The baby that never arrived

Leo found this photo on my phone earlier this week and he asked me which bump it was, him, Millie or Asher?

How did I respond?

With the truth. I always tell my boys the truth when they ask me questions.

I told him that mummy had another baby in her tummy that died in between me having him and Asher, he was a little confused but then he asked if the baby was with Millie and I responded with, I am sure the baby is and he replied “that’s nice, then the baby isn’t on their own”… and went back to reading his book. So simple for him.

Today would have possibly been that baby’s 3rd birthday as this was my due date in 2017 – the 12th June, this date sits in my the back of my mind all year but the week running up to it is always so tough on my mind, thinking about what could’ve been and what wasn’t.

When I lost this baby in November 2016 through a missed miscarriage, I didn’t handle it very well and pushed all my emotions to the back of mind and threw myself head into life because I’d already lost a child in 2012, a child that was here that I had in my arms for months …. so I could do this, I could manage this easily because it wasn’t going to hurt because no pain could compare to ever losing Millie.

This turned out to be a different pain.

What I didn’t plan for was how I was going to feel on the due date in 2017 … it hit me like a truck, I struggled tremendously all those months later after losing my baby, a second child a lost – but I didn’t see it that way when I miscarried – and I was wrong for that, this baby was just as important to me as Millie but I didn’t understand that at the time.

A miscarriage is so tough. I hadn’t found out whether the baby was a boy or girl, it was just slightly too early, I didn’t know I had lost the baby until I went for a scan because I had THE tiniest spot of blood and then I just had to sit and wait at home … for nearly two weeks for the miscarriage to actually happen .. and that was traumatic, I hadn’t been warned about how awful it would be when it was to happen, I hadn’t been warned about how much pain I would be in, how much blood I would lose and that it would go on for days. I had been given a leaflet; but it didn’t mention any of that.

And then there is now.

I have Asher. And if I hadn’t have miscarried, then Asher wouldn’t be here. So the grief is a double edged sword here … on one end, I still grieve for the baby that I lost in pregnancy but I look at Asher with tears falling down my face and feel guilty for being upset when I he wouldn’t exist if I hadn’t have lost that baby – it’s such a strange set of emotions to be captured in.

When that “positive” shows up on your pregnancy test, you’re a mum – in that one instant second – your whole life changes, you become a mum for the first time or you become a mum to child number two, three or four … what you don’t expect is to lose that baby, your child because that’s what it is – no matter how far along you are when you lose your baby (because it’s not just a pregnancy, it’s your baby), you’re still a mum. You’ve achieved that emotional connection to this tiny seed growing inside you, you’ve imagined what they will look like, you’ve tested out names to go with your surname and you’ve looked at nursery designs for your spare room … and then the baby is gone and all those hopes and dreams for it.

Don’t be afraid to talk about the baby that you lost. Don’t be afraid to remember them. Don’t be afraid to acknowledge their short but meaningful existence because that baby is a part of you and is a part of your lifetime memories

Today, I’ll lay flowers and light a candle on Millie’s place for the baby that I lost in pregnancy, just like I do every year, because like most miscarriages, the babies we lose don’t have somewhere that we can go to remember them and I believe this baby really is up there with my Mills xxx

Written & published 12th June 2020