, taking in every part of him…until I’m dragged away in to reality where I never got the chance to do any of those things and I remember that life really did throw me a shit hand to play.

I never imagined that my life would be like this, that I would carry on with work, relationships, life in general and act like everything is okay. As a child I never wanted this life, I never wanted to be married, have kids, I wanted to be a singer and travel the world on tour. In my adult life all i’ve ever wanted was to be Luke’s wife, have his children, watch them grow up and show them how much I love their dad. I will always want this, even while I’m carrying our second child I desperately want this pregnancy to end happier because Luke deserves to watch his children grow up, he deserves to be shown an everlasting love that you only get from your kids. My whole life is now dictated by my need to make him a father to living children and watch our family grow, yet in all of this I would never change anything about Jason, he was perfect, always will be and our family will always know and talk about him as if he was here.

My life will never change, I will always have those “what if” questions spinning around my head, I will probably always ramble on and make no sense at all to those who don’t understand. But I know there are a lot of people who will make sense of this post and will get where I’m coming from (even if I don’t right now).

A x