One year on…

In two weeks’ time a year will have passed since Beatrice was stillborn. An entire twelve months. This time last year I was still pregnant and we were blissfully unaware that baby loss could happen to normal, happy people like us. When I look back I think of how quickly this year has seemed to…

What is parenting?

Mothering Sunday may have been and gone, but it got me thinking about mothers, fathers and parenting in general. I still class myself as a mother and Jamie as a father, but just how exactly would I describe our parenting style? I mean how do you parent a child who isn’t here? When you think…

Our slice of heaven

Everyone has got at least one place in the world that means something special to them. Jamie and I have been lucky enough to visit so many amazing countries and interesting cities that it’s almost hard for us to choose our place. Sri Lanka or Canada? Rome or Melbourne? New Zealand or the Maldives? All…

Baby loss milestones and test results

Just like after the birth of a live baby, when a baby dies there are lots of milestones to be met. You need to register the stillbirth or death of the baby, wait for baby to have post-mortem, plan a funeral service for baby, go to the funeral itself, have further blood tests, wait for…

Planning your baby’s funeral

If you’re reading this post because you’re having to go through the unthinkable process of planning your baby’s funeral, let me start by saying how incredibly sorry I am. Planning Beatrice’s funeral was one of the most stressful things I’ve ever had to, because I wanted it to be heartfelt and special but at the…

Giving birth

Part 2 – The birth Leaving the hospital and going home to wait for 48 hours was torture. Knowing that my baby had died and was still inside me, not knowing why it had all happened and the prospect of having to tell everyone made me feel scared, guilty and lonely. It was the longest…

Finding out

How does stillbirth happen? There are lots of stories that you read in magazines and online of women who have lost their unborn child after noticing that they had some spotting or bleeding, or after their babies movements had reduced or stopped, or after they had agonizing pains in their stomachs. With Beatrice though I…

Here we go…

Why now? I originally thought about starting a blog when we (Jamie and I) bought our first home together, as a way to document the updates we were making to our home and garden, and as a means for our family – who are 250 miles away, to have a sneak peek at what we…