''Even the smallest of footprints have the power to leave an everlasting imprint on the Earth'' Remembering with love our darling children

[Whatevertheweather]

Remembering not only what we have lost but what our darling children have given to us.

A new 'safe haven' thread. Thank you Chip for our last one which filled up in just a month. A sure sign of lots of tears, smiles and wonderful support.

All our children have taught us something whether they were born sleeping, lived just a little while, weeks, months or years. Here are mine:

Never ever take anything for granted, life can change very quickly.
Listen to yourself; your instincts will nearly always be right.
That it is possible to function seemingly normally with a broken heart.
That I have a wonderful relationship that can withstand the hardest of times.
That love and support can come from the most unexpected sources.
That I have a lot of very lovely friends, new and old.
That my family is amazing.
That no matter what it is impossible not to smile and laugh with my beautiful Katie around.
That a rainbow can provide hope in the darkest of times.
That there will be good days and bad days
That I love my children more than I ever thought possible.

For all our darling children xxx

everlong Well done! xx

As long as you don't come back this colour everlong

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2138197/New-Jersey-mother-Patricia-Krentcil-arrested-daughter-5-burned-tanning-booth.html

Can't believe the mother is really just 44! (how do you convert links and have another word instead of the whole web address?)

Well done everlong I am trying to lose belly.....

<a class="break-all" href="http://www.google.ie/imgres?imgurl=www.cathiejung.com/005biosterlingc2.jpg&imgrefurl=www.cathiejung.com/History-College-Days.htm&h=455&w=324&sz=41&tbnid=foMcVM095TBL2M:&tbnh=90&tbnw=64&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dcathie%2Bjung%2Bimage%26tbm%3Disch%26tbo%3Du&zoom=1&q=cathie+jung+image&docid=V_bukQOV2WZilM&sa=X&ei=ufGjT-H4GueT0QWc25mCCQ&ved=0CGUQ9QEwAQ&dur=1696" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">everlong

It's exactly 7 months today since she went.

Oh chip > beautiful Sylvie-Rose, the delicate flower fairy who lives in her mummy's heart.

Oh chip anniversarries are hard. I hope you have managed today.

everlong woohoo! I can see you strutting about in the rain and cold, proudly wearing your new bikini and showing off bikini bod. and [jealous emoticon] Do hope you have a warm coat though... are you off on holiday this week?

tami how are you feeling today? I am sure that your concerns about your daughter are unfounded. SS wouldn't take a child away without a lot more evidence than a single GP visit with quiet, shy little girl with a few bruises. There are hundreds of children like that, especially when they are in unfamiliar circumstances - and adults too, for that matter! You mentioned that there are other things you don't know how to deal with, would it help talking about them here?

mrsY I only had Mia, so I can't advise about how to explain to your DD about your Benedict Peanut. Most people try to be as truthful as possible, although I know the loss of a child is often explained as that they have 'gone away'. For Mia, a little friend has been told that she is a star, and he waves goodnight to her when he goes to bed. chip, whatever or bluetinkerbell might be able to help.

lumpsdumps are you still around? Just wondering how you are.

Thanks Miasmummy.

The SANDS leaflet said not to use euphamisms, because little ones take things so literaly. So we actually had to say that he was dead. I don't think we would have used that word otherwise - when we told other people we said born asleep. We've explained that he's now in heaven with various family members, and with God (that's what we believe), so to have to go into the whole thing that that's only his spirit but his body is in ground seems very complicated. But we want to always be honest and we had planned on taking her up the grave at some point in the future, when it doesn't look so fresh.

That's very sweet that your little friend waves to her at night.

Hugs Chip hope today has been gentle on you. I expect it's hard to believe 7 months have passed. Thinking of you and Sylvie-Rose my friend xxxx

Where and when are you going Everlong? Would love some sun this summer but far too paranoid to go abroad this year - don't want to be too far from good hospitals just in case!

MrsY I'm so sorry to hear about your darling Benedict. Life is so very unfair. My dd2 Erin died shortly after she was born last August, she had a very rare form of fetal cancer but we had no idea of that until the pm results. Like you I have an older dd. She was 4 nearly 5 when Erin was born, we decided to let her come to the hospital and meet her baby sister. Like you we had to be almost brutally honest in a way you aren't with other adults so lots of re-iterating she was dead, she has died, no she won't be coming back, we have buried her body so we have somewhere to visit and make nice for her but her spirit is in heaven. 8 months on she seems to have accepted it extremely well she still talks about Erin and always includes her when drawing family pictures etc. She blows her kisses to heaven and believes that whenever she sees a White feather that Erin has sent it to her as she let off a dove at the funeral which in her mind went to find her in heaven. One thing I would say is the grave is unlikely to look much different for some time as it take a while for the ground to 'settle' so they don't tend to level and grass seed for anything up to a year. Take lead from your daughter, don't be afraid to show her that you are sad Benedict has gone but similarly we tried not to always cry is K bought Erin in to conversation as we wanted her to know it was good to talk about her. That does get easier as time goes on. The early days are so bleak and hard, we are here for you. Ask any questions you like nothing is taboo here. Take care xxx

Tami just to echo everyone else - SS will not take dd1 away from you. The gp sounds a bit heavy handed and clumsy. My cousin took her dd to GP's a while back as she was continually coming up with little round bruises in the oddest of places. Hers turned out to be linked to her tonsils which were getting re-occurrent infections which was dragging her overall immune system down. She had them out about 6 months ago and the bruises have disappeared! You are doing a great job with her - despite lack of home support. Go easy on yourself lovely xx

We're just back from a great day at Legoland. Bit chilly but managed not to get rained on and got to do everything with minimal queuing, hurrah! K had the best time, she's such a joy. Just started reading a book written by a lady whose first child was stillborn. So far it's very well written, it's called An exact replica of a figment of my imagination. Has anyone read it?

Phew mammoth post!

MrsY, we learned the hard way not to use euphemisms. Now, that is hard as children do take things so literally and even our explanations of Heaven had ds4 confused. We had explained that her body was in the ground in her "garden" and that her soul had gone to heaven. But for ds4 the only time people had talked about a body being separate from something else was saying, for example that a hat goes on your head and a coat goes on your body. He then thought that Sylvie-Rose's head was not in her grave but elsewhere which I thought sounded so grisly, and then it upset me and made me laugh at the same time.
He also thought that "gone to live with God" meant that she was living in the church which was "God's house" with the local priest who he assumed was God, because after all we were in God's house.
So now I tend to say she is living in Heaven with my Dad. The odd thing was, ds4 never met my Dad but when I showed him a photo of Dad, he said straight away, "That's my Grandpa"

Thanks chip and WTW.

We talked about whether to bring M to the hospital after reading the SANDS leaflet and decided not to. She has seen photos, though, and talks about her brother. So far, it seems to be that she has excepted what has happened, in that way a three year old accepts everything as being normal. She sometimes goes very quiet and says that she is sad because Peanut isn't coming to live with us, but that's pretty much parrotting what we say.

We talk about him in front of her, and so she knows she can talk about him. We don't always cry! and she has talked about him to my mum and my sister. We know we'll always be a family of four, and hopefully she will too.

[i]I feel a bit of a fraud. Things have gone back to normal and I don't feel bleak at all. I don't think about him all the time - I had a really angry day yesterday, but I think that was hormonal as it coincided with a heavy bleed and some bad stomach cramps. Other than that, life goes on. I'm fully expecting that I'll hit the wall at some point and it will all hit me - but what if that doesn't happen. I almost want to feel the pain as a battle scar kind of thing?[/i]

Sounds like you are doing all the right things MrsY and that you are supporting her through it beautifully. I think 3 is a tricky age as there is some level of comprehension but not quite enough. If K had been a year or so younger I don't think we would have let her come to the hospital. As for how you are feeling, go with it. There's no manual or set way you 'should be'. There will be good days and there will be bad days. Even now I can have a whole day of still being totally floored by everything that has happened but mostly, outwardly I am 'okay'

MrsY, I think you can go on a kind of "auto-Pilot" And then, I went months feeling okay-ish and suddenly this month I hit a massive wall of grief. What I have found is that as long as everything else is OK, I'm fine but if if have day-to-day issues with the boys, then I get very upset.

It's taping into an old fear of mine. I've been through a lot and I am a 'coper'. I bury things and deal with them later, by which time they are easier to deal with. But I worry that I've now become so good at burying things, I actually don't feel things as much as I should - the good or the bad. I can cry at a soppy old film, but I don't think I'm very emotional about real life. It worries me that I don't love my daughter properly, especially because I had PND after her birth.

chip thinking of you.

mrsy everyone else is so right you go into autopilot most days and then one obscure thing will set me off. A year on these days seam to come less and less but when they do they are with the same intensity that it has always hit me. I feel very alone and only want the company of DH. I don't have any other children, but I couldn't imagine seeing the grief in one so young it must be heart breaking.

mrsy just read you post, PND on top of your loss is a lot of emotions to deal with. I'm sure you really love your dd.
I too am some one who bottles up her emotions, in my family I was the one who supported my mum who is very emotional so when it happened to me and I needed support I couldn't take it especially from her. Our roles had changed, I still fine it hard talking to her as her over emotional state about Ophelia just leaves me reeling. I feel she's taking over emotionally.
All I can say is there is no right or wrong, just go with it, and maybe try and let your emotions take you, try not to bottle it up. I no its hard. But from a fellow bottle up-er let it out when your trying to hold it in, otherwise it will engulf you, it did for me ended up having a panic attack and DH had to sort me out.

My MIL is like that, I already feel she's taken over emotionally, she has boundery issues, and I quite often feel that she doesn't know how to be a grandparent. She has a whole different wardrobe for M when she stays round there, and often makes decisions as if she was her mum. She still tries to make decisions for J as if he is 10. I quite often have to sit on my hands.

She's actually set up a memorial website for Peanut, which has totally hacked me off. I don't know how to address this.

I had to tell her to leave the room when they came to see Peanut in hospital as her emotions made me feeel claustrophobic (I asked everyone to leave, but it was her I wanted to go).

miasmummy I don't know what I meant now. I actually meant to take her about something else, yet, for some inexplicable reason, I mentioned the bruises instead. They are only on her shins right now, so logically I know that it's normal, totally normal. I think, in the back of my mind, I think I'm a child-killer. I feel (am) respsonsible for Tamsin's death. She was in my body, no body else could help her, but me. And I failed, so in short I killed her.

I'm stupidly terrified that something will happen to DD1, and in a way, I do consider running away and leaving her, or giving her to someone more responsible, as I don't feel capable, and I also feel terrified of each day as she grows up.

chip (((hugs))) Tonight it will be 6 months exactly, since I last Tamsin, since I last held her, since I last smelt her. I thought it was supposed to get easier, but this week I've cried at least half the day, everyday :(

MrsY, your MIL sounds overbearing. My MIL is like that but over the years I have had to learn to put my foot down sometimes and luckily dh always takes my side against her. The way your MIL does things is very upsetting though, as she's doing "nice" things so it makes it hard for you to say anything without sounding ungrateful or unreasonable. But ask dh to ask her to take the website down if it's upsetting you, Benedict is your son, you get to say whether there's a website for him or not.

She drives me mad, chip! She is used to being the main focus in the lives of both her sons and her husband, and just can't get her head around the idea that her boys now have other women in their lives. Most of the time I smile and ignore it, but every now and then she gets to me. My husband is not quite as good as yours at seeing what she's like, as a lot of it is quite subtle.

Tamisara, I totally get how you feel. We know that Benedict was fine on the Sunday night, and I feel so awful that I don't know how much he was moving on th Monday - it was my job to monitor that, and I was too busy trying to catch up on sleep and get through the contractions. If I'd paid attention, chances are we might have got to hospital quicker. With regards to your daughter, she'll always be best off with her mum, as long as she's the best mum she can be. The way you're feeling is very much how I felt when my PND was at it's worst. I thought the best thing to do would be to drive into a wall. Feel free to tell me to bog off or ignore me, but maybe you need to think about getting support (I know you said before you don't want any) but even if it's some tablets to take on a short-term basis so you can feel a bit more in control of your emotions? Can I ask how you're so sure you don't have PND?