Our Children budded on earth to bloom in heaven

[frasersmummy]

I think we have had this title before but it seems appropriate for spring

I have started this thread in honour of all our children but particularly Fraser who would have been 7 today. Happy birthday son we still miss you dearly. You will always be our firstborn and we always remember you in our hearts

kaz... may I suggest sitting in the back garden with loads of ice cream!!

Dont worry we will always say Sian 's name to you. Peopel move on to fast is crap.. you shouldnt have to but if you start the conversation but sometimes if you do people will suprise you

have a hug

no because dh is not Sians dad and they all live away they do not consider her part of their precious family. Dh is wonderful but his family are crap! Have had a large decanter of wine in the garden in the sun and feel a bit better now! Thanks,

Loving the decanter of wine, kaz! Hugs to you from me too.

Just back from weekend at mum's - slightly surreal conversations re gravestones - price, style, material etc. I never thought I'd be asked "which gravestone do you like?", or at least, not for my daughter. I am stunned by how much they cost! I am lucky in that all our family have said just to pick the one DH and I like best and price will be no object, but I don't want to make them shell out about £6k for a lump of granite, so price is very much a consideration. Except it isn't just a lump of granite, it's a memorial for our baby...it does my head in to think about it, and makes me really pretty angry with the memorial companies. Mind you, Dad's suggestion was worse - he said he could contact the guy that sold him his granite worktop and see if he could get me a bit cheap! This was a serious suggestion, not a piss-take.

Hope you're all doing okay today.

God tooimmature it's horrific isn't it. Just not something you should ever have to do for your child. We need to think soon about something for Bobbie's plot, now that the ground has settled. Currently she's just got the little wooden marker with her name plaque on it that the Coop provided. But I don't think we want a full headstone - her plot is so little it wouldn't look right. Do you contact funeral directors or are there stonemasons or something to see what's on offer?

Kazmus I'm sorry it's been such a hard day and DH's family were disappointing. Please keep sharing your lovely Sian with us, we aren't afraid to say her name. I loved the description you gave a few weeks ago of the place in the forest where you buried her and how all the bulbs had come up in a cross shape.

We've actually had a really lovely weekend together, I love my DH and getting to hang around with him all day and not go to work. Spent lots of time in the garden basking in the sun (learning from my moggies!)

I've had a bit of a (probably unreasonable) huff this afternoon after getting a phonecall from some family friends who have just heard I am pregnant - ringing to congratulate which is nice... but... it just sits funny. They did send a lovely card after Bobbie died with a long and thoughtful message in it that I really appreciated, so much so that after a few weeks I put a huge amount of effort into writing a long letter back to "talk" about everything that had happened and how I felt. As you can imagine, that was hugely draining to write. I didn't hear a thing in response. Until today's congratulations. And the phone convo today did include "I know it's been a very hard time for you, and sorry we've not been in touch.. but we've been thinking of you." And I did have a bit of a huff thinking, yes I know you've not been in touch... you've had bloody months to do so, and it's all very well to say you care NOW but it would have been nice to see a bit more evidence of that previously too. The words just seem empty sometimes . And how nice it is for people to be able to ring when it's "easy" to say the congratulations, but they don't ring when there's nothing easy or good to say.

Rant over.
I told you it was a bit tetchy of me.

Love to all, here's to gentle days ahead for us all xx

split and tooimm I know it is such an horrific time thinking of a headstone. Draining. I Our funeral directors worked closely with a stone mason so we went through them. As awful as it is there is a range of children's headstones - many of which are very small and appropriate for a baby's grave.

God appropriate, there is nothing appropriate about needing headstones for babies is there :(

£6k sounds an awful lot too - Belle's has cost us £1300 including council fees for installation. That's for a rosewhite granite. 24x18 inch in size. and a bit more for the base and stuff.

Anyway, we chose a small heart for Belle - it isn't that much smaller than a normal headstone but is slightly, out of the children's memorial section of the book. Belle is in the main graveyard because we bought a triple plot to be buried with her so it needed to be in the adult section. We thought the tiny headstones would look out of place with all the adults and old people around her.

I'm hoping it is going to arrive and be put up by the end of may. I want it up before her birthday. I'm not sure why it makes a difference, but to me at the moment thats what I feel needs to happen.

oh and I know exactly what you mean about empty words. I'm having a :( day about that too.

Dating scan tomorrow.

Very best of luck for tomorrow caz, will be thinking of you.

Oh headstones.... we didnt realise how hard it would be to find someone that could do one for us
For some reason didnt seem to occur to us to contact the funeral director. I cant remember the details but we contacted monumental scluptors some wanted a fortune, some were weird and some didnt seem to get why we wanted a headstone when it was a baby and he had a cross

In the end we stumbled across a place 5 mins from Fraser's garden. He said he didnt normally work a sunday but was in that day doing p/work
Must have been fate as he was lovely... spent loads of time showing us samples of his work

he helped with wording etc.. he couldnt have been nicer. I think it cost su £1200

I remember he asked when Fraser's b /day was and said he would make sure it was up in time. He made the whole thing as easy as it could be, up till then we were drained mentally and physically

Ha I have just read that back and realised its rambling and no help at all

Ours is approx half size of normal.. left us room to put our names on!! oh and its blue marble.. is lovely when the sun shines

let us know how the scan goes

Just a quick hi, good luck for tomorrow Caz will be thinking of you x

Morning ladies xx

Good luck for scan today Caz xx

How are you Shabs xx

Morning girls xx

Thinking about you today Caz - good luck, hope it goes well. Also thinking about Dee. xxxxx

Im OK thanks Lavendes.... Im OK xxx

Morning girls,

Good luck for today Caz, let us know how it goes xx

too immautureSorry but i LOL about your dads suggestion he sounds like my dad! I cant offer any advice about a headstone as we had Zoe cremated, i now regret that so much. I wish we had opted for a burial instead but a cremation seemed rigth at the time. I want to have somewhere i can go to visit Zoe. We dont know what to do with her ashses nothing seems good enough.

Kaz im sorry you had a crap weekend,people can be so up their own bums sometimes! You can tell us about Sian anytime you want.

Hope you all have a good day xx

Good morning all x

janedoe we opted for cremation too and I do think it was the right choice for us . However I did have his ashes intered in our local churchyard . Is that something you could do ? We have got a smaller plot but still had to go through the nightmare of choosing the headstone and the words .

I still remember the man at the funeral directors trying to put me off buying a black stone as "it is a really depressing colour" It wasn't really supposed to be bloody cheerful was it ?

isn't it just sick how we are exploited at this awful time with people making profit from us. :( I was 'lucky' that Sian drew up her own funeral plan and wanted a green burial which didnt allow for anything other than a natural material. I asked a local woodturner to provide a piece of ash that could be engraved, and he got a beautiful piece of wood and refused to take payment for it..it was the most remarkable piece of compassion from a complete stranger. We had it engraved and it does look beautiful in its natural setting, but it was still the hardest thing to chose the right words as it all seemed too cruel.

A wonderful scan! Baby is measuring 12 weeks exactly today. So spot on for dates.

Baby was so wriggly! Legs and arms were going everywhere and rolypoly's galore! Belle hardly moved in her 12 week scan so it was lush to see Bow looking so awake and playing around! Me and DH are feeling really lush right now - wondering how long this lasts until the fear kicks back in?

Booked in for a doppler scan at 18 weeks now (13th June) where they will access blood flow and if they want to put me on clexane as well the asprin or up my dose of asprin. (On 75mg a day atm). and then anomoly scan as well at 20 weeks. We're going to be seeing this little one a lot!

OH MY WORD Caz - wonderful, wonderful news. 12 weeks? Fantastic xxxx

Excellent news caz sooo happy for you!

Wonderful news caz xx

Brilliant news, Caz. That's good to hear you have an extra scan at 18 weeks. What's your due date?

8th Nov which is what I'd decided my DD was in the beginning anyway!

Oh a fiery Scorpio!!! My brother was born on November 5th and he is strong, straightforward, hardworking and with a terrific sense of humour. I love characteristics of starsigns but I only believe my horoscope if its good

Kazmus awful situation with dh's family, had no end of trouble with my inlaws after Scarlett's death, bil and his gf didn't even come to her funeral...we literally haven't seen either of them since it happened in December, they live about an hour away and he hasn't been bothered to see his only brother. Words fail me. Nearly 5 months now since we lost her and it's still so painful. I know what you mean about wanting them to give a shit. Just want to scream sometimes.

Too we haven't looked at headstones yet, they said it would be about 9 months until one could be put up but we've though about it. My parents have also said they want to pay for it, they said it felt like the only thing they could actually physically do for her. They've been so incredibly supportive, I feel really lucky that they've been there for us throughout this no matter what. No idea what prices are like though, they've dealt with a few funerals before though so they know.

Spilt so sad that they didn't contact you until now, you just feel ignored don't you? It seems such a common thing for people to do. I wonder why?

Caz Belle's headstone sounds lovely, we've seen a couple of heart ones and they look so nice. I was thinking maybe a white one, not sure at all yet though. So glad your scan went well. My birthday is Nov 8th :)

fm I'm glad that part at least went easily for you. I'm dreading thinking about Scarlett's tbh as I'm scared it's going to bring about a repeat of how dh's family treated us around the time she died. I've been thinking a lot about that today and if it really was as bad as all that. Who knows.

janedoe you can only do what feels right at the time. I have my own regrets but at the time, it was right.

travelling what an insensitive remark from him! We went for burial for Scarlett, seemed right for us.

Sorry, I've reread and realised I've gone on about myself a lot, not intentionally but hope it might be helpful to others? Been feeling low today and thinking a lot, decided to do a pregnancy test today (which was stupid as I'm on day 29 and last cycle was 37? days) which was negative so I just made myself even more miserable. It's not even been that long but it feels like forever! Anyway, probably come on in a few days, sigh. Hope others are having a better day

Congratulations Caz I have a big for you. So lovely to see a wriggler too.

cheese don't apologise, every word you write helps us all. There is no logic to POAS is there?! How many times I have done that too, "just in case" when it is an absurd time. My top tip would be to have a stash of the internet cheapies cos at least then its only a few pence!

hello ladies x not caught up with the last week or so. Had a bit of a mixed weekend - good days and not so good days, no rhyme nor reason! xx

Fab news Caz xx

Cheese - am sorry you've had a rough day xx

JaneDoe - we also had a cremation for Gregor and we have scattered his ashes in several special places ... you can only do what is the right thing at the time, be kind to yourself xxxx

its been a bit of an odd day today. We were told today that the German team leader was in terrible motorcycle accident last week and passed away on Saturday

we were all well shocked.. but my ever caring work expected us to carry on taking calls as normal!! wtf.. the guy sat right next to me just over a week ago. I was sat there looking at his pc still on standby and his specs still on his desk and thinking "and you expect me to carry on as if nothing has happened

I only work till 1pm but I gave it up at 12pm.. I just couldnt sit and look at his empty desk today

Gerry was the one who helped me out when I knocked down a m/cyclist some months ago. He was the one who made me a cuppa when I arrived at work shaking and he talked to me a lot about it and helped me out when I said I was freaked by m/cycles now

he was full of the Glasgow banter and had a wicked sense of humour

I remember one day good natured bantering with him and his closing comment..och away and play tag with a m/cyclist ...and then he did his trademark giggle .I think given how he died that comment will be in my head for a long while

The office will be a quieter and more sombre place without you Gerry... RIP mate

sorry I know I should probs have posted this elsewhere...

Awwww big hugs for you and so sorry to hear about Gerry xxxx