I hope this book is as comforting to you as my friend was to me. I hope the result of me honestly telling my story is that other parents facing this devastation won’t feel like they are alone. I hope it will also help those supporting bereaved loved ones to offer them the best support possible. By reading my inside perspective of what it’s like to lose a baby and to navigate the grief that follows, they may better understand the experience, and what does and doesn’t help.
I truly hope this book gives an insight into how those enduring baby loss might be feeling, and what it is like to be the person at the centre of the storm. When I was in the first, dreadful stage of my grief, I couldn’t articulate how I felt. I was completely numb. I didn’t know how to talk about it – and I didn’t want to, as that would make it real. Looking back, I can see how my silence would have made it incredibly hard for those around me to know what to do and say. Baby loss is so tragic, so gut-wrenching, that people find it hard to imagine. Outsiders are often at a loss for words, or stumble through and end up saying something offensive. Sometimes they’re just trying to be sympathetic. Sometimes they just don’t get it and have absolutely no idea where to begin. This is understandable.
Many people are scared of mentioning the name of a lost baby, as they are scared of upsetting the bereaved. They don’t realise that you cannot upset someone who has gone through absolute hell by acknowledging their child. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Hearing your baby’s name presents an opportunity to talk about them, and your experience of baby loss in general. When you lose a baby, you think of them constantly. You will not be ‘reminded’ by someone who talks about them or mentions their name. I found it hugely comforting when people spoke of Miles. It showed that they valued his life, his presence in the world. It gave me permission not to hide my grief. I want to share insights like this – thoughts and experiences that are familiar to those who’ve been through baby loss, but hard to guess at by those on the outside – to educate those supporting bereaved parents, so they are better equipped to offer what is needed.
As a society, we need to normalise how we talk about baby loss at any stage of pregnancy, to lift the stigma and open up the conversations that should follow baby loss. Early pregnancy loss remains hidden in the shadows because it is considered to be relatively common. This seems absurd: statistics do not alter grief or its intensity.
We live in a world obsessed with pregnancy and babies. Women are often asked if they have children before what they do for work or pleasure. Pregnancy is publicly celebrated with social media announcements, gender reveals and baby showers. Conversely, pregnancy loss is kept in the dark: brushed aside or not spoken of. To go from one side of the equation to the other in an incredibly short space of time is traumatic. One minute, people are asking, how are you feeling?, when is the baby due?, do you know what you’re having? But when a baby dies, people can be unsure of what to say or do. Sometimes they completely ignore the fact that your baby died, heightening your isolation.
For some women, the baby they lose is their first child, their first experience as a mother. For others, it may be their second, third or even fourth pregnancy. It may not the first time they have lost a baby. It’s not possible (or desirable) to compare or measure one situation against another. They are all tragic, they are all devastating and no loss should be considered greater or less than another. Until you have walked in another’s shoes, you cannot begin to imagine their experience. Loss is loss, grief is grief, and heartbreak is heartbreak. There is no hierarchy. We are better off channeling our energies towards supporting each other than competing for whose grief is the worst. I can only speak from my own perspective: of losing a baby after having three healthy children. So I have made sure to interview women who have different stories, and researched other experiences.
Each woman’s response to loss will be influenced by our individual experiences, as mothers and as people. For me, no number of living children could ever make up for the one that was lost. I think this is a common experience, no matter the number of children we have had, or have lost. When you are pregnant, it’s not just the baby inside you that is growing. With each pregnancy, I feel my heart growing bigger too. It’s like an extra chamber is opened up, to hold the love for that child. I lost my baby, but that extra chamber remains open, and the love remains too. They are forever a part of me. It’s so difficult to find somewhere to direct this love when your arms are empty and your dreams are shattered.
Life after loss can be brutal, so be kind to yourself. It will take time to navigate your way to a new normal and for a long time, you may feel that you don’t possess the strength to do this. Early on after losing Miles, I made a decision that somehow I was just going to have to survive. I was completely broken, but I didn’t want to stay broken. One life had already been lost. I felt I owed it to Miles to make the most of the life I still had; it was (and is) a wonderful one. I hoped that one day, the pain and sadness would ease, but I knew it was up to me to start finding my way through the darkness. There is no quick fix, no magic potion you can swallow. You just have to start moving forward, one small step at a time, at your own pace.
If I had to explain this to someone in the simplest of ways, perhaps this is how I might begin. It’s like you’re on a beautiful sailing boat, setting out on the trip of your dreams. It’s something you’ve talked about, wished for and now it’s finally happening. Suddenly, without warning, your boat is met by an unexpected storm: the vicious waves and howling winds instantly change its course. There is no way back and your boat can’t be turned around, no matter how hard you try. You fight with all you have, you plead with the storm to spare you from what is ahead, you know, in your heart of hearts that it’s not going to be good.
You end up shipwrecked, alone, terrified and bewildered. This was not the plan; this is not where you were supposed to be. There is no way of retracing your steps to try to work out how things went so terribly off course. There’s no point: it is what it is. You’re stuck here now. Other travellers made it to their beautiful islands. In the distance, you can see the bright lights and hear the hum of joyful celebration.
You may be lucky enough to set sail towards your dreams again, but it will be with the knowledge of what it felt like to be blindsided by a storm. That knowledge has changed you forever. For now, you are stuck on the dark island, desperately wondering if you’ll ever find a way off it. That is, if you even want to leave. It’s sad and harrowing, but it’s your island. Your connection to something so precious that, you may realise, it’s okay if a little part of you stays there forever.
Over time, the storm’s intensity will dissolve. Slowly and gradually, your island – the one you never asked to go to in the first place – will come back to life. It, too, is beautiful, and it’s yours to stay on, or to visit whenever you like.
If you are reading this book, I can assume you are enduring what will (hopefully) be the worst time of your life, or you’re looking for ways to support someone through this harrowing life experience. I have addressed this book to other baby loss parents, who I imagine as my first readers. But I hope it will also be read by their loved ones and supporters, healthcare professionals, and anyone else looking for an inside perspective on baby loss. You can read the book in whichever order works best for you and start with whatever you feel will help you the most right now.
In Part 1, I tell my story – Miles’ story. In Part 2, I talk about baby loss and how it is typically dealt with in our society, as well as the various parts of grief that shocked and outraged me, and what ultimately comforted me and helped me put myself back together. This is not an easy story to tell, but like any story of baby loss, it’s a story of love mixed with heartache. The story of a mother desperately wishing for a different outcome, but having to find the courage to say goodbye to her much-loved baby, knowing there was no alternative.
Whether you have had to say goodbye to your baby as an embryo, at any stage of pregnancy or as an infant, you have lost a child – and all the dreams and plans attached to them. I don’t have all the answers (I wish I did), but when it happened to me, I did have