This question is not about why we choose to have our baby girl. It is about why I decided to start this blog. To be honest in the beginning when she first died, I would lie awake at night looking for blogs, articles and information online. Some days all I could do was constantly Google things like ‘ why was my baby stillborn’ ‘how soon can I get pregnant again’ ‘when will this black cloud lift’ crazy I know, but in a strange way I found comfort to know I wasn’t the only person this had happened too. Not only did I want answers I wanted re-assurance this would never happen to me again. Of course I was never going to find that, no one can 100% tell you that it won’t. 

I trawled through newspaper articles, medical journals, chat forums – maybe I was looking in the wrong places but I couldn’t seem to find any up to date information or stories from anyone close to where I live, several were many years ago although I still found it helpful to read. I then began to lie awake everynight going through the sequence of events the night Betty died. I am not using this blog to tell people to ‘count the kicks’, Betty seemed fine to me, after all 6 hours before her death we had an ultra sound scan and although there were other concerns raised at that point there was nothing wrong with her she was fine. So night after night I lay awake thinking with so many questions in my head I had to get them out so I began to write them down – I’ve always been a bit of a list maker! I find it’s a great way when you have loads to do of making sure you don’t forget things and there’s nothing more satisfying than ticking things off your list! (Sad I know) 

I found myself writing random thoughts down, questions and other things to do with what lay ahead with the serious incident panel report and post mortem results. This was all new to me – I was in a daze, things like his don’t happen to you, you read awful stories in magazines and just never think it will be you that could be there telling your tragic story. But this time it was! It’s so crazy now looking back It still doesn’t feel like it happened to us. Sometimes now I wonder if I’m too ‘OK’ I know that sounds ridiculous but I feel good, I feel happy is this normal? (I think I have even googled that) on top of that I felt guilty for feeling happy again – I thought people would think I was a bad person, that I didn’t care or think about Betty anymore or that I was ‘over it’ although far from it, truth is I don’t think you ever get over something like that you just learn to live with it. 

So this blog.. Well I suppose it’s not only to help me get my thoughts down and share them with friends, family and strangers who may want to understand or just read out of interest. But perhaps I can provide that comfort to someone who has just started on this journey like I did 7 months ago – to let them know it’s going to be alright, you will get through it. It’s ok to laugh, cry, shout, scream, ignore people, talk to people or just do whatever feels right to get you through. It won’t feel good in the beginning, but it will feel better with time and that is the greatest gift you can give yourself, it heals, it helps things to feel better. Trust me I know. And of course if you are reading this and you want to contact me, I am no expert in ANYTHING, I am not a medical professional or councillor but I have a little understanding of what I have been through which may be similar and sometimes it just helps to not feel alone. 

Jen X