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Loss

Loss

Competitive grief

Significant dates have a way of making you stop and reflect.  To think about what has been and what may be to come. Setting intentions and hopes and remembering what you are grateful for, as well as acknowledging what causes pain and suffering.

It was unfortunate that the flow of reflection that May brings from me was well and truly intercepted by my first real experience of what I have come to know as trolling.  For it to happen on that date of Orla’s death, on a post that described my feelings about that, was not ideal to say the least.  At first it didn’t bother me, but as the interactions continued and became more personal, I felt that I had no option but to block and delete.  I was never going to be able to have a fair and balanced conversations with someone who saw fit to minimise and criticise my grief and my parenting.

Yet some of the messages underpinning the actual words were important and I feel they are unspoken within social media communities.  I sometimes wonder if I am protected from receiving more criticism because my baby died; because people are potentially more likely to jump to my defence and say that it is unfair to say things to a bereaved mother that could potentially cause pain. But does this leave me in a particularly dangerous position?  One where I think I can get away with saying and posting what I want without fear of being called out?
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May 22, 2018 by
Loss, Mental health and wellbeing

Somewhere over the rainbow….PND sadly still exists

I’m not sure where you even start with a post such as this; it’s hard to know whether there even is a beginning, and I certainly haven’t reached the end yet, so I guess it’s a case of starting from where I am now.
 
I have been experiencing postnatal depression.
 
If I’m honest, these are the most challenging, the most shaming and gut wrenching words I have written since Orla died.  They are possibly more riddled with shame because I feel terrified of being judged, blamed and seen as selfish, weak and inferior.  When your baby dies, you know that many people will feel sad for you.  Of course, you fear that there will be a multitude of other thoughts and emotions, but overall, you know that people will feel sadness and regret.  When it comes to mental health however, you can never be so sure.
 
And when this occurs in the context of parenting a rainbow, the fear of being viewed as ungrateful and unworthy is paralysing.  Which in itself becomes a self-perpetuating cycle of self-loathing and inadequacy.
 
After Orla died, I became a ‘doer’.  I got up every day, I showered, I cleaned the house – I even cooked (damn you Gusto for signing up a vulnerable heavily pregnant woman who thought she’d spend the first weeks of maternity leave cooking nutritious meals!).  I made keepsakes to treasure memories of Orla, I wrote and set up a blog and we planned our fundraising trip to America.  Three months after Orla died, we flew to Canada.  Two weeks later I feel pregnant.  We spent the first trimester of my pregnancy travelling down the East Coast of the US and then Canada, and when we returned to the UK three months later, I went back to work for five months.  I did yoga, I completed a mindfulness course, I saw friends.  I was coping so well. Continue Reading

January 8, 2018 by
Loss

#SleepOnSide and save babies lives

 
Today, Tommy’s release their new campaign, #SleepOnSide, which aims to empower women to change their sleep position in order to ensure safer pregnancies and to reduce the rates of stillbirth.
 
When we found out that Orla had died at 37 weeks, we were told there and then not to expect any answers as to why.  I don’t think I had even had the opportunity to wipe the gel from my stomach following that devastating ultrasound before we were being delivered this blow.  We were advised that it was ‘just one of those things’, that sadly babies can die suddenly and without any known cause.  The initial hours that followed those moments in the labour ward triage room were a blur, but I will always remember the utter confusion that this could happen to healthy babies; that they could die – just like that.
 
And although Orla’s post-mortem did indeed find no answers, I did not believe, and continue not to believe, that there was no reason for her death.  There must be a reason, but sadly medical science has yet to find out exactly why babies die and therefore why the UK stillbirth rates remain atrociously high.  Coming from a healthcare background, I understand the political issues that underlie funding for services and research: those who shout the loudest are the ones that catch the attention of government and therefore the money.  And because stillbirth remains shrouded in silence and shame, the amount of funding is limited and therefore the questions remain unanswered. Continue Reading

November 20, 2017 by
Loss

Belonging

Humans are social beings; we like to belong to a group.  We need to feel included, connected and to have people who we feel allied with.  Friendship, work, social and hobby groups; we find comfort and affiliation with those who have common ground, those with similar likes and dislikes and those who we feel will ‘get us’.  People with whom you can be yourself and share your thoughts and feelings on a subject, and whilst they might not necessarily always agree, they will likely understand at least where you’re coming from.
 
We all want to belong.
 
And it is this sense of belonging that I have struggled with since the moment that Orla died.  In which group did I sit?  I quickly exited the NCT WhatsApp group chat because I couldn’t bring myself to share our news in the midst of other joyful live birth announcements, and we were never in contact again.  I was clearly no longer part of a group that was going to be my ‘mummy crew’.  I had no friends who had experienced a similar loss, so I felt somehow distanced and separated from those I loved the most.  I could no longer even look at pregnant women in the street and share a knowing smile, because I was no longer in their team.  Baby loss is excruciatingly painful exclusion that permeates almost every aspect of your life. Continue Reading

October 14, 2017 by
Loss, Mental health and wellbeing

Regret me not: Coping with regrets in life after loss

 
Regret; the sense of sadness or repentance for having done or not done something.
 
I carry an overwhelming sense of regret in this life I live after loss, and it is something that can be a heavy burden to bear.  After all, there is no going back, no changing what has been done or not done.  Orla has gone, there is no way of getting her back and no way of making new memories with her physical presence in place of ones that we were not able to do.  Death is final.
 
There are many things that I feel incredibly proud of, maybe more so in what we have undertaken since Orla died; her letters, the fundraising, the blog.  Yet there are so many things that I wish I could have done differently.  One of the biggest regrets will always be the overwhelming sense that I failed Orla and potentially could have saved her.  This undoubtedly goes further than regret and fast tracks to heart crushing guilt and shame.  This is not just a tinge of sadness or sorrow, this is full blown rage at myself that I can only sometimes allow myself to unleash, through fear of how it will consume me.  This is mum guilt at its absolute extreme: the feeling that I could have, should have, saved her and in not doing so I am not fit to award myself the title of mother.  Mothers protect their children and I somehow allowed mine to die. Continue Reading

October 11, 2017 by