Why Betty Dora??? #3

Published on by bettydora1 Comment

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

The blog after ‘the first blog’ #2 

Published on by bettydora1 Comment

WOW! What an absolutely amazing response I had to my thoughts! Never in a million years did I think so many would read what I had to say! Amazing! And to see that people from all over the world have started to hear about Betty is just wonderful! 

I’ve never been one for sharing pregnancy news etc on Facebook, not because I ever thought something would go wrong but I just always thought once the baby was here it was lovely to share pics and news but until that time it didn’t feel right.. Just like when she died I never took to Facebook to tell everyone as the people who knew me best knew what had happened and it felt too sad to share with everyone else.. But.. At the same time I wanted everyone to know she was here – even if she hadn’t arrived safely as we had hoped. I wanted them to see how gorgeous she was and how perfect she looked but I just felt I couldn’t do this. 

We have some beautiful pictures of her which at some point I may share – but I’m longing to put some up around the house (anyone who knows me knows I love my pics, with many a funny face and lovely posed pic dotted about our house) we don’t have any of her anywhere, it’s so hard because we havn’t shown Archie a picture of her as we felt she looked too ‘normal’ for him to understand why she didn’t come home – we explained she was too poorly to stay with us and is now in heaven but if he saw her surely he would question what was wrong, because it didn’t look like there was, she just looked asleep. 

We talk about her still most days or mention something about her, be it sometimes just as a couple or with Archie; not purposely just naturally in different conversations – we don’t prompt him to talk about her we let it come naturally from him if he wants too and when he’s old enough I hope we can share what she looked like with him and take him to her grave to show him a place we can go to remember her. 

To me 5 is too young for that now. Some may disagree but I suppose we all have to do what we feel is right in different situations – no one gives you a hand book for when things like this happen, just like when you bring your baby home – they don’t come with a manual and you question everything you do, have I fed them properly, changed, winded etc well death is similar – we never know how we will feel we all grieve in different ways, we all take different times to feel ‘normal’ again different things will trigger our individual sadness and I am learning to go with my own instincts on how to tackle questions, feelings, emotions – it’s all new, even nearly 7 months on, don’t get me wrong things feel so much better than they did – if they didn’t I don’t think I would have started to share my thoughts through this blog, but this feels like the next step in dealing with what has happened to us. And more importantly sharing that we had a baby and she was amazing and we love her like we love Archie. 

We can talk about her and others can and know that we are not going to break or burst into tears if you mention her or ask us about her – we want to acknowledge that she was here and even tho we aren’t going through all the normal first year baby milestones we still think about her everyday. I can’t say it gives me comfort to hear of other people that have gone through similar experiences, it makes me sad to know others have had to endure this journey and pain but it is comforting to know we are not alone and although I don’t know or speak to many people who have experienced this those I have who are further along their journey than me have given me great hope that there will be happy times and good things for us again. Those people (you may be reading this) know that your strength and smiles showed me that it was going to be ok! Thank you for that.. 

Jen X

First blog post #1

Published on by bettydora19 Comments

For so long I have wanted to write my own blog, I have never had the confidence to do it, there’s not much I have to say that people would be interested in reading. I spent much time procrastinating over what I would write about: what would people want to hear? What would they want to know about me that they would want to click and read what I had written? Never in a million years did I think this would be the subject of the illustrious ‘blog’ I never thought I would be penning what has happened to me, to my family in the last few months – its not particularly interesting, its morbid more than anything, sad, upsetting, unnerving but its true and its what happened and with a head full of thoughts I suppose this point is as good as any to start. I promise it wont all be doom and gloom I don’t know where I will go with this I may write this and nothing more, but I want to write it all the same and I hope you want to read it.

My name is Jen, I live in Bournemouth with my wonderful husband, and I have two children. My beautiful son is here very much living, gorgeous, witty, funny, confident, loud and caring, my daughter lives among the stars, she too is beautiful but I don’t know much else about her, I don’t know the colour of her eyes, the sound of her laugh or her cry. She was born but she never lived.

Betty Dora, our darling daughter was stillborn at 40 weeks and 3 days. Today exactly 7 months have passed since her due date; 13 ‘unlucky for some’, 13 has always been my lucky number. It feels like only yesterday that she came into our lives, yet it feels like she has been gone forever. In fact it almost feels like she never happened at all – everyone moves on (as do we) people tell you it will get easier with time, it does don’t get me wrong. But I still find myself sat in a quiet house when Archie is at school (not that I sit still for long) thinking I should be feeding a baby or changing a nappy. I stand in the playground trying not to look at the other babies, wondering what Betty would look like now, It feels so unfair that out of all the babies born that night I didn’t get to keep mine.

We will never truly know what happened to our little girl it will be forever a mystery, her post mortem came back ‘unexplained’, the worst part of reading the whole report wasn’t even the thought of what they had to do to get to that conclusion but it was the fact that every organ in her body was perfect, there was nothing wrong with her – how can this be? The awful fact is that 50% of all stillbirth cases are indeed ‘unexplained’. One of life’s mysteries I suppose. It seems so unfair that something so perfect, ready to start their life and live, can be taken so cruelly. The pain of loosing a child is possibly one of the worst things that can happen to any parent. Explaining to your son why their sister is never coming back from heaven is heart breaking, tragic and just damn right unfair. What a godsend that at the age of 4 life is very much what those around you make it and if mummy tells you something, nine times out of ten you listen, process and accept what you are being told. Until the next thing triggers a thought at which point you compose another tear jerking question catching her off guard.

Thank god for our beautiful boy – the dark days in the beginning were made harder and easier all at the same time for having him. Just to have to get up everyday because he was depending on us, he was looking at us for reassurance that everything was going to be ok. It is going to be okay – its life, just right now its not the life we thought we were going to have the life we had dreamed up in our heads, the plans we had made for our expanding family, with 2 children loving each other, fighting with each other, laughing with each other, crying with each other. A family photo that never happened – a bond that was never formed. You will have more children ‘they’ say – we will take even more care of you next time ‘they’ say. What about this time? How can I think of next time? I want the time that just happened, I’ve just had a baby, why would I want to think about having another one now? If my baby was living would you be telling me I can have another one now? I know people try to say the right things – sometimes I feel ok when they test them out on me, sometimes I am screaming in my head “shut – up why have you just said that to me” I never say it to them, I just process and move on.

Loosing our child will not define us, I don’t want to be the mum in the playground ‘that’s baby died’ we wont ever forget what happened to us, we will celebrate a birthday that never has a bouncy little girl in her party dress running around every year, we will wonder what would have been we will always be the family that lost their baby, but we will also be the family that through tremendous heartbreak stuck together, smiled though the tears, laughed and realised it was ok to and moved onwards and upwards never forgetting their beautiful girl who now spends her nights among the stars and her days in the rainbows (maybe cliché but it makes me smile to think this of her) and so this is where we begin…


Jen