As hard as it is to write down our journey, I hope to be able to help others not feel so alone during what is a very daunting and vulnerable time. If you find yourself here, I am sending you lots of love, hugs and strength. Believe me… the pain does ease and you will find what it is to live and laugh again in a life you will never have imagined you would be living.

That naive excitement of being pregnant for the first time…Gone forever
I don’t remember the date and time I found out I was pregnant with Milly, I was just totally lost in the fact we were going to have a baby, I think in my mind I had already pictured how our family would look. Who doesn’t look at a pregnancy test and visualise holding their baby in 9 months? We went off on a holiday to Cornwall when I was 8 weeks pregnant in a state of utter bliss.

Our 12-week scan came around pretty fast and I was so thankful as I just couldn’t wait to tell everyone our exciting news. The story of my life at every scan was the fact my bladder was always too full! Do you know how hard it is to pee and make sure you don’t empty your whole bladder? Maybe one day I will get it just right!

We broke the news to friends and family and I wanted to shout it from the rooftops. We had made it to that all important 12-week scan, yay. Naively I actually thought once you had passed this milestone it was just a simple case of growing a baby for the remaining
6 months… How wrong could I be?

I should have listened to my gut instincts: A mother’s intuition is always right!
At 23 weeks I had started to worry about the baby’s movements, I think subconsciously my worry was brought on by the fact we had close friends who had experienced stillbirth. Even though we never understood the enormity of what it is to have a baby die, we new it could and did happen. I left work to pop over and see my community midwife and she had a quick listen to the heartbeat and there it was, loud and clear, panic over. I just told myself to calm down. The next few weeks ticked by, until our 20-week scan which was absolutely fine. We decided at this point we didn’t want to know the sex of the baby, deep down I wanted a girl. I was desperate to have the same relationship I have with my mum with my own daughter. My mum despite our ups and downs is truly my best friend.

I had a midwife appointment around 25 weeks gestation, it took her a little while to find the heartbeat and because of this the midwife didn’t leave the doppler on for the recommended 1 minute. Yes, I could hear the heartbeat, but if the doppler had been left on for longer would it have shown up any problems at this point? I will always wonder if small things could have made a difference. My whole world around Milly is full of what if’s, if only I had been stronger to act differently as a first-time mum, that guilt will live with me forever. My darling I wish I could have saved you.

Saturday 18^th October 25 weeks and 5 days pregnant I was finally ready to shop for our baby. I had been putting it off for fear of something going wrong. Yes, I was that worried! We brought some cute outfits, a baby bath and almost ordered the pram… thank goodness we didn’t! As the day drew to an end I had a sudden panic about the baby’s movements but told myself it was all in my head. I had already been told that at this stage of pregnancy not to expect any sort of pattern with the baby’s movements.

We were busy with friend’s round on the Saturday evening, as Si and our best friend Rich were running the Birmingham Half Marathon on the Sunday. I woke up overnight in a sweat and total panic, but calmed myself down, thinking it must be all in your head. Having drank a cold glass of water on the Sunday morning and tried lying in different positions, still no movements. Si was busy getting ready and I just said to him with a brave face on, ’if things still seem odd after the half marathon I will contact the midwife’. At this point there was a part of me that thought maybe I should just stay and go and see the midwife on my own, but deep down I was already fearing the worst and I certainly couldn’t have dealt with that on my own. I could scream at myself now, why didn’t I act differently?

Birmingham Half Marathon: The day our world turned upside down
The day in Birmingham was absolute torture, I made small polite chit chat with friends and family who had come to support the boys. I was desperate for this day to be over. I had a gut wrenching feeling in the pit of my stomach that something was seriously wrong. I suppose deep down I had totally frozen and was so scared about what to do. How did I do it? How did I sit there so calm? I guess I realised that I was putting off the inevitable and savouring for a short while longer what it felt to be ‘normal’ as in my head I knew that a baby dying wasn’t ‘normal’. I was so scared of how you deal with such an enormous tragedy and I actually had no idea what I would be dealing with. I called the midwife and was advised to go straight to the hospital.

Time stood still
Everything at the hospital seemed to take ages, it was like time had already stood still. The first midwife located what she thought was the baby’s heartbeat and my heart skipped a beat. ‘I thought wow, things are actually ok’, false alarm, she had located the placenta not our baby’s heartbeat. She then went to get a small scan machine so she could have a look and again she could only locate the placenta… at this point I think I had actually stopped breathing. She then said she needed to get someone else to have a listen, at which point I knew there was a serious problem. The lady who came in next was a consultant and had a listen and a look at the scan screen and confirmed our worst nightmares “I’m so sorry, I can’t locate a heartbeat”. Those words will resonate with me forever. Instantly we entered into a world we knew nothing about, nor did we know how to deal with the enormity of the situation, I then felt my life start to spiral out of control. I just started panicking as I was so confused about delivering a baby that had died. I was desperate for this process to be over, desperate for my life to return to ‘normal’, little did I know at this point the normal I had known was gone forever, the person I was only yesterday was gone, forever. Yes, I had to give birth to our baby that had died, I felt so sick to my stomach and absolutely petrified beyond words. It was so hard to process that inside of me was our baby who no longer was a part of this world. Sometimes even now I think people are scared to ask what actually happens when you have a stillbirth. It’s a grey area and if they knew more, I think it would help people understand the enormity of what it is to have a baby die before they get the chance to celebrate life. As parents of a stillborn child you will always want to talk about your baby and want people know more about your baby, their existence was real.

I reached out to our friends who had a stillbirth a few years prior to us starting on this devastating journey. I needed someone to talk me through the process and calm me down in a world that overwhelmed me on so many levels. She was lovely and helped me plan my hospital bag, and talked me through what the process was likely to be when we got back to the hospital. These small amounts of clarity helped me feel ever so slightly like I was taking control and it wasn’t taking control of me. The morning we left for the hospital a small parcel turned up with a beautiful baby grow and hat in, sent from our friends. These small gifts we will treasure forever.

Both our Mother’s came to stay for the night before we went back to the hospital on the Tuesday morning, it was a time where we drank copious amounts of tea just hoping one more mug would ease the pain we were all feeling. How as a parent do you watch your children endure such pain?

A close friend came round on the Monday after work to hug and to hold me with my bump one last time before we went back to the hospital the next day. Seeing her the night before broke down that barrier of worry, of what it would be like to see her after Milly was born. What do friends and family say to you? and What do you say to them? Sometimes nothing and a tight squeeze says a thousand words.

The day you stole my heart and changed my life forever
The hardest thing ever to go through is to deliver your un-born child into a world of deafening silence, desperately wanting to hear those new born baby cries. Our daughter, Milly Florence, was born on a Tuesday afternoon at 4.05pm, after being induced at 11am. The labour developed quickly and I ended up with an epidural. I couldn’t cope with knowing what that pain of labour was like when the realities of what we were facing were so unbelievably tough and extremely daunting.

Milly, I was so scared to see you at first… I had no idea what to expect of a baby born at this gestation, but my goodness you were utter perfection. You took our breath away, you were our gorgeous baby girl weighing 635g (1lb.4oz), small but perfectly formed in every way. I was so utterly confused as to how you could be so perfect yet not be alive. We spent one day and a night with you, talking to you, cuddling you, just being a family. We were all in a room away from the labour ward specifically used for parents like us. The time we spent with you was absolutely heartbreaking, but completely perfect, all at the same time. I will forever treasure my time with you, just wishing I could have one more cuddle, one more chat, given you one more kiss. The time was never going to be enough, we should have had a life time to do all these things with you. Saying hello and goodbye in what felt like one breath was the hardest thing we ever did. How did I walk out of that room? How did I shut the door? How did I leave the hospital with a memory box in my arms instead of you? My one regret is that we never took a family photo or a photo with either me or daddy. I think we were just so lost and scared, in a situation we knew nothing about and why the hell would we! You would have expected that our Bereavement mid wife, would have offered guidance to make sure we got as many precious memories as possible! Unfortunately this wasn’t the case.

The smallest of tasks became a big deal
I felt totally lost as to how to even do the smallest of tasks that we take for granted every day. Being able to get out of bed when there was no purpose become a constant battle for me. For quite a while after Milly passed away I would wake up in the morning and for that split second life would seem ‘normal’ then it would hit me like a tone of bricks. This life I was now living was actually my new ‘normal’. Stepping out of the front door become a huge deal. I didn’t want people to talk to me, I didn’t want to bring sadness into other people’s lives or stand in the street and cry. I didn’t want to face families, babies, pregnant women or prams. The noise of the ‘every’ day was deafening.

Quite quickly after we got home I could feel myself becoming withdrawn, not really knowing how to process anything that had happened or understand how people actually survived this. How do you move forward without leaving your baby behind? The house quickly became better stocked with flowers than our local florist shop! I love fresh flowers, but at this point in our life it just hurt so much seeing them, it was a constant reminder that this nightmare we were living was actually our life… this shit had happened to us! I get it… what on earth, as friends and family of a couple who have lost a baby, do you send them? I was grateful for the love and support everybody was showing us, but it made our reality even more real.

What have I learnt about myself
I have learnt a lot about myself over the last 4 years and one thing that I keep coming back to is I am stronger and more resilient than I ever believed I could be. People often say ‘I don’t know how you went through what you did?’. In life we sometimes don’t have a choice but to deal with the cards we are sadly dealt. We weren’t given a choice, that choice was already taken away from us. My only option was to work through all the emotion and heartache one small step at a time, hand in hand with my husband. Finding small ways to rebuild our shattered lives together piece by piece hoping one day in the future the pain would become manageable.

4 years on I can honestly say that the pain has dulled (not gone) and is far more manageable, yes, I still have moments where I am caught off guard, but I have learnt how to manage these.

I hated the phrase back then… “Time is a great healer” it is true and the hardest part of all this was I couldn’t change the speed at which a clock ticked by throughout the day. I just had to hope that this pain would feel more manageable day to day and trust those further on in this journey that they were right… I can honestly say hand on my heart they were.

Hang on in there, have quiet days in your pjs, movie nights in, do whatever it takes to process and start to feel comfortable with the ‘you’ that is now – it’s okay to do what you need to do for you, just take your time.

My darling Milly Florence, I will always be eternally grateful for showing me what unconditional love is, for being our first born, and for allowing me to discover who I truly am. You are in my thoughts every day, our bright and shining star, I just wish so much you were here to share in our life adventure.

Lots of love,
Kat xxx