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Grief

I thought I’d write this post as I’ve been reflecting a lot on my grief journey over the past couple of months. For me, it feels harder than ever. Probably because the realisation that my baby has gone is really sinking in.

Where do I even start. I can honestly say I had no idea grief could be like this. So unpredictable, so consuming. I’ve been fortunate enough to never really experience such emotions. Yes I’ve had grandparents who have passed, but the only thing I ever really felt was sadness. Losing Lottie hasn’t just been about feeling sad. I’ve felt numb, shocked, scared, lost, heartbroken, confusion. And then on the flip side, so much love and thankfulness.

At the very beginning, when Lottie was first born. I was in complete shock. I didn’t cry until the evening. And even then I’m not sure I had quite realised what had happened. Waves of numbness and sadness overwhelmed me at different times. I was in a daze for a good few days, even wondering aimlessly around Tesco whilst Richard tried to guide me around. I didn’t even want an alcoholic drink because it still felt so wrong and disrespectful towards Lottie. My first glass was about 5 days after she was born and I remember making a toast to my baby girl before I could even take a sip.

My first few thoughts in the beginning was based around what the hell is life going to be like now. I was supposed to be having sleepless nights and changing smelly nappies. Now what do I do with myself?!

A week after Lottie was born we went to the Isle of Wight for a few days. This is where I pretty much planned her funeral. I wanted to do something for her, I wanted to make it so special. We cried so much over those few days. Almost taking it in turns to be strong and comfort each other.

We then decided very last minute to fly to Thailand and Vietnam for 3 weeks. We were meant to have our honeymoon in January 2019 but didn’t go because I was 6 months pregnant with Lottie. Richard had 4 weeks of paternity leave and we had to wait 5-6 weeks before Lottie was back from her postmortem, so we decided to go for it. Once we booked I really started to doubt myself. Should we have done this. It felt odd. I wasn’t excited at all like I usually would be for a holiday. Looking at it now, it was definitely a good idea. We didn’t enjoy ourselves as much as we should/could have, but it was an incredible healing and distracting experience whilst we waited for Lottie’s funeral.

Then for the past two months we have been doing a lot of work to our house. As I’m typing we have someone putting together our new kitchen and someone else plastering our bathroom ready for me to attempt my first tiling project! This is obviously helping me distract myself, but I am also conscious that I need to let myself feel, think and grieve. Pushing thoughts and feelings away will only make things worse. Which is why I have also been seeing a counsellor for the past few months.

I actually think I’m quite good at seeing the bigger picture. I’m conscious of my mental health as much as I can be and I know I need to look after it in anyway I can. I come from a family who suffers with anxiety and depression which I think probably helps my outlook. That being said, my counsellor has helped me view myself in a different light. She did this whole speech about me recently and what I have done for Lottie, all whilst I had my eyes closed. It was one of the most overwhelming things I have ever heard. So much so, I couldn’t stop crying for about 20 minutes. She made me realise that I’m trustworthy, loyal, respectful and caring. I guess I kind of knew these traits already, but for someone to tell you all of these all at once, it makes it real.

I always thought grief was a journey that lasted a few months maximum. Yes you’d miss that person forever but that slowly life would get easier and then go back to ‘normal’. I have now realised over the last month or so is that this isn’t the case. My grief journey is going to last forever. Lottie’s death is going to be something that stays with me. This has probably been the most scariest things to accept. My life really is never going to be the same again.

Organising my baby’s funeral

So I haven’t wrote a new blog for a while. It’s been quite a hard few weeks to be completely honest. But that’s for another blog.

I wanted to share my experience on organising a funeral for your own child. Obviously it was heartbreaking and something I would never want anyone to ever experience; however for me it was something I could do for Lottie. I wanted to make it as special as I could for her. Everything had to have meaning.

The hardest part of organising were the songs. Three songs had to be chosen for entry, reflection and exit. How are you suppose to choose a song for someone who had never even heard music. I didn’t know her favourite song and I had no songs that reminded me of her. I decided to Google songs relating to my experience. It’s surprising how many songs actually existed. Artists singing about their own experiences of stillbirth or miscarriage. Thanks to the angel Mummy’s on the internet I found two powerful songs that I had never actually heard of. The first was ‘Smallest Wingless by Craig Cardiff‘, and the second ‘Precious Child by Kenny Wright‘. The third song I also came across online but knew already. They say you shouldn’t choose a song that you would hear playing on the radio, just in case it catches you off guard in the future. Mariah Carey is often heard on the radio but luckily her song ‘Bye Bye‘ was not one of them. This song is a little more broad in relation to grief, but I thought it was perfect to use as the exit song. Worth a listen when you’re not in public!

Next to organise were the poems. This is where members of family or even friends can read aloud. The first poem was called ‘These are my footprints‘, which we decided would be read by the celebrant who conducted the service for us. The poem actually reads as though Lottie herself wrote it.

The second poem, I knew for a fact that I was going to be the one to read. Especially once I found it. Whether I balled my eyes out in front of everyone or not, it was something I wanted to do. Needed to do. I practised and practised, trying to make sure I didn’t mess it up on the day.

My Little Angel
I felt your presence there inside of me,
nestled soft and warm,
sweet scent of baby’s breath,
precious words left unadorned.
I saw your tiny heartbeat,
then I knew that you were fine,
a perfect baby we created,
one that would be mine.
Then that tragic day it came,
there was nothing I could do,
only wait and hope,
for the precious life of you.
Yes in the beginning,
your daddy was afraid,
only he would love you unconditional,
and never run away.
He loved you more this I do know,
as he cried for you that day,
when the doctor said that you were,
daddy wanted you to stay.
He would have held you close to him,
and see your perfect form,
a gift of daddy’s love,
would have kept you safe and warm.
Only now you are an angel over me,
beautiful and bare,
my heart would hurt if you cried for me,
and mummy was not there.
Still we are together in my heart and memory,
you are still apart of my memory.
Rest gentle now sweet baby there is no pain,
you are never alone,
I know you are with the guiding angels,
in your peaceful home.
I will come with you someday,
only now is not my time,
then we will be together again,
again you will be mine.

Next on the list were the flowers. Now as far as I’m aware, most people choose the standard lilies and roses because that is what is traditional for funerals. However, I wanted to make sure everything was perfect so did lots of research on options before I decided. Luckily, my Mum’s friend is trained in floristry, so she was able to make the floral letters and sheaf to top her coffin. They went especially to the flower market to search for the flowers I had picked:

English Lavender (Lavandula anguvstifolia) – Nicknamed Little Lottie
White Lillies – for purity
Gypsophila Paniculata – Nicknamed babies breath – for innocence & purity
White & Pink Carnations – for innocence, pure love, remembrance & a mothers love
Daisies – for love, innocence & purity
White roses – for silence & innocence

I also wanted a garland to wrap around her coffin. Unfortunately, my Mum’s friend has never worked with garlands so we went to a local florist for this.

One of the things I debated with for a while was dress code. I’m quite traditional when it comes to formal wear, however we decided that if people wanted to, rather than wearing all black they could also wear some pink. I managed to find a nude coloured dress in H&M, whereas Richard wore a black suit with a pink tie.

The rest of the decisions were made in the funeral directors. Now I didn’t know this but most funeral directors offer free services for funerals of children under 16 (some are under 18). We were offered a plain white coffin, but for me it felt a little impersonal and cold. We really wanted a wicker type basket, firstly because it also looked like a Moses basket and secondly, because it was eco friendly. Luckily we were able to upgrade and to be honest, it wasn’t much money at all!

The day before the funeral, we popped by the directors to pay the final small fee as well as viewing the casket. I did want to see Lottie herself but I left the decision up to the funeral directors. After all, it had been 6 weeks since her death. As expected, they suggested that we didn’t see her. But what shocked me was that she also said she didn’t want to get her changed into the little pink dress and cardigan we had brought her, as she didn’t want to move her. For me, this is when it really hit home. We then spent roughly 15 emotional minutes just sitting with her.

The day of the funeral went fairly smoothly. We got picked up in the car and sat with Lottie in-between me and my husband. The journey only took about 15 minutes and once there we had to wait for the previous service to end. Richard decided to get out the car and walk over to our family and friends. I wanted a few more moments with my little girl. I think I only lasted a couple of minutes before it all became really overwhelming. I decided to join Richard and go and greet everyone. I couldn’t help but ball my eyes out the whole way over.

During the service, I managed to read my poem aloud without messing up. I think I had two or three moments where I just needed to breath through the words, but other than that, I’m really proud I managed to read it for Lottie. Family members also commented on how well I did.

We then hosted the wake at our house. Going to a pub or a community hall just didn’t feel right. We were also able to play a slideshow of photos of Lottie and my pregnancy. It was nice to show her off to everyone. Not how I had planned, but at least I was able to do it in someway.

Although totally heartbreaking, organising my daughters funeral was very therapeutic for me. I had all these motherly instincts/hormones that my mind and body needed to react on and this was a way to do that. I really hope I made Lottie proud and most importantly, I hope she knows how loved she is.

Why was my baby stillborn?

I’m yet to explain why our daughter was stillborn. And the truth is, in the beginning there were no clues as to why. When she was born, both Lottie and the placenta looked perfect. No signs of the umbilical cord being wrapped around her, no blood clots on the placenta, no nothing. We were clueless. The midwifes and doctors included.

We were given the option of having a post mortem carried out on Lottie. In the beginning I couldn’t think of anything worse. I didn’t want anyone opening up my baby and prodding her about. But Richard was for it and so were the midwifes. If we didn’t do it, we would never know what happened to her, whether it could have been prevented and whether it could happen to us again. For the sake of our future children, I agreed. However, I was convinced that we were never going to know why.

On the 14th June, almost 2 months after Lottie was born, I received a call from the hospital. The results were in and the consultant could see us the following Friday to discuss. It was at this point that my anxiety rocketed. I was finally going to know whether or not they had found anything to do with my babies death.

Going back to the hospital was awful. We were taken to a more private part but we still had to enter the same entrance as all the pregnant woman and their families. I remember the consultant’s colleague trying to find us a comfortable room whilst telling other staff members that we were there for a ‘special appointment’. Every single person said, ‘oooo special appointment?!’ like it was a good thing. If only they knew.

When we first saw the consultant, I recognised him straight away. He was the same one that was called into the hospital when I was in labour and told us that he was so sorry but our baby had died. I’m not sure whether I felt anger or comfort in seeing his face.

He began with the positives. There was nothing wrong with Lottie. She was the right size, she had all the right features and body parts with no abnormalities, including her genetics. And then he gave us the negatives.

Upon further examination, the placenta was found to have an abnormality. Delayed chorionic villous maturation. i.e. the placenta starved Lottie of oxygen at the very last minute. This is then called intrauterine hypoxia.

Delayed chorionic villous maturation is commonly seen is people with diabetes, obesity or excessive weight gain during pregnancy. Intrauterine hypoxia is then associated with smoking, air pollution, prematurity and multiple births.

None of the above is applicable to me, which has obviously raised more questions than we had in the first place. Most of which no one can answer because there is not enough research on the condition. They only know about the condition if something goes wrong, i.e. the baby dies.

I now have a 5% chance of this happening again and I’m going to be considered high risk next time I fall pregnant. This means further scans and lots more midwife/consultant appointments, but the truth is, none of this will pick up the abnormality if it occurs again. Yes 5% is fairly low, but its also a lot higher than the percentage I was when I got pregnant with Lottie.

The future will be full of anxiety, but we won’t let this stop us from trying for a brother or sister for Lottie.

A letter to my daughter

*TRIGGER WARNING* you may cry.

Dear Lottie,

There is so much I want to say to you. So much I never realised I would ever need to say to you.

I wish you could be here with me now. I want to breathe in your baby scent. Place my finger in your grasping palms. Hold you close to me, skin to skin. All the little things a mother should be taking for granted.

Our time together was short lived. For almost 9 months you grew in my belly. All you could do was dream of the outside world. I hope I kept you warm, safe, happy. Know I would have done everything in my power to keep life that way if you were here in the outside world.

I loved you from the moment I knew you were there. And I loved you even more as each day passed.I felt your kicks, punches and stretches. Those little hands and feet were powerful!

And then I actually birthed you! I felt you. I held you. I inspected every part of you that I could in order to remember you exactly as you are. My perfect daughter.

I’ve been asked if its babies or pregnant bellies that make me upset the most. But it’s neither. It’s seeing the innocence of little girls and knowing that you’ll never grow to be that age or height. You won’t reach the milestones that every healthy child is suppose to meet. And this makes me so sad. Not for be but for you. To watch you fall in love with the world and its beauty would have been the most amazing sight to see.

I wish I could have taught you your first word, how to spell your name, how to count to 10. But instead it was you that taught me so much in such a small amount of time. I thought I was a decent human being before you. But after you I consider myself humbled, more understanding and in awe of life itself. Yes it brings us death, which is probably the most painful things to ever witness. But all the best things in life are never easy. And for your life and death to have brought me so much love, I’ll forever be grateful.

Please know that every single birthday and christmas I will celebrate with you. You will never be forgotten and I will never stop speaking your name. When your future brother(s) and/or sister(s) arrive into this world, I will let them know how your little being brightened our world. We will talk to you as often as we can. If you’re listening, we will know. You may not be seen but you will be felt. In our hearts and in our souls, we’ll know you’re there.

From the bottom of my broken heart, all my love, your Mummy xoxo

My labour story

This an unapologetically raw and honest account of my labour story.

In 2017, my Husband Richard (then Boyfriend) and I decided that we wanted to start trying for a baby. Little did I know (I’m lying, it was obvious haha) Richard was to propose to me on my birthday that September.

As a typical girl, I threw myself into wedding planning and decided to temporarily hold off getting pregnant. Partly because I didn’t want to be a fat bride (haha) but also because I wanted to be able to have a drink… or ten!

Just 8 months later, we married in a gorgeous field with our closest family and friends surrounding us. We almost immediately started trying for a baby.

I had previously downloaded the app ‘Flo’ and began religiously checking on my chance of getting pregnant, both on and around my ovulation days. I fell pregnant just two months later! We were both so happy and a little scared!

Over the next 9 months I probably had what you would call a “textbook pregnancy”. I had nausea in the first trimester, I started growing a little bump around week 15 and I felt exhausted, swollen and huge during the third trimester. I did have a few extra scans and blood tests, just to be on the safe side for a few minor “concerns”. However, everything always came back perfect. Our baby was happy and healthy.

On the 15th April 2019 at approx 8pm, I started getting a bit of a stomach ache. Not thinking too much about it as I had actually been feeling very bloated throughout the day, I just took myself to the toilet. Without going in to too much detail, I’m usually quite quick on the loo. However, 10-15 minutes later I still found myself on the toilet. This is where I begun questioning whether this was more than just a stomach ache. I was 39 weeks and 2 days pregnant at this stage and all everyone tells you whilst your pregnant is that your first child is always late! So as you can imagine, I did have a lot of doubt in my mind about whether this was in fact labour. However, after another 20 minutes or so, Richard called the pregnancy advice line just to make sure. Within minutes the pain got a lot worse and the Midwife confirmed that it sounded as though I was in labour! At this point she told me to take a warm bath and a few paracetamols, and then call her back when my contractions increased to three within a 10 minute period. We called her back within half an hour! She then told us to make our way to the hospital’s birth centre.

By the time we got to the hospital it was 10pm. As soon as I arrived I was examined by a student midwife. She checked the baby’s heart rate, my blood pressure and how dilated I was. I was actually 4cm at this stage, which is quite surprising as I’d only been in labour for 2 hours. For those of you that don’t know, anything from 4cm is classed as “active labour”. Meaning I was allowed to stay at the hospital!

They then took us to one of the birthing rooms, where I started labouring on a bean bag as it was apparently too early to use the birthing pool. Let me tell you now, this was the most uncomfortable way to labour! I was offered gas and air at this stage but I refused because I already felt a bit sick and have heard women vomit after using this as pain relief. Luckily I didn’t have to wait too long and was soon allowed in the birthing pool.

My contractions by now were coming in pairs. I would have a 40 second contraction, a 20 second break, another 40 second contraction and then a 2/3 minute break before it all started again. As you can imagine, this was pretty exhausting and my body was forcing me to take mini naps during each break. I remember thinking I needed some form of pain relief but my body literally wouldn’t let me speak.

At around 2/2.30am, I started feeling a little more pressure. The student midwife had just popped out of the room when this happened, so Richard pressed the help button thinking that baby was arriving now! Another midwife popped in to check on me and then the student midwife came back in. They decided to check in on babies heart rate, which they had been doing every 15 minutes or so. After trying for several minutes, she decided that baby must have moved and that it was nothing to worry about. I would just need to get out of the birth pool where they could examine me and also find a new position in order to find babies heart rate again. It did take a little while for me to get out of the pool due to how quickly I was contracting, however once out they checked on my dilation (8-9cm) and decided to use a different doppler monitor to measure baby’s heart rate. After a full 40 minutes from losing baby’s heart rate, they then decided to wheel me upstairs to the labour ward to get scanned.

I should probably mention that as well as Richard, my mum, dad and sister were also at the hospital at this point. They were understandably getting very worried at this stage but all the midwifes seemed very calm.

Richard was the only one allowed upstairs with me. I remember being taken to a room and placed on a bed where they scanned my belly. There must have been about 7 or 8 people in the room, either staring at the monitor or helping me breathe through contractions. After what seemed like forever, one of the doctors told me that they couldn’t locate a heart beat but that they were calling in the consultant. This took approximately 15 minutes as he wasn’t located on site during the night. After a few minutes of him looking at the screen, he looked us in our eyes and told us that he was so sorry, but our baby had passed.

I’m not even sure if I said anything to him at that stage. It all felt like a dream. I always thought I’d be in control of my mind and voice at all times, but it was like some weird out of body experience. But then the contractions continued and I was brought back to reality.

As I mentioned above, I hadn’t had any pain relief up until then but as soon as I heard that my baby had died I wanted it all. I couldn’t continue anymore. What was the point?! I think I actually even voiced this to Richard at the time. Unfortunately I was told that it was too late for an epidural. The time they would have administered it our baby would be arriving.

I’m really not sure how I did it all after that. If it wasn’t for Richard and the amazing midwifes in the room encouraging me to push, I’m not sure how I would have coped. You can never imagine what giving birth is actually like. I can still hear my own screams.

On the 16th April 2019 at 4:08am, our precious Lottie was born. Stillborn. But still born. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to see her. What would she look like?! However, I just couldn’t help myself and looked down the bed where the midwifes were checking her over. Our beautiful baby girl, born looking as though she was peacefully sleeping.

About me

My name is Kaylie. I’m 26 years old and I’m Mummy to a beautiful little baby girl called Lottie Jane Paulin, who’s soul is sadly in heaven rather than here on earth.

This blog is mainly for me to get the words out of my head and on to paper (or a computer screen in this situation). However, it’s also here to raise awareness on the taboo topic that is stillbirth.

If you’re reading this, welcome to my healing journey. I’m going to talk non stop about Lottie and our journey…