Day 113 – How do you survive Stillbirth?

Friday 2nd November

answer, how ever the hell you want! There are no how to guides on how to deal with loosing something you made, something so precious, loved and wanted, before you even get to hold them.

There are so many books written about it, lots of people share their experiences, lots of people blog like me. My blog isn’t aimed to help people survive, if aimed to help people feel less alone, but really this blog is for me.

I have spent ALOT if time trying to protect myself. Avoiding things, planing to the point that I am at less risk of being exposed. People ask me are you going to do this or that.. nope! I constantly hurt, I will do anything I can to make sure I don’t hurt anymore than I need to.

People are like – you are so strong – am I, what the other option? Please list them below.. What if I don’t want to be strong? Am I strong to stop people feeling uncomfortable? Or am I strong because that’s just how it goes. I don’t feel strong and I hate when people say to me, your so strong, yeah you want to climb inside this head with me? This isn’t strong, this is surviving. Am I strong because I haven’t given up on life? do people who haven’t suffered loss struggle to imagine how you survive finding out your baby’s heart stopped beating before you got to hold them? I dunno.

I have been speaking to a SANDS be-friender, she a friend of a friend, I have been struggling this last few weeks with “what’s next” . Is it reassuring that she felt the same, and she okay now, with her rainbow babies and life? I dunno.. there is no guarantee.

I was watching a program that had a feature of the day of the dead, that the vale between this world and the spirt world is thin, like they walk and live along side us, in a parallel universe. I chose to believe this, I chose to believe that my gran visits me regularly with Findley, that’s she pushes him in his pram and rocks him to sleep. That she tells him all about his amazing mummy, and what I was like as a child and an adult, about how proud she is of me. My baby boy will know all about his mummy and daddy, and his little fur siblings.

There is no rule book to this journey, there is no right, no wrong, no judgement should be made. Don’t try and force anything, don’t try and make me do something I don’t want to do. This is my journey, I make my own rules.

How long will then hurt last, as long as I love my son, that’s how long, Forever, it’s never going to go away. So next time someone ask me, how are you doing now, now, the same a so was 14 weeks ago, I just got my shit together a little better.