Friday 17 February 2012

What To Expect...To Feel... When You Are No Longer Expecting

I recently read a beautiful post on a US website summarising how a woman feels when she has lost a baby. I've posted the link below so that you can read it for yourselves.

http://smallbirdstudios.com/2012/02/05/when-you-lose-a-baby/

If you aren't based in the US,  you'll no doubt have noticed that some of the comments don't apply. It got me thinking about what it feels like to be a Baby Loss Mummy in the UK. If I were to add my own thoughts to the link above, this is how it would read:

You're in a John Lewis and you want a cup of tea. You always have to walk right through the baby department to get there.  You get to the top of the escalator and then its eyes down. You walk past the prams, past the cots, past the numerous excited parents-to-be discussing the pros and cons of the latest car seat. As you reach the entrance to the cafe you think you've made it and then you hear a baby's cry ring out across the store. The waitress behind the counter asks what you want but you can't read the menu up on the wall. Everything is blurry as your eyes fill with tears.

You read the Daily Mail Showbiz section online and feel the resentment surge as you see yet another celebrity pregnancy announcement.

The thought of going on the tube (the underground to the non-Londoners reading this) fills you with anxiety. You used to take it every day to work and think nothing of it. Now, even the thought of going on there again makes your heart pound and your chest feel tight. You do not want to be crammed into a confined space with a bunch of strangers.

You watch One Born Every Minute even though it kills you and it always ends with you in tears.

You see stories of pregnant 14 year olds in the press or pregnant women outside bars drinking and smoking and wonder why they get to keep their babies and you lost yours.

You hate Facebook and yet can't terminate your account. You log on every day to see yet another baby announcement from a friend or pictures from their latest scan. You wonder how they can announce it all so freely to the world. You think "you have no idea what can go wrong".

You worry about Amanda Holden and Lily Allen and feel relieved when their babies are born safely.

Every hospital should have a room donated by SANDS (a soundproof, private delivery suite for those women delivering what will be a stillborn baby). You wonder how those women coped if they did not have this "luxury". Did they hear a baby cry as it was being born in the next room whilst they were delivering their own dead baby? How did they survive that?

The coffin, the funeral, none of it had to be paid for. The funeral directors refuse to charge for anything when a baby dies. This makes you smile. Not because you've been given a freebee but because there is still some humanity in the world.

People ask you how you are but you know they don't really want to hear the truth in response. That would be inappropriate. The English are always so polite and feel uncomfortable even at the mention of death. So, they ask, and you lie. You say "I'm ok" and then see the relief flash across their face.

You become obsessed with getting pregnant before Kate Middleton. If she announces her pregnancy first it will seriously piss you off.


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