The loss of a baby – there is nothing else quite like it. A truly devastating and monumentally painful tragedy that alters your every notion of reality. Whether during a cherished pregnancy or after a baby is brought home and loved, when your baby dies your future is rewritten in an instant.
A baby’s death is the polar opposite of new life. And so you take your first steps into the world of loss – in a cave with a flashlight, searching for hope and guidance.
When we lose our baby we are left crushed and bewildered. A thief has crept into our brightest dreams and darkened them, stealing not only a little beating life, but the future we had planned together. The unfathomable question rests heavy on our shoulders: How can something that has only just begun end so swiftly? The reality of life ceasing so abruptly before a deserving chance is so far out of the order of life that we are left blindsided and swept out to sea. There is both a sense of disconnection when we just simply cannot comprehend the magnitude of what has happened and a sense of having lost everything at once, a numb yet undeniable pain.
The circumstances of our loss can differ vastly. Missed miscarriage, when a baby is lost without any physical symptoms, a baby born silent but perfect, an infant birthed and buried as fast as the sun rose and set, a pregnancy that gently held the tiniest of sparks, a child who was taken home healthy and plucked so suddenly from our grip, a babe we willed through illness but who sadly could not stay.
My personal journey into the world of baby loss began with the loss of my son. I became pregnant quickly, and I had a gentle and healthy pregnancy experience. There were no complications expected and I had no real understanding of loss. After a natural and fairly uneventful labour, our little boy Winter Wolfe was delivered and placed onto my chest. We held him close, so full of newborn awe that we didn’t even manage a photograph before he suddenly stopped breathing and was whisked away to be resuscitated. At one day old, our baby could not be saved. We held him in our arms and felt his heart drum its last little beat. I became a bereaved mother, forever loving and missing my Winter. And our journey to a living baby was yet to throw more obstacles and pain, as two early miscarriages left us further heartbroken.
In circumstances that can be so drastically varied, it is difficult to encapsulate those early days of loss and be thoroughly inclusive, but there are, among the variations, moments shared by many. If you had the great fortune of physically meeting your baby for the first time after death or in the brief moments before, you will have discovered it is simultaneously a painful and beautiful event. Among the brutal devastation of an all too early death, we find there is a steely and unwavering pleasure in meeting our baby. Holding them is our opportunity to study their face, to feel their weight, to touch their skin, simple pleasures that are all too soon to be denied. The need to kiss and cuddle your baby is the most natural feeling for a new mother.
There is a need to document as much as possible, yet in those early confusing moments you may not have fully known what you wanted to photograph, or what memories you wanted to create. It is such an intense moment to be so dramatically tossed into. You could only look to those around you for guidance and trust to follow your own motherly instincts. There is the realisation that this is all the memories you will make, your time together is limited to this very moment. It is a heavy weight to carry, time has never before felt so precious and fleeting. And no matter how we spend that time, no matter how long we have, it will never be enough. What is important is the knowledge that in that moment, that immensely difficult and intense moment, you did all that you could.
Further down the line, as you look back, you will inevitably play that moment out and wish there were things you had done differently. Regrets will rise, perhaps realisations of missed opportunity within that short time you had.
Even if you had physically carried your baby to the moon and back to show them the endless magnitude of your love, you would still sit today wishing, If only we had …
Among the endless circumstances, there are situations where families choose not to see their baby after death. The opportunity to hold their physical appearance within the safe and loving realms of immaculate imagination is an opportunity too prized to pass. The knowledge that your baby is perfect in every which way needs no validation from the naked eye.
Regardless of meeting, you still hold bounds of love and pride alongside your baby’s memory, the two come together like a feather and a wing. The tragic circumstances are at some point null and void – you are simply a proud mother to a baby, here or gone, dead or alive. When you lose your baby you face a wealth of emotions, and although these may include misplaced feelings of guilt and failure, you also do not stop feeling love, and you do not stop feeling pride.
In the instances where your baby has been cared for before they died, whether premature or unwell, within the hospital or apparently healthy at home, you will have established a routine of looking after them. As with any newborn baby, your lives have met exceptional change in what is famously a sleep-deprived and non-stop experience. Your baby’s death creates not only an instant loss physically and emotionally, but also the abrupt end to a constant familiar routine. The sudden halt is colossal and flattening, and leaves an immense emptiness within day-to-day life. Time suddenly seems plentiful and suffocating as the time you spent caring for your baby is left unfilled.
If you lost your baby in late pregnancy or after birth, there is a good chance that in the aftermath you were confronted with a home bustling with baby preparations or items used and touched by your baby. Babies lost much earlier, and therefore before the chance for preparation arose, will still have memories attached to objects around the home. In the days and weeks that follow, you may choose to keep your preparations as they are, finding some solace in the love you lavished on your baby, perhaps before you even met them. A nursery that remains untouched or used so very briefly is both beyond precious and inherently painful. The dish we cooked when we discovered we were pregnant, the outfit we first noticed a tiny bump in. Other times you may feel that the stark emptiness is too palpable and make the decision to pack away some items. While we kept our son’s nursery as it was right up until we moved house, the vast and obvious lack of a baby in the Moses basket proved too difficult and I gifted it to a charity shop.
As with any grief journey, there is never a right or wrong. With the great gift of hindsight, however, I tentatively suggest that you keep hold of some items, even if you initially feel they are too painful to keep. Maybe you can pass them on to family to store for you, or pack them lovingly into the loft. So many loss mothers, myself included, wish they had kept some items for their future babies, as a way of connecting siblings beyond physical presence – an idea that, in the early throes of loss, can feel entirely unimaginable.
Our baby’s death can all happen so quickly, in such a small time frame in our long stretch of life, that it can feel as though it were all a dream.
In these early moments, as with any loss journey, everyone reacts and grieves so differently it is impossible to explore all the different emotions we may encounter. Some grieve heavily in the immediate aftermath, the realisation of the permanence of death is instant and consuming. Others are left too numbed by shock to fully take stock of all that their loss truly means. I know many, many fellow loss friends who sought solace in the comfort of their own home, and mostly in their bed, and perhaps this is you too. It’s as though you have your own little safety den, where you can be certain not to bump into people and have to explain; a place where you can lick your wounds and try to comprehend the enormity of your new circumstance. Certainly even now, when feeling particularly daunted by grief, I retreat to bed.
If your bump was visible or you had the honour of announcing your news, then suddenly regular social and daily pit stops can become a source of much anxiety as you wonder how many times you will have to revisit the beautiful but still freshly painful story of your baby. Wondering who you will meet and who will notice your bump has disappeared. Who will exclaim ‘You’ve had the baby!’ and who will ask the details. Answering those questions and explaining the less than ideal circumstance rarely comes easily to loss mothers. Taking some time to role play in the safety of your own home, mastering the response you are most comfortable with, is a good idea.
With earlier miscarriage – perhaps robbed of the chance even to announce your happy news – the initial anxiety is still palpable as you step out into the world, a changed person harvesting an unseen loss. You may be faced with other difficult questions, ‘When do you plan to start a family?’ There will be many moments where you are faced with such daunting questions, and so early on in loss they will leave you feeling vulnerable and lost. Over time and with practice your replies will become more sturdy and confident.
Sharing news of our loss with others is a huge source of anxiety. If you simply cannot find the words yourself, or the task feels far too intense, you can call on friends and family to do this in your place. There is also the opportunity to embrace social media as a way of continuing your baby’s journey. It’s a choice you can make, neither right nor wrong, and much of that depends on just how active you were online in the lead up to your baby’s life and death.
Dean and I chose to share news of our son’s death pretty much immediately, alongside a small selection of photographs. I found it a good decision for us. Having documented the pregnancy I knew my friends and family were expecting news of his birth at any moment, and I was afraid of having to explain over and over why my bump had gone but my arms were not full. Writing a status sharing our news saved us from many difficult future interactions – so many people informed in one swift click of the laptop.
I did the same when I miscarried, despite not even having shared news of my pregnancy. While some who do not understand this journey may consider this to be ‘over-sharing’, anyone who experiences the loneliness of miscarriage will know there is an unmet need for this subject to be spoken about openly. It is such a hushed ‘private’ trauma that we are often left quietly seeking solace and understanding in closed forums and sites dedicated solely to such loss. If anyone wondered why I chose to share such personal experiences, I reminded them that my babies were loved, no matter how brief their life; they are important to me, they were the beginning of an alternative future that will now never materialise and their existence warranted marking. When I shared news of my miscarriages, it was as though I was peeking from under a blanket, one eye open, wondering, Is anyone else out there? And there was, lots of people, peeking back out at me, reaching out to hold my hand. So I threw off the blanket and stretched. I wasn’t alone, we are not alone.
As with many brief lives, my son’s birth announcement also carried the news of his death. And I shared the news of my son because I wanted to. Like any other new mother I wanted to announce my creation to the world. One of my most poignant memories from those early days of grief was the desire to show off my baby. I had spent so long waiting for him, planning his announcement and wondering what he would look like. When he died, I still wanted the world to see him but I was afraid to show him off. His face was blanketed in tubes and wires, his lips were darkened and his skin was losing colour. But I didn’t see that.
Mothers see past the blemishes left behind by death. They don’t see a dead baby, they see a loved, wanted, perfect baby.
You may choose to keep your baby private, perhaps you feel their photos are too precious to share, and of course that is always your own choice and one you should feel confident to make. Alternatively, if you decide to share then you can take that leap with the knowledge that you are as justified as a mother with a living baby. You are not only allowing the world to see the beauty of your creation, but you are opening the eyes of those around you to the realisation that not all baby’s come home and grow into adults – you are reminding them how prized their own babies are.
If you face resistance then you can take the opportunity to gently educate with your decision. I was faced with this very dilemma myself when a friend questioned very publicly why anyone would share images of a baby that has died. I was deeply, deeply hurt. The very idea that my son was offensive in some way and should be hidden away so shamefully hurt like hell. So I spoke out. We don’t need to shame those who are so misguided and confused that they cannot understand our choices, we simply need to explain our decision with the pride and love we hold for our baby. It goes without saying that bereaved families should not have to face such barriers, and yet we do, still. If you want to show off your baby, do it.
I would like to begin this book with not only the recognition of our deep-felt pain, but also with the offering of hope. We all know the hurt that ravages us after loss, we all know the dark places that we are pulled to, and as mothers we also know the wonderful love our baby’s presence brought with them.
You hurt because you loved, you will continue to hurt because you will continue to love. When we peel away the loss, the death, the tears, the pain, when we rewind from the tragedy that stole our dreams, when we bring ourselves to the very beginning point of this fretful path, the initial feeling is that of love. Love for your baby, love for the future you planned together. Love really is the dominating emotion, it was the catalyst of your journey, it was the very first domino to fall. As your journey continues, your grief – although never-ending – becomes familiar and more manageable in your day-to-day life.
Anger, jealousy, resentment, the cascade of emotions is intense – life after baby loss is hard. But each and every time it comes back to love, the loudest emotion.
Trust from here on in that this love will prevail, it will keep you afloat. You will find ways to celebrate and include your baby, you will make it through this chapter of life not just surviving, but thriving, always with your baby held close in your heart. Dark days are ahead of you, and so are lighter ones. It’s a mixed bag – an immeasurable loss has been thrust upon you, and over time you will discover that where there is deep loss, there is also deep gain. Our babies simply cannot exist without leaving behind something great, and although nothing can ever make up for the treachery of a little life stolen, they are deserving of warm thoughts and a smile at their memory. And it will come, if not in this instant, with time. Whether we laugh fondly at their belly kicks and rolls, their fat feet and the nose inherited from Uncle Fred, or the ridiculous cravings their pregnancy brought with them, over time, this lighter energy will emerge. Keep hope.
And so here is a gentle summary of suggestions when you are so fresh in the face of loss:
Be kind to yourself. Allow grief, allow yourself to hurt. Do not inflict self-judgement on your emotions, simply feel.
Try to look back at your time with your baby with as few regrets as possible. Each moment you carried them was special, any time you had together was unique and cannot ever be replicated or replaced. Those moments are yours forever.
Ask friends and family to share your news if you feel it is too difficult. Keep your baby private if you wish to and hold them tightly in your heart.
Or share the news yourself and your baby’s photographs if you feel this is right for you. Whatever you choose is personal and right for your journey.
If it is too painful to see them each day, arrange for any baby preparations to be stored lovingly away. Keep them out if they are a warm reminder of your baby’s life.
Remember that your baby’s existence was ignited by love, and that love is the very catalyst for all you are about to experience. Hold on to that love.