Returning to work

I realise it’s been absolutely ages since my last blog post and so much has happened in these last few weeks. As of this week I’ve completed my phased return to work after maternity leave and I’m now full time. So whilst I’ve been telling myself to write a new blog post I’ve just felt…

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…

Fertility talk

First of all let me start by saying that I am absolutely not an expert on fertility – at all. I also want to make it clear that as far as we are aware we don’t have any fertility problems and I know there are lots of families out there who do have fertility issues….

Family planning

How did you know you wanted a baby? One of the first questions that I used to ask people when they told me they were pregnant and one of the first questions I used to get asked when I was pregnant with Beatrice. It really got me thinking as to how did I know? For…

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…

First of the firsts

After losing anyone, everyone always says it is the big events where you notice the missing presence of a loved one the most. Everyone also says that the first year is the hardest, as this is when you have to experience these big events for the first time. We recently had our first New Year…

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…