Category: Heartbreak

Our second rainbow

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This was the best kept secret, until recently, as anyone can testify if they have bumped into me. At 34 weeks pregnant with my third pregnancy I’m now pretty big.

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Not very honest

Those of you who regularly read my blog you will know that I like to write in a very honest and frank way. I apologise if I haven’t been forthcoming about this massive development in my life. I hope that after reading this post you can understand why.

Third pregnancy

We were lucky enough to fall pregnant again with our second rainbow pretty soon after the loss of our baby Arthur. Unfortunately were told that there would be a 50/50 chance of the new baby having similar brain issues, as it’s older brother. We wouldn’t know if it had these issues until the 20 week scan.  So we would have to wait 5 months until we knew if our pregnancy would be viable or not.

The scans

In the meantime we were of course offered additional scans so we had one at 7 weeks, 12 weeks and another at 16 weeks where they checked baby’s heart.  At the 16-week check we discovered that unlike Violet’s heart the new baby’s heart was perfectly formed. We had received this news about Arthur’s heart at 16-weeks too.  So although it was good news we weren’t celebrating yet.

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Baby at 12 week scan

Arthur’s scan

I remember after our 16-week scan with Arthur we had been so happy that his heart was ok. We felt so lucky, relieved and excited we told friends and family we were pregnant.  Everyone of course was delighted for us, especially after the loss of Violet. Then after Arthur’s 20-week scan we got the devastating news about his severe brain condition and our entire world collapsed.

Kept this one quiet

For this very reason we refrained from telling our close friends about the new pregnancy until after our 20 week scan.  This scan turned out to be the very first 20 week scan we have ever had that hasn’t resulted in us being pulled into a separate room. To be spoken to by specialists and midwife counsellors.  The first 20-week scan we have had that hasn’t resulted in us having to have a second follow up scan with a more senior specialist a week later. 

So when the two specialists that performed our 20-week scan told us the baby was perfectly healthy we didn’t know what to say.  We were in total shock.  We were asked if we had any questions and all we could think of was “what do we do now?” We were told we could leave and come back for another scan with a specialist at 28 weeks.

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Baby at 20 weeks refusing to have a photo taken turning away!

A mistake?

Since then we have been waiting for a phone call or letter from the hospital to say that they are sorry but they have made a mistake.  We had the second specialist scan at 28 weeks and again we prepared ourselves for the knock out punch. That didn’t come, again we were given positive news.  To anyone reading this we must sound ungrateful. We were just so used to being given bad news whether it was devastating or minor bad news that we almost couldn’t believe what we were hearing.

More scans

We currently have a minimum of one baby or pregnancy related appointment each week. Either to monitor my heart (as I have an ASD see my post about a broken heart). To check baby’s growth (the amazing Tommy’s clinic gives us a scan every 3 weeks). Child loss counseling or midwife appointments.  I’m under so many different departments and teams that we have gone from having an horrendous level of obstetric care when we had Violet to now having lots of specialists who all know who we are and will give us priority level care.  The NHS now feels like it is working for us!

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With my sister at the baby shower she & my sister-in-law kindly organised for me

Trying to be hopeful

I’ve recently been to a few different Manchester events and I’ve bumped into so many people now that I think most know about our impending arrival.  People constantly ask me whether I’m excited about the new baby. The truthful answer is simply that I will be relieved when baby is here safe and well, when I can see with my own eyes.  Until then I can only try to be hopeful for the future.

Thanks for reading.

Sarah

Always Violet Skies x

by Categories: 20 week scan, family, Heartbreak, Scans, UncategorizedTags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 5 Comments

Surviving after Child Loss

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Whilst I was sat on a train heading to Glasgow earlier this week I decided to write a few blog posts touching on subjects people have been curious about.

How do you cope with losing a child?

People often ask me about how we coped with losing Violet and about the techniques we employed to try to help ourselves get through this time.

Force yourself to do things

We tried to remember what we enjoyed about life when our daughter was still with us. We focused on making ourselves do these things even though we didn’t want to and certainly didn’t have the motivation.

It all began with us still going on a mini-break to the Lake District only a few weeks after she had died.  A break we had already planned and paid for when our daughter was still alive.  That trip was an extremely hard one for us and we only stayed there for the bare minimum of time. 

We also had lunch at L’Enclume that I had arranged as a belated birthday surprise for my hubby months earlier.  We just went through the motions and returned home early on the final day as we felt lost.

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Cartmel, Lake District

What did you enjoy before?

The things we had enjoyed doing as a family trio were travel. Violet was a true jetsetter and travelled more in her short life then many adults do in theirs. We also liked dining out in new places. 

Admittedly the fondness for dining out was more mine and my hubby’s as Violet disliked food although she did enjoy people watching.  She was always good as gold too preferring to use high chairs to rest her books on for reading. She often got praised by staff for how clean and well behaved she was.    

I work in travel and hospitality PR so my work has always channeled my passion but I felt as though this love had disappeared with Violet.

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Violet watching the Snoopy film on the flight to New Zealand at 7 months old

After the initial Lake District trip we continued to make sure we planned and booked other things in advance. Then we had less chance of being able to back out and change our minds at the last minute.  Don’t get me wrong there were quite a few dinner reservations we made and then couldn’t be bothered going to. Or arrangements with friends we had to back out of as we simply couldn’t face it.

Remember to mark anniversaries

We jointly decided that we should focus on ensuring, despite our misery, that we booked restaurants or mini-breaks for anniversaries and birthdays.  We encouraged each other to make an effort to keep the reservation. We often found that only one of us would wobble and want to back out of plans.  So we worked as a team to persuade each other knowing that it was for the best in the long run.

Book things in advance

We planned trips to places we had already wanted to visit but only for a few days at a time. We knew a big trip would be too much for us.  Places like Florence in Italy for Valentine’s day. Bilbao in Spain to visit the Guggenheim. Montenegro to escape for Violet’s anniversary. Morocco to escape Arthur’s due date etc.

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Sunset in Bilbao, Spain

Slowly but surely after nearly 2 years I can now talk again about travel being a passion of mine without instantly feeling guilty about it. Now I realise that this was also a passion of my daughters and something she would still relish if she was alive today.  I also embraced a new hobby for photography, especially landscape and architecture.  All the photos in this blog are mine.

Always a work in progress

I’ve not yet gotten there with the dining out thing. I’m still fond of food and work in hospitality however we don’t dine out as a couple anywhere near as much as we used to.   I know in time we will and this will be easier too. 

To the “friend” that said to us after Violet died “well at least you can now travel whenever you like and dine out whenever you like”. Well we did travel and dine whenever we liked with Violet. She loved it and we can nearly do this again without pangs of guilt and imagining what she’d have thought of it/been like in these places. Every day is tough.  It’s not as easy as “at least you don’t have to arrange a babysitter” that we’re constantly told by people.

Hang in there with everything in life some things take practice.

Love Sarah

Always Violet Skies x

by Categories: bilbao, eating out, family, Florence, Food, Heartbreak, restaurant, Tasting menu, UncategorizedTags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Anniversaries of loss

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Anniversaries after loss are always really hard for all those family & friends who were close to the loved one.

Commemoration

Talking from experience it really does help when others remember our cherished one on this day and when they commemorate their memory in some way, it reassures us that their legacy will live on.

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Never forgotten

Our worst fear is that our much loved child, brother, sister, mum, dad, family member or friend is forgotten so today take the time, observe the silence at 2.30pm today, light a candle, say a prayer or just give a thought to all those who lost their lives in the Manchester bomb last year and know by doing that you are fulfilling the wish of their families and friends in that they are not forgotten.

We will not forget them. Bee strong everyone. 💜🐝

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by Categories: anniversary, family, Heartbreak, Not forgotten, UncategorizedTags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

The Light at the end of the Tunnel?

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Well we’re very nearly there as this week hopefully our nearly two year long battle for answers about what happened to our daughter Violet and caused her untimely death will come to the fore.

Inquest

Ever since she died suddenly on 26th September 2016 we have been chasing hospitals, lodging complaints, hounding for the release of medical records, researching the strange medical terminology and random disease mentions that appear in her post mortem report and waiting for the coroner to finally set a date for the inquest hearing. Finally after over 18 months we got a date and it is this week.

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Will this be the light at the end of our tunnel?  (photos taken beneath a glacier in Iceland)

AvMA

Fortunately a legal charity called AvMA have now agreed to support us with a barrister to act as our mouthpiece during the hearing and she will ask questions on our behalf. We are so relieved about this as were dreading having to question witnesses ourselves. She has also offered to read out my witness statement on my behalf and this has lifted a lot of my dread, as I was worried it would be too traumatic to stand and relive these moments in the courtroom although I know some parents can find this somewhat cathartic.

Questions for barristers

My husband and I spent time this weekend drafting questions for our barrister that we would ideally like to be addressed and it is traumatic thinking again about our precious daughter’s last days and moments. Running through all the “what ifs” in our heads that we know may or may not be answered with any certainty.

Violet on 26th Sept 2016

Stress and worry

The stress and worry about this week has actually given me a mental block to my writing so apologies for no recent insightful blog posts.

I do have lots of lovely more uplifting things to write about and post, involving travel to amazing places but at the moment these seem too trivial and frivolous to me to be able to focus on when we have more serious emotional events looming.

Stay tuned and I’ll hopefully be able to check in with you all in a week’s time having discovered the light at the end of the tunnel.

Love Sarah

Always Violet Skies x

by Categories: family, Heartbreak, stress, UncategorizedTags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

A Literal Broken Heart

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When I was a teenager and even throughout my twenties I would talk about having a broken heart over an unrequited love or a relationship break up. Later on once I hit my thirties my parents 38-year marriage came to a sudden end and again I was “heart broken”. The world as I knew it ceased to exist. Then my beloved dog Max died suddenly that Christmas Eve and I was “heart broken” again.

Heart broken

It seems heartache and being “heart broken” is a familiar feeling that us humans often talk about but what I have experienced in the last few years shows that everything is relative and you can only compare the experiences you have been through personally. If you are fortunate to have only ever suffered the break up of a relationship then you will know this to be your worst emotional pain. If you have lost a relative or pet then this might be the worst pain imaginable.

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Max

Losing a dog/ best friend

After I lost my amazing dog Max I decided that I probably wouldn’t have another as the pain and grief after losing him I felt was unbearable, so I couldn’t face ever putting myself through that again.

Mother to a heart baby

Six years later I became a mother to Violet who was born with a heart defect. She had to be rushed into open heart surgery at four days old, the stress and anxiety during those nine hours she was under the knife was at the time I thought unbearable. We were so relieved afterwards when we were told her heart was a perfect fix.

Me & Violet at Alder Hey
Reunited for the first time in several days after she was transferred to Alder Hey in Liverpool & I was still at St Mary’s in Manchester.  Cuddles before heart surgery.

Anxiety

Every time she had to go to hospital for a heart check up of course we were stressed again praying all would be ok and it always was, until she was rushed into hospital with suspected pneumonia in September 2016. The anxiety during those ten days in hospital was again almost unbearable. I even told friends that there was nothing worse than watching your child poorly. Being tortured whilst doctors inject them/take samples and attach them to drips and there being nothing you can do to relieve their pain.

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Violet during her time in Manchester Children’s Hospital in the days before she died

Death of a child

Then suddenly she died. Our precious daughter died. We then discovered a totally new level of pain and heartache that we had never even come close to before. Every other type of “heartache” I had experienced in my life until this moment paled in comparison. I actually felt my world had truly come to an end and the pain then and now is still sometimes unbearable. But bear it we do, as we have no choice in the matter.  It is indescribable to anyone who hasn’t gone through it and unimaginably scary to those of you who have children who are alive.

Metaphorical and physical

Anyway within six months of Violet’s death I discovered that not only do I have a metaphorical “broken heart” but I was diagnosed with an actual physical broken heart too. It was discovered that I have what they call an ASD or hole in between the top two chambers of my heart. I have a truly broken heart both physically and emotionally. How ironic?

Perspective

So life wise I guess the positive take on all of this is that it has helped us (my family) to put things into perspective. We no longer stress about the small things in life anymore and I tell myself that, at the end of the day, I have been through the worst thing imaginable, so everything else, including possible open heart surgery on myself is easy in comparison.

Dexter
Dexter

Everything is relative

Nine years after the loss of my beloved dog Max we adopted a two-year-old German Shepherd, as I now realise that I can cope with the loss of a pet if I can somehow survive the loss of two children. So we welcomed Dexter to our family and we now have a giant fur baby to look after who gives us unconditional love. What’s not to love about that, even if it only lasts for 8 years? It is relative after all and we have chosen to live in the present moment, as who knows if a bus will hit us tomorrow, so make the most of today folks always.

Love Sarah x

by Categories: Heartbreak, UncategorizedTags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment