Oliver’s Story is a series of posts sharing the experiences of a friend as she comes to terms with the loss of her baby boy, born in October 2005.

When I first discovered I was pregnant in March 2003 I was so shocked. Newly married and living with my mother in law it was not something we had planned. I was amazed it even happened because we had purposely missed that day 14 everyone talks about. However I have since learnt I do not have a 28 day cycle more a 48 so when I was thinking it was safe I was actually very fertile.

Newly pregnant I was blissfully unaware of what a miscarriage was. We saw the little peanut shaped baby at 9 weeks with a beating heart and I continued in a blissful blur and developed a small bump. I became concerned of failing symptoms but all the time I did not bleed I assumed everything to be well within.

It was not so, our baby had died somewhere between the 9th and 13th week. It was called a ‘missed miscarriage’ and I had to have a D&C and a night in hospital.

‘Pregnancy’, once blissful and magical was never to be again!

Pregnancy number 2 was as brief as it took those two lines to appear; the very next week I bled ‘a natural miscarriage’.

Pregnancy number 3 came before my next period and was a surprise and also a nightmare. I could not believe I had opened myself up to more stress, more tears and another loss.

But she continued to grow along with my immense fear of losing her, right up until her birth and even beyond I had every alarm going. While she was growing inside I used the Doppler (my own) and then when my beautiful baby girl Eleanor was born I had an alarm under her bed, should she stop breathing. Gone were the days when, at 12 weeks pregnant, you start talking names and painting the nursery.

But then there was Ollie. My husband and I were sitting in our garden on a summer’s day in May our 10-month-old baby girl upstairs asleep and we decided we wanted another child. So the decision was made and 3 weeks later I was pregnant. As easy as that, and strangely enough I was not scared this time. Everything was good. All the signs were good. Our first child born in July, my sister’s first born in July, seven years before. Our second now due in Feb, my sister’s second was in February 2004 all within days of her children, mine were either born or due. Got to work right?!

I flew past the 12 week scan, I was confident this would mean I would have a baby so I began to experience the rush of a first time mother to be. I felt this pregnancy would re-write all my losses, I had one beautiful girl and now another on the way. I felt the flutters turn into light kicks, life was good. But it was not to last and before I knew it I experienced a stillbirth.

So therefore, should I be lucky enough to have another ‘pregnancy’, to me means uncertainty, anxiety, dread and maybe, hopefully, a baby. Pregnancy is described as lasting normally 9 months, but for me its normally 13 months, that’s how long I was pregnant on and off until I was blessed with Ellie and although there is normally a gap in between its still manages to feel like I am pregnant forever.
I long to be pregnant again, but for now I am enjoying the break, worry free for a little while longer.

Oliver’s Story is a series of posts sharing the experiences of a friend as she comes to terms with the loss of her baby boy, born in October 2005.

Ok I am not one to be scared of many things but during my school years I had a big phobia of spiders. If I saw one I would sweat and my heart would race I would not be able to take my eyes off the thing so that it would not escape and hide under my bed. I still dislike them but I can deal with them

When I became a mother to my daughter Eleanor I developed a few phobias that came out of my primal instinct to protect her at all costs. One being flying, it did not stop me flying from London to Washington to visit my sister. In fact my daughter, who is only 18 months, has done the same trip four times in her brief life. But on each occasion I cannot sleep a week before. I start getting night sweats and feel so mean taking my precious daughter half way around the world for my benefit. But we always survive and I promise not to do it until she can say “mama, I want to go”.

But since the death of Oliver I have a new phobia to deal with and unfortunately it is pregnant women. Before Oliver I would marvel the beauty of pregnancy, now my heart races and my hands sweet and I want to throw up. The mere mention of another friend or family member’s pregnancy sends me into mourning. It still remains beautiful and mesmerizing, but to me it’s a painful reminder of what could have been, what should have been, mine.

I don’t want to be this bitter and sad person that I have become. I don’t like the side of my personality that comes out when I see my friends pregnancy’s flying past all my milestones. It is not that I am not happy for them, indeed I am, but I am angry that I have become a woman with frequent miscarriages and a stillbirth to add to her list.

Yes I know I am lucky that I have a daughter, thank you for saying. Oh and I know I am lucky I can get pregnant when so many can’t. But, you know what, I did not feel lucky the day I gave birth to Oliver or the day I gave him back to the earth. I did not also feel lucky having to endure a second D&C.

This said, the day I left Oliver at the hospital and was wheeled out empty handed I entered my home and into the arms of my sweet, veggie-mite-smelling, Ellie. I picked her up and she cuddled into me. When she saw my tears she handed me her dirty, much loved, blankie. I looked around, the room was full of her building blocks and her little socks were laying there, her bibs, her things were everywhere and I thanked God for her.

Oliver’s Story is a series of posts sharing the experiences of a friend as she comes to terms with the loss of her baby boy, born in October 2005.

11 weeks after the loss of Oliver I was invited back for a discussion with my Obstetrician. Of all places for this to take place it was in the same department where you have your scans and normally, hopefully, a happy place. Not one of mine.

As I got to the desk the receptionist looked at my notes and saw what the nature of my visit was for and instead of inviting me to sit in the open planned room with the posters of new babies and nursing mothers, it was suggested I take a seat to the left of the desk. This section had posters of Gynaecological cancers and fertility problems and pregnancy loss.

This was a pre-planned design of the clinic and on a good day I would have seen this as a positive step to shield our tear stained eyes from that of the glowing pregnant bumps around to me, today it meant seclusion from that ‘special club’ that I had joined briefly only to have my membership expire far too soon.

Today I felt bitter and angry tears roll down my checks as I remembered sitting in the same chair 10 weeks before being told that our sweet little son was very unlikely to survive much longer.

I remembered the minutes before when we had seen his little heart beating the curve of his spine, his little hands and feet. The way he was curled up in a little ball, unlike my daughter at her twenty-week scan. She had kicked and uncurled herself and stuck her foot into my ribs. No, he was not like that on this day, he was still, comforted by the beat of my heart against his. I was asked to walk to get him to uncurl himself; I knew then in my heart that something gravely wrong. He was so tiny not nearly as big as he should have been for 23 weeks, he was barely moving. He would not be moved out of his resting place.

That was the day when this journey began and here I was 11 weeks later sitting in the very same chair waiting my turn. My husband held my hand as we wondered in like two wounded solders, but left like two solders facing a battle ahead with a good chance of winning this time.

The Overall view.

It was explained to us that Triploidy is a rare sporadic and lethal chromosome abnormality and in view of the rarity of Triploidy the precise recurrence risk is yet to be determined according to current literature.

Meaning.

The chances of a recurrence in our future pregnancy are probably not significantly greater than the background age related risk. This is good news for us and we had decided if there is to be a next time (please God) we are going to go with blind faith, lots of prayers and hope.

So as we left the clinic that night we felt the gears shift a little and we made a little step further along the difficult terrain.

Oliver’s Story is a series of posts sharing the experiences of a friend as she comes to terms with the loss of her baby boy, born in October 2005.

Although it’s only been 2 and half months we have decided to try again for another baby we don’t expect anyone to understand our need to be pregnant again. We are not trying to replace our baby Oliver, nothing could. We were ready to be parents again and we were also ready to give our little girl a playmate with a small age gap. Our feelings have not changed.

So as my ovulation approaches I have already worked out the 26-month age gap, the month this baby could be born would also fall in October the same month Oliver was born at 24 weeks. 3 months seems brief for those that have not lived the 3 months that we just have but to us some days feels like a lifetime, other days it’s like yesterday.

No two weeks are the same. Grief is a terrible thing it can turn nice people into better and unhappy souls but there no escaping or skipping it, it’s a journey that if begun it has no shortcuts. I am not at the beginning of my journey now, nor am I at the end; perhaps I am at the resting place before the next long haul.

Oliver’s Story is a series of posts sharing the experiences of a friend as she comes to terms with the loss of her baby boy, born in October 2005.

It’s been nearly 3 months since the birth and death of our sweet son Oliver Daniel born to us on the 28th Oct 2005 at 24 weeks. In reflection I have come along way through a painful and difficult journey.

In those first two weeks I must have been in shock as I seemed to cope very well but now when I think back to the day of his funeral I am glad I am nearly 3 months along as that day was sheer hell. I remember not really living in the real world we ate takeaways and drank gallons of tea, typically English of us, when things are bad we smooth it over with a cup of tea. Then slowly the fog eased and all I felt was a big loss. A loss of our much-wanted second child, the loss of my bump then the cruelty of my milk coming in and flowing along with our tears.

People who have never experienced grief particularly that of a child don’t seem to understand that is gets worse with time not better. Now my friends barely mention him like I should have moved on but to me it’s ever so real with his actual due date approaching. I am still counting the days down to that date and as my tummy becomes flatter in my head I am all too aware of how big I would be today.

Our son although not here in life is with us everywhere and not a day goes without a mention from my husband or me. I just wish my friends could do the same. My friends and our family were great and some still are but now I feel I could write a book on what not to say when a person has lost a baby. Why are some people so insensitive?

Oliver’s Story is a series of posts sharing the experiences of a friend as she comes to terms with the loss of her baby boy, born in October 2005.

Introduction

After discovering at our 20 week scan, which had already been pushed back until I was 23 weeks and 3 days, that our second child, a son had severe abnormalities, an amnio was carried out and the results showed our baby to have Triploidy – a rare chromosome disorder. Which in layman’s terms means an incompatibility with life.

The sad choices we were given were either to terminate, an induction with no intervention or to carry as far as I would and let my son die naturally. I was told by the size of our baby I was unlikely to have a live birth and he was expected to die any day. He was smaller than he should have been at 23 weeks.

I could not put my son through the process of a termination nor could I bear to continue growing and feeling what might be my son’s last kick. So I prayed for nature to take over right away and went in reluctantly for an induction. My son was born silently following a hard labour.

The Labour

I last felt Oliver kick at 8am on Thursday morning but he had been fairly quiet since Wed due to the meds that slow Placenta activity down. He woke me up at 5am on Thursday as well.

I cupped my bump and told him I loved him. We arrived at 3pm and the midwife tried to hear a heartbeat and could not I had said to Chris that day that I felt he had gone.

I was strangely at peace that he had gone. But I waited in a room, which is like a hotel room and was sad, it was not meant to be like this I had seen cots on the way in and women in labour.

Me and my Husband Chris watched tv but after the second set of tablets my contraction started so I put the music on. It helped. I was scared but also very calm. The midwife sat with us and talked. I said I thought it would be over by 10pm.

At 9pm I had contraction every 1 minute. I used gas and air. I had an internal at 10pm and he was just sitting there waiting to pop out. I felt and could feel him to.

We went to a delivery room and the midwife said I would not need to push he would pop out. He did not and the labour got really strong, hard contractions I was fully dilated but he was not coming. I had morphine but that made me calm but once a contraction came I was in so much pain.

I had an epidural at 2am. Sitting up for this was unbearable I felt so weak and sick and begged them to let me lay down. They did it wrong I was crying when they did it again I lay down but felt him crown. This scared me to death and I lost all control I hyperventilated and was shaking all over. They all helped me calm down Chris was fantastic. I felt him come almost out. He was in his bag and I was told to slow down and let my body do what it needed to do. Well he sat like that for maybe an hour. It was calm and I slowly pushed him out over the hour. I was calm not scared by this point.

When I delivered him at 2.55am I was too scared to look I was guided by Chris who said it not scary. I looked down and saw him in his bag and the placenta was still intact. The midwife Georgina slowly undid him.

Meeting Oliver

He was precious, beautiful and his strength brought me complete calmness. He looked just like Ellie in the face, her’s and Chris’s lips. He has my toes the second one being longer than the big toes. Only me, Ellie and my dad have this. He had Chris’s long fingers.

I was so moved by Chris who showed me how proud he was of his son. He was not at all scared and was really excited by his son’s features. Chris had tears in his eyes but I never did cry I felt so at peace. It felt right this was how we were going to meet Oliver.

He stayed with us for 4 hours I did not want him to go but I did not want to see his colour changed and when that started the time felt right. I swaddled him and placed him with his teddy I have kept an identical teddy and blanket. He was taken back to our bedroom in a basinet and we joined him at 6.30 to sleep. I touched him on his cheek and said “night night Ollie”

The midwife came in at 7.30 and quietly took him away. When the nurse came in later to take my stats I wanted to say “quiet, don’t wake him” I was very dazed and thought he was alive. Me and Chris slept until midday and then went home. I slept all day yesterday and last night with Oliver’s blanket and teddy the ones I have.

We took some photos of Oliver

One of these people was Louise, who passed on a couple of books they she had read:

• When a Baby Dies
• Fathers Feel Too

She also printed out a journal that she had made throughout the first year after she lost her beautiful angel baby Oliver. To have had an account from someone we could relate to was really helpful to try and understand some of the things we were feeling.

Louise has kindly agreed to publish extracts from the journal with the hope that it can help others. I have published first part of the journal Oliver’s Birth Story along with this post. All journal entries will be available here. I hope you find it as useful and touching as we have.

The guide is in PDF format (ideal for printing out) and you can download it here:

Bereaved Parent’s Network Tips Sheet

It’s a lot to take in, particularly if you are trying to follow it. I guess that’s part of the point – what people think is obvious actually my not be so. As I’ve said before, I think there is a huge bridge of understanding to cross for those who have lost a child and those around them.

I thought I’d add a few more do’s and don’ts based on my own experiences.

Do make time to visit out angel’s resting place – we like to know other people go as well as us.

Don’t assume that we are “being strong now and will let it out later” – we are grieving right now.

Do stagger buying of flowers – they can come on any day, not just significant dates.

Don’t take accounts of how it happened secondhand – the message may get muddled and we will probably want to tell you ourselves.

Do send a card to let us know you are thinking of us if you haven’t seen us in person – it doesn’t matter if you don’t know what to say – just send your love.

Don’t take it personally if we include you in some things and not in others – we are just trying to do things they way it feels right for us.

If you are a bereaved parent I’d love to know if you have any ones you’d add to the list. Drop a comment below.

If you know bereaved parents and found things you have done in the “don’t list” or things you haven’t in the “do list”, remember that, even if you have been through it yourself, you can never know what is the right thing to do for the parents in their situation. You may make mistakes but there is always time to show you care.

To achieve this effect you can use most photo editing software as long as it has support for multiple layers. The instructions below are for Paint.NET, which is a really good and free photo editing tool.

To show the steps needed to create the effect I’m going to use the following lovely photo of a teddy bear from Annie Mole on Flickr.

First step is to open the photo in the editor (making sure you have made a backup copy of the file) and change the photo to black and white. For Paint.NET, from the menu choose Adjustments -> Black and White. Alternatively you can use the Sepia effect.

The next step is to add a layer that we can draw on without effecting the underlying photo. From the menu select Layers -> Add New Layer.

Now draw a white oval shape on to the new layer. First, select white from the colour picker:

Then select the oval drawing tool from the toolbox, select the “Draw Shape Outline” option and pick a fairly large brush width (for this example I picked 40):

Draw an oval so that it surrounds the middle of the picture. You may have to try it a couple of times (just use undo, ctrl-z, until you get the layout you want):

Next we want to fill in the four corners in white. Pick the fill tool and select a fairly high tolerance so it fills the whole area (without filling the entire picture):

You should now have a picture that looks a bit like this:

Now we want to apply a blur effect to the oval. From the menu select Effects -> Blurs -> Gaussian Blur:

Select a blur radius that works for you:

Finally flatten down the layer into the base photo so you can save the photo using Layers -> Merge Layer Down:

The final photo should look a little like this:

You can put the finished result on a memory stick or CD and take it to be printed.

Whilst this was a fairly practical guide, hopefully it is a straight-forward way of creating special photos.

I imagine the same this are true of other parents in this situation and so we thought we would share the order of service we put together to help inspire anyone who is faced with these hard decisions.

Entrance to church
The family gathered together outside the church and we all walked in together. I wrote a piece of music that I recorded at home and it was played out over the speakers in the church. As soon as I started thinking about a service I knew that I had to write some music for it. I wrote music for our wedding and it really gave the service a personal and unique touch. I knew that writing music for our baby was going to be tough but it was a personal gift that I could give to our baby. Listening to it today brings back a lot of the emotions I felt in those early days, which can be very hard to revisit but it is also an important connection to our little angel.

Welcome and Sentences from the Scriptures
Opening Prayers

Poem: Too Beautiful for Earth
This was read by our little angel’s Grandma. As the first member of the family to read anything, it was very brave of her to get up and speak. The poem is quite short and I think this made it a little easier. We really felt it set the context for the whole service.

Bible Reading: Mark 10 v13-16
This is a popular passage from the bible that was read by our Reverend. It says that “whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it”.

Hymn: The Lord’s My Shepherd
We only chose one hymn for the service as we only wanted our direct family there and singing on this occasion was going to be hard. We picked this hymn as it has some beautiful words. It was also used at other funerals within the family and so it has additional special meaning.

Poem: A Mother’s Day Poem

For this slightly longer poem we asked an Auntie who was comfortable reading in public. With the music at the beginning and the bedtime story at the end from me it was important to have a mother’s message and this poem really sums up some of the feelings of losing a baby you have carried for all those months. The last verse is also a message for the mum:

I must be a special mother
because I have been set apart
Some mothers carry their children in their arms,
but I carry you in my heart.

Music: Somewhere Over the Rainbow

We chose the Ingrid DeMosch version of this song, which is a beautiful version from a Children’s Bedtime album. The song really seems to have a message about heaven, “Where troubles melt like lemon drops” and “the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true”.

Reading: Footprints in the Sand

Grandad read this poem, which was a message for all of the family. It explains how in our hardest hour, when it feels we are alone, God is there to carry us.

Bedtime Story: Humphrey’s Playtime
This book was a favourite for our eldest son and we used to read it to him every night as part of his bedtime routine. We decided that as we laid our little one to bed he should also have a story and so I read this book to him. It was very hard to get up and speak in church without crying but as I knew the story so well there was no chance of stumbling over the words. After the service people said how brave I was and how lovely it was that I read it just like I would read to a child at bedtime.

Address
The Lords Prayer
Prayers
Commendation

These were all standard parts of the service, lead by the Reverend. It was a chance for some quiet reflection.

Music: A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes

As we walked out of the church we asked for this music to be played. It was a very tough choice for us as we knew we would hear the song whenever our children watch Cinderella and also when we visit Walt Disney World but we felt it was a very appropriate song. As we laid our little angel to rest the song gave a promise for his dreams and also for us:

No matter how your heart is grieving,
If you keep on believing,
The dream that you wish will come true.

The service was really hard but also really beautiful. We put our personal touch into every part and this made it truly special. If you are putting together a service or know someone who is, maybe our order of service will provide some ideas.