Little Ewok.

When we realised that I was pregnant for the third time, your daddy and I (well, mainly daddy in all honesty) were thrilled to realise your due date was Sta.r Wa.rs day (May the fourth/"May the force" - groan). Hence your bump name - Little Ewok. I say bump, you never really got to be that. You slipped away from us so quickly and so soon, just six weeks after coming into being and just two weeks after we'd learned of your existence. I know we don't speak of you often. What happened to you - the worst thing ever to have happened to me up to that point in my life - got overshadowed by the death of your little sister. I think you were a little boy and, in my head, your name is Asher. I dreamed of you once - holding hands with a little girl I know was Emma. You were tall, like Ben and blonde, like Lucy. Today, which might have been your second birthday, I have been remembering you and here seemed the right place to do that.

Emma's day.

Thank you all for remembering us. I have been so touched by the outpourings of love and compassion sent to us from so many sources. Emma's birthday was gentle and went as well as it could overall, I think. If anything, the 13th was probably harder as I kept reliving my lovely labour and remembering when I felt so excited about meeting our baby, before I knew it was all going to go wrong.

Dave had the day off work. Over breakfast, we all had a little present each to unwrap in memory of Emma - which the kids thought was great! We dropped the children off at school and then went to Emma's grave to plant daffodils and narcissi around her headstone. Hopefully, they'll bloom in the spring (we're not very accomplished gardeners so we're crossing our fingers). We came home and I baked a birthday cake for our little girl and then DH and I went out for a pub lunch together. We spent the time after school playing with Lucy's new baby guinea pigs, who are both very sweet and made us smile. I imagine Emma would have loved tormenting them! Then we all ate birthday cake. It was hard but it was special too - I'm glad we managed to do some things that marked it as "her" day.

Emma

Happy Birthday, sweetheart. We love you and we miss you.

Gideon

Rachele, when we were using the same due date club, neither of us could have envisioned that our paths would deviate so completely from everyone else on the same forum. My heart aches that anyone should have to live through this but I have been so grateful for your love and support on this journey.

Today I remember you and Garrin and, of course, Gideon. Happy birthday, sweet little boy.

Josie

On 10th October 2008, Jay and her family prepared to welcome a beautiful baby girl. Instead, they found themselves saying goodbye. Jay, I wish it could be otherwise. I will be remembering Josie tomorrow and wish you and H. and A. and D. much peace.

October

So here it is - with a twist of the calender we've got here. THE month. It's an absolutely perfect, beautiful, crisp autumn day here. It won't be long before the kids and I can stop on the village green on our way home from school and fill our pockets with conkers - we didn't do that last year. Firstly, because at 39ish weeks pregnant simply waddling home was pretty much enough excitement in my day and then - well, a lot of "normality" went by the wayside through October and November and beyond.

I read Jay's beautiful meditation as she approaches Josie's first birthday too. I've known and followed Josie's story since the beginning. She and Emma were born and died just four days apart so our paths have coincided many times. Jay's musings on grief and acceptance resonate very strongly with me right now. It's true for me too - although I am sliding into a quiet melancholy, I don't feel the same rawness now as I did at the beginning and I don't feel compelled to try and recreate it for her birthday. There is a gentleness about my grief now that I'm content to live with.

Unlike many babylost parents, I'm not dreading Emma's one year day. I almost feel a sense of relief that I'm reaching that point, that I made it, that I have survived a whole twelve months without her sweet babyness here on earth. Last October I couldn't have told you I would. I don't feel as though I am passing through some portal that will separate us because I know that nothing could. I carry the essence of her with me into this second year and forever more.

Almost eleven months ago, I had an idea for a piece of art. It has remained unexecuted because I'm afraid that I lack the necessary skills to execute the fabulous idea in my head! I wanted to draw a mother's face and upper body with an outsized tear falling from her eye and an outsized heart bursting from her chest. I wanted to draw a tiny baby nestled in her tear and one in her heart and inscribe it with the words "In my tears and my ever pregnant heart" because she is. She is there, always and eternally, whether it be one year or eleven or one hundred and one. Maybe I'll screw up every tiny ounce of my limited artistic ability and actually make it one day soon. Watch this space.

Birthday Boy / Birthday Girl

It has been a busy weekend here. On Friday we celebrated the fact that our beautiful boy, our Ben, was 7. I am so very, very proud of my little man. He is sensitive and articulate and loving. Parenting after the loss of a child can be so difficult. Those of us who are blessed to have living children at home with us recognise deeply how precious these little lives are. I know I feel an immense burden of responsibility to try to protect them from the aftermath of this tragedy whilst recognising that, really, I can't. They need to be free to feel it too. But I doubt my two eldest will ever know how much they have helped Dave and I through this past year.

But, to more frivolous matters. Friday was a day to celebrate the long awaited arrival of a much wanted Nin.ten.do D.S. and to eat pizza. It was an excuse to overindulge in yummy sticky chocolate cake, artistically decorated with Le.go by yours truly!!


On Saturday, the whole shebang started over as we celebrated that our lovely Lucy was 5. Her name means bright/light and it has always suited her but, over this past year, I have been so glad of her company - of the way her larger than life firecracker personality has lit up my days. This time it was a Bar.bie scooter (complete with a lip gloss so Lucy need never be caught scooting bare lipped again!!) and a pink princess cake. (I know there's probably a debate to be had about gender stereotyping here but lets save it for another day!) and four 4/5 year old girls arguing over whose turn it was to wear the mermaid outfit.

Happy, precious days.

And now, we are two weeks away from another birthday. One which, sadly and inevitably, will be different again. I hope we can make Emma's day a celebration too. I honestly have no idea how I want it to be right now. But I want her to know that I am immeasurably proud of all my children and I delight in them all - the ones I am privileged to raise and the one who soars.