sons heard me mention charlie

[frankiebuns]

We tragically lost our 3rd baby due to heart condition and encephaly at 13 weeks i was gutted and had a d and e 2 days ago the hospital have agreed to cremate him and let us havr him back we were talking about planting a tree for him in the garden. And my son has over heard us and is now asking who charlie is and im not sure where to start?!!! He is 4 and has asd and is very smart im not sure what to say help!

[MrsNextDoor]

I am so sorry for your loss. I think you could say that Charlie is a baby that you were going to have in your family but who wasn't able to live for long enough...so you're having a memory tree in the garden for him...and that it will be a special place to go to and think about him."

At the age of 4 I would keep talk of illness and death out of it...but stick to the basic facts without avoiding things totally.

[AbbeyRoadCrossing]

Sorry for your loss. You know your son best but just to say with my brother who has autism when my cousin died young it was quite hard. He couldn't deal with abstract concepts like heaven or good people die young etc so I'd avoid all that. It felt weird to be so factual but we found what he died of and facts like that to help him. He was very quiet and never spoke about it until years later so emotionally something must've been going on beneath the surface even though he didn't react at the time.
It's so very hard, especially when you're trying to cope yourself

[KittyandTeal]

I'm so sorry for your loss, what an awful time for you.

We lost our dd2 in jan at 22 weeks. My dd1 didn't know there was a baby coming but she has heard us talk about Rose. She is 2.6yo. I say 'Rose is your sister and she was supposed to come and live with us but she died so she can't anymore. She doesn't understand but equally it's the only explanation that is true and at her level.

Have you had any contact with arc or sands? They both have info on how to talk about loosing a baby to siblings. I think the main points are don't talk about 'loosing' as it's confusing and frightening, as in they could also get lost and would be gone forever, but instead use the word death or died. It's very hard to say so early on but it's important that it's separate from being lost.

The other thing is to not talk about the baby being ill because there is an unsaid implication that if your DS becomes ill he could also die. Something like 'Charlie was born too early and was too small to live outside mummy's tummy' (I know this is not technically true but it explains it well enough)

If you haven't been in touch with arc I would urge you to. They have really helped me. Our dd2 was diagnosed with T18 and we had a tfmr (medical rather than surgical like you had). They have a specific forum for women like us who have had tfmr (I'm assuming that that is what you have had rather than Charlie being stillborn. I apologies if I'm wrong)