So today in 2018 was our son Arthur’s due date but he was born sleeping on 1stSeptember 2017. I don’t therefore know what you call today “a scheduled birthday that should have been”??? A Due Date Anniversary?
Confused situation
It feels odd being sad today because if all had gone to plan and he had been born today happy and healthy then we wouldn’t have our little girl Aurora as she was also born later on in 2018.
It is a confused situation entirely. Arthur doesn’t even legally exist as he was born sleeping at 22 weeks old so 2 weeks earlier than the legal requirement for human life however if he had drawn a breath at birth than he would have lived so then would have a birth and death certificate. He never drew breath so he has neither certificate.
Legally he never lived
Even though in the eyes of the law he didn’t exist to us he did. I felt him moving constantly inside me kicking over and over. We saw him somersaulting on scans and constantly moving even if no one else did. We knew him a little and met him whilst he was sleeping. He looked like a miniature version of my hubby with a thick head of dark brown hair. His name sits now underneath his big sisters name on their headstone at her grave. We interred his ashes with his sister Violet so she can look after her baby brother.
Their baby sister is continuing to light up our lives here living up to her name “Goddess of the Dawn” and certainly keeps us on our toes.
Rest in peace my little rocket man; keep kicking those legs making those rainbows up high.
A few weeks ago we were invited into St Mary’s hospital for a pleasant reason for a change. We were one of 180 sets of parents to be invited to attend Tommy’s the Baby Charity’s afternoon tea party for all the rainbow babies born in their care in 2018.
The parents and families (some siblings came along too) and 180 little rainbow babies all born in 2018 gathered together for the first time to celebrate life. It was so magical seeing all the people that had been helped by the charity.
Tommy’s Afternoon tea party for 2018 Rainbow Babies
About Tommy’s
For those of you who aren’t familiar with the charity it was set up to initially help those who had suffered stillbirth and multiple miscarriages. The charity spearheads research into the conditions and looks at preventative measures to try to safeguard pregnancy ensuring a healthy outcome for mother and baby.
Leonardo Di Vinci
This weekend I visited the Leonardo Di Vinci exhibition at Manchester Art Gallery and highly recommend it, as it is amazing. I always knew Leonardo was a genius but I discovered in this exhibition that his work actually led to changing the perception of how babies develop in the womb. He was the one that figured out that the umbilical cord feeds them too. He also discovered that the heart circulates blood around the body in the 1480’s and looked at how it feeds the main organs.
Leonardo’s study of human anatomy and specifically the circulatory system
Without Leonardo we wouldn’t have had the foundation for midwifery and then institutions like Tommy’s. What is a surprise I found is how little we have actually progressed since his discovery in the 1500s as the questions as to why babies die or why women miscarry are still needing to be answered today. Those answers are being discovered thanks to Tommy’s.
Our experience
Tommy’s Manchester clinic offered me careful monitoring during my pregnancy with Aurora, after our 20 week scan. To closely keep an eye on her but also to help me to manage my stress levels too. The aim is for those child loss victims, who have lost several babies, to get reassurance that any issues or changes can be spotted by regular scans. They also checked things like blood flow through the umbilical cord, that the placenta was working ok and checked the Aurora’s growth. Fluid levels in the womb and in my case, because of my broken heart, the blood supply into the womb too.
All of these checks helped to give me peace of mind during what was an extremely stressful and worrying time. I lived life while I was pregnant from one milestone to the next so each 3 weeks until my next scan was a mini countdown. We celebrated after each one gave us positive news. Although it still didn’t make me worry less as of course we had been told previously by experts during Arthur’s pregnancy in early scans that things were ok. We were also told by Violet’s cardiologist that her heart was ok “nothing to worry about” and then it contributed to her death. So to say I was skeptical about what “experts” told me was an understatement but you know what? The Tommy’s experts or as I like to call them Angels were right!
Afternoon tea
So the afternoon tea enabled the midwives, who had taken good care of us, and the head of the Tommy’s clinic Doctor Alex to finally meet Aurora in the flesh. The last time they had seen her she was on a black and white screen during ultra sound scans. It was great for then to finally get to hold and meet her. To find out that the little hyperactive baby on their screens was a fidget in real life too.
Aurora with one of our “Tommy’s Angels”
Tommy’s is a charity
Tommy’s also have places in the Manchester 10k so if any of you out there would like to run for them and raise some money to help others like us then we would be very grateful you can get more information to register here.
Unfortunately with my poor heart health we’re not in a position to be able to take part so we have pledged to raise funds for them after we hit our Alder Hey fund target in some other way instead. Would you come to a tea party in the summer perhaps and help us to thank our Tommy’s angels?
Also make sure you visit the Leonardo Da Vinci exhibition more details click here.
This time of year we find a little tricky because this is the week our baby Arthur was due to be born, and although we marked his official first birthday and day he died in September, I still feel a little tug that says we should be having a first birthday party for him in early January.
Our little boy Arthur
Why is grief harder for a TFMR?
Grieving for Arthur I find harder and more complicated than I do for Violet as the situation is much more complex:
We never knew Arthur not properly. Yes I felt him move and kick inside me (a lot) but we never got to met him alive.
We were the ones who decided to end his life prematurely based on medical facts and delivered him early sleeping. The hardest decision we’ve ever made.
The bittersweet this is that if we hadn’t decided to lose Arthur when we did then we wouldn’t have had Aurora and she wouldn’t be here today. So that is hard to swallow – how can you feel sad about someone who led to the creation of someone else?
Thank you Arthur
Anyway I saw my counselor this week and she said we should thank Arthur for giving us Aurora so tonight we will toast our little boy. She also passed me a really lovely article that was taken from a guy called GSnow’s Reddit account. Some of the original isn’t really relevant to child loss so I have edited it somewhat and also added some of my own words but you can read the full piece he wrote here.
The Bay of Kotor
Grief is like being Ship wrecked
“As for grief, you’ll find it comes in waves. When the ship is first wrecked, you’re drowning, with wreckage all around you. Everything floating around you reminds you of the beauty and the magnificence of the ship that was, and is no more. And all you can do is float. You find some piece of the wreckage and you hang on for a while. Maybe it’s some physical thing. Maybe it’s a happy memory or a photograph. Maybe it’s a person who is also floating for me luckily it was my husband and we clung to each other. Some of my family and friends also floated nearby providing sustenance for us to carry on. For a while, all you can do is float. Stay alive.
At the start
In the beginning, the waves are 100 feet tall and crash over you without mercy. They come 10 seconds apart and don’t even give you time to catch your breath. All you can do is hang on and float. After while, maybe weeks, maybe months, you’ll find the waves are still 100 feet tall, but they come further apart. When they come, they still crash all over you and wipe you out. But in between, you can breathe, you can function. You never know what’s going to trigger the grief. It might be a song, a picture, seeing another young family similar to yours on the street, the sound of a baby crying. It can be just about anything…and the wave comes crashing. But in between waves, there is life.
Eventually…
Somewhere down the line, and it’s different for everybody, you find that the waves are only 80 feet tall. Or 50 feet tall. And while they still come, they come further apart. You can see them coming. An anniversary, a birthday, or Christmas, or a family gathering. You can see it coming, for the most part, and prepare yourself. And when it washes over you, you know that somehow you will, again, come out the other side. Soaking wet, sputtering, still hanging on to some tiny piece of the wreckage, but you’ll come out. Occasionally the wave can come from no where and totally overwhelm you but again you rise up, gasp and breathe again.
The waves never stop coming, and somehow you don’t really want them to. But you learn that you’ll survive them. And other waves will come. And you’ll survive them too.”
Sunset over Auckland
Dianne Oxberry
I started to write and plan this article before I read the sad news today about local BBC newsreader Dianne Oxberry who sadly passed away. I have lots of friends who were her friends and everyone who met her spoke fondly of her, so this article is dedicated to her friends and family. May you ride the storm of grief and find some lovely memories from the beautiful ship to cling to. If you know those close to her please help them to stay afloat. Do this through kindness and compassion.
Big love and hugs,
Sarah x
Always Violet Skies
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