Underneath my Heart

My daughter Kathryn Rose (Kat) was stillborn on 20 November 2009.

It's been 12 weeks now and I have moved on from the thick all-encompassing mourning that was the initial reaction to Kat's death...into a kind of vague day to day existance in which I feel love, pain, grief, sorrow, pride, contentment, frustration, boredom, anger, lust, sloth (the two best of the deadlies) - pretty much everything except sheer happiness. I can and do appreciate very deeply the people in my life. I love my family, I'm pleased to be in our new house, I enjoy seeing the kids happy and settled. I'm excited to be engaged and excited to think about having another baby. But I can't remember the last time I felt simply happy. I think I will again one day. It's not as though grief and sorrow are the only things I am capable of feeling. I've noticed the change in my thoughts and feelings in the past 12 weeks and I know that I can look forward now to things such as another baby, which I couldn't do a couple of months ago. Then it was either something for "one day" or a desperate desire to have Kat back inside my belly and healthy. So I don't think this blanket that stifles the ability to feel happiness will last for ever.

When Kat died I repeatedly reminded myself that we were far from the first people to ever go through this. I personally knew one other couple who had had a stillborn baby and I knew that it is if not exactly common, far from rare. Before we left the hospital we were given a "bear of hope". These are teddy bears that are given to people who have just lost a baby and they are donated by the parents of lost babies. Each bear comes with a tag bearing the name of the baby they have been donated in memory of. The idea is that the parents who have just been given this bear are now not walking out of the hospital with empty arms. Let me tell you that no amount of teddy bear takes away the emptiness of giving birth and not having a baby in your arms. But how I love that bear. I don't keep it on display, I don't hold it, I don't look at it. It has been put away in a box of Kat's things. But it came from another couple who'd lost their baby. It came with that baby's name. I will never know them but I know that once upon a time there was a little baby girl called Lily Grace and her parents loved her. They wanted her and they grieved her loss. She is remembered by them and by the people who know and love them. The world will never know her but I know her name. The world will never know my Kathryn but she is still my daughter and she is loved.

The hard evidence that the bear provided me with - the evidence that we were not alone in this horrible experience - was a tangible comfort to me. Yes, there were tears. I could neither look at nor talk about the bear without crying. Crying is not a bad thing though. I will never deny my daughter my tears for her. Even through the tears, the bear and the knowledge it brought of unseen company in this journey was a comfort. In the days after Kat's death I started to form the idea of writing about the experience in the hope of offering that same comfort to other people who seek it. As the days have turned to weeks and are now starting to turn to months I am realising that this is a topic that is not widely talked about. I never knew that before. I always assumed there was a whole community of grieving parents supporting each other and talking about their loss. Time after time though I'm reading references to this being a "taboo" subject. I've been keeping a diary for myself for the past two months but now I've been prompted by the word "taboo" to go public.

There are times I still want to just sit in a heap and cry. Sometimes I want to walk around with a sign saying "I had a baby". Sometimes it tears my heart out to think that people who walk past me on the street don't know my daughter existed. They never saw my pregnant belly and they don't see me with a baby. (Usually though I have the presence of mind to realise that noone walking past me on the street is paying all that much attention to me and spares as much thought about how many children I have as I do to the same question about them.) Basically, sometimes I want to let myself wallow in how very much it just sucks to have a baby die. I have two children, a home and a life to look after though. People tell me it's good to be busy and that I have to move on. I know that. I still want to sit and wallow sometimes.

Sometimes I take the time to stop and savour my family. I look at my daughter's face as she concentrates on tying her shoe laces - a new skill and one that is far from mastered but she is so proud to show us that she can do it herself. I put my arm out around my son when he comes to me for a hug and breathe in the fact that in that moment he wanted to cuddle his mum. I hold my partners hand and look at the kids walking beside us and say a silent "thank you" that I have this family. I've always taken the time to appreciate the people in my life while they are still here. Well, maybe not always, but certainly by the time I was a teenager. Mum died when I was 12 after a 4 year illness (cancer) and so I've known from an early age that the people I love are precious and can be taken away. I've been through divorce and now have a relationship that I can't really describe in terms other than "wonderful". In short - I always have appreciated my family and I have always made the effort to show the people I love that I love them while we are all still here. But losing Kat has shown me yet again how important that is.

I could keep on going but - as seems to be the story of my life - real life awaits. Time to get the kids from school.