David and I are really struggling at the moment

Being bereaved parents is really hard

Losing Tilda has changed us forever

It has changed the way we think

The decisions we make

How we parent

The way in which we interact with each other

And other people

Many couples do not survive the loss of a child

Many couples do not survive raising children born prematurely

It changes everything

We are incredibly blessed to have our four beautiful living children

But that does not take away from the fact that we are always missing one

It is hard for us to navigate our life after loss

So we do appreciate that it is almost impossible for others to understand

I almost lost my sister after Tilda was born

She had her beautiful daughter Charlotte

And I was in such a state of grief and depression

I was horrible to her

I did not meet my niece until after her first birthday had passed

Not because I did not want to

Not because I did not love her

Not because I did not want to be there for my little sister

But because I was totally and utterly broken inside

And I could not

I was awful to my sister

But I did not see it

I could not see it through the fog of fear, terror, anger and heart breaking sadness

Thankfully my sister and her husband understood the best they could

And we now all have a wonderful relationship

And Charlotte is an utter delight

Her and Bea get along so well

As William does with Toby

My sister’s son

I will always regret missing out on the first year of Charlotte’s life

And be so grateful for my sister for her patience and love

But I will always know it was for the best

I still find other people’s babies hard

Some very dear friends have had babies recently

And to protect my mental health and my still aching heart

I have had to stay away

It really is hard to understand

As a bereaved mother

There are things I have to avoid

Christenings

First birthdays

Weddings are so hard

School nativities

Church in general is very difficult

The cost to my own mental and emotional health

Of doing things that trigger anxiety and post traumatic stress episodes

Would be too dear

And the impact that then has on our living children

Too much

Sometimes tough decisions have to be made

Tilda has been gone for almost 7 years

The pain is still raw

We miss our daughter every day

There is not a day goes by when I do not wonder

How life would be for us all if she were here

Esther and William talk about their baby sister all the time

Bea and Edie both talk about their baby sister in the sky

Though they never got to meet her

Tilda is as much part of our family as our living children are

And she always will be

She always will be

I will live with the death of my child until the day I die

I will always miss Matilda and I will always grieve that she is dead

I know I am not alone

There are an army of bereaved parents who sadly do understand

They know …

And together we are breaking the silence around baby loss

In honour of our babies

Our children

Grief can’t be fixed. Grief is not an illness, nor is it simply an unfortunate thing getting in the way of a “normal, happy life”, grief is a constant. When a child has died, that doesn’t mean that you stop loving them or that they are not present in your life anymore. Grief is the form love takes when someone dies and grief is important – it is how you learn to live inside your loss, how you carry what cannot be fixed. In a strange way you need grief – it is how you survive.

People say that time is a healer but grief for a child has no end, that grief is for
life and it’s not something you will “get over”. What may be observed is that grief comes in waves – at times overwhelming, at times barely noticeable but it will remain.

Huffington Post UK

There will never come a day, hour, minute or second I stop loving or thinking about my son.

Just as parents of living children unconditionally love their children always and forever, so do bereaved parents.

I want to say and hear his name just the same as non-bereaved parents do.

I want to speak about my deceased child as normally and naturally as you talk about your living ones.

There is no “moving on,” or “getting over it.”

There is no bow, no fix, no solution to my heartache.

There is no end to the ways I will grieve and for how long I will grieve.

There is no glue for my broken heart, no exilir for my pain, no going back in time.

For as long as I breathe, I will grieve and ache and love my son with all my heart and soul.

There will never come a time when I don’t think about who my son would be, what he would look like, and how he would be woven perfectly into the tapestry of my family.

I wish people could understand that grief lasts forever because love endures forever; that the loss of a child is not one finite event, it is a continuous loss that unfolds minute by minute throughout a lifetime.

Every missed birthday, holiday, a milestone; should-be back-to-school years and graduations; weddings that will never be, grandchildren that should have been but will never be born– an entire generation of people are irrevocably altered forever.

https://stillstandingmag.com/2015/10/28/7-things-ive-learned-since-loss-child/

Sometimes grief makes me feel like I’m losing my mind. Like my brain has been hijacked.

If only compassion was a universal response to those who are hurting.

The truth is, no matter how much you’re living, no matter how much healing your heart has done, no matter how far you run, no matter how long it’s been:

You’re still always and forever part of a club that no one wants to join; one you can never, ever leave.

The thought of it is so terrifying that it leaves the verbose, speechless.

Most can’t handle thinking about it for even a millisecond. Or less.

It’s that horrifying– that unspeakable.

That nightmarish.

Crappy Child Loss Club

An out-of-order death such as child loss breaks a person (especially a parent) in a way that is not fixable or solvable — ever! We will learn to pick up the pieces and move forward, but our lives will never be the same.

Every grieving parent must find a way to continue to live with loss, and it’s a solitary journey. We appreciate your support and hope you can be patient with us as we find our way.

Please: don’t tell us it’s time to get back to life, that’s it’s been long enough, or that time heals all wounds. We welcome your support and love, and we know sometimes it hard to watch, but our sense of brokenness isn’t going to go away. It is something to observe, recognize, accept.

https://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-17928/what-i-wish-more-people-understood-about-losing-a-child.html

I don’t need you to understand why I have bad moments, bad weeks, bad months.

I don’t need you to understand why I kept Boo’s pregnancy a secret from my closest friends.

I don’t need you to understand why I may not visit your new born baby girl, or go to your baby shower.

I don’t need you to understand it at all.

I need you to support me.

I need you to listen.

I need you to accept that I am not being rude I am surviving that day.

I need you to realise it isn’t an insult on you if I refuse to come.

I need you to be there when I am hurting when I am having a bad day.

I don’t always need people with me, but I need to just be checked on.

A cuppa and a hug.

I don’t need to be questioned.

I just need people to realise some days are bad, some days will always be bad.

And those days I don’t need guilt for feeling bad, I just need support.

It has never been about understanding for me, I don’t wish for you to understand this awful pain and sorry. I don’t wish that on my worst enemy.

I has always been about supporting.

Whether you agree or not it is just about supporting and being a person who can be there when the days are hard. Not comment but just be there.

It has always been about supporting.

https://ajourneyoffootsteps.com/how-can-i-make-them-understand/

I miss my baby girl

And it will never be all right that she died

I will never stop missing her

I will never stop grieving her

I will never ever stop including her in our family life

And I am very sorry to the people that makes uncomfortable

But I have just one question for those people

Which of your children would you be happy to give up

And never have mentioned again?

It breaks my heart

The number of people who cannot begin to understand how life is for me

Day to day

People who cannot find any compassion at all in their hearts

People who just expect you to get up, dust yourself off and carry on

That is not what happens after the death of a child

Losing a child is not in the order of things

Children should not die before their parents

It is never ever okay to lose a baby

And there is no way that things can ever be normal again

There is always a piece of me missing

A piece of my heart and soul

There is always a gap

No family gathering is ever complete

The more people present

The bigger the gap becomes

Especially when no one will speak her name

When people would rather pretend that she did not ever exist

I do not have that luxury

I cannot ever forget

Cannot ever pretend

Her absence runs through everything

And everyone of us in our home

http://www.edspire.co.uk/year_2018/10/20/baby-loss-awareness-week-2018/

David and I are really struggling at the moment

We do not expect you to understand

We would hate for anyone to feel the way we feel

We would hate for anyone to have to live the way we do

But please

Respect that we are changed

Give us space to grieve

And accept the decisions that we make for our family

We do not make them lightly

We are not being difficult

We are trying our best to survive

Because some days that is all that we can do