Misty breeze wraps about my shoulders, thinly clad. I shiver not, despite the coolness on my skin. Comfort, I now feel. Is it you my precious Angel?

[chipmonkey]

Starting a new thread for our angel babies
Sylvie-Rose 16/8/11 to 4/10/11 too short my love, too short.

When Sean first died, a friend said to me, 'nature does not like a vacuum'. Eventually - please God - the horrific emptiness is filled with something else. I don't kid myself I will ever recover from this, but I try to believe some other sort of existence will unfold slowly over the years.

I wake up every night at around 4am and within seconds, the shockwave of Sean's death shoots through my body. I have a variety of tablets to get me back to sleep - melatonin, valium and over the counter herbal ones. I rarely take any of them, but I like to have them there, just in case. I don't find the small hours the worst - it is the daytime, when I am wide awake and fully aware.

I hope all you amazing women get through your day ok and catch up on your sleep tonight x

Morning girls xx

I have the opposite I can fall asleep on a 'chickens lip' as my DH always says. I go to sleep before my head hits the pillow. When I close my eyes it feels like I am falling into a dark hole. Then after about 4 hours I toss and turn and finally give up.

xxx

I just had two Jehovah Witnesses knock on my door and disturb my couch nap :o. They left when I told them I was a Buddhist :o.

LOL Expat. I was brought up all my life in the Mormon faith. After Gareth died we had his funeral at their church. I haven't stepped in a Mormon church since. When I told our local Jehovahs Witnesses I was a Mormon they looked at me with such sympathy that it made me laugh. They stopped coming when they realised that I can argue the Bible with them better than they can with me!!

By the way, the death of my two sons has meant I have no faith in anyones God.

My Dad was a nutcase. He used to invite the Mormons and the Jehovah's witnesses in and argue with them! He would be in the dining room with them for ages with my mum rolling her eyes in the kitchen!

He did go to Mass every Sunday but I don't think he really believed in Catholicism as such. Back then in Ireland in the seventies, people would regard you badly if you didn't go to Mass, the only valid excuse was being a Protestant and going to a different church.

But I remember once saying to him as a teenager that I thought God was like Santa Claus for grown ups and he agreed with me. But I know he believed in Spirits and an afterlife. When our neighbour died, he said, "That part of John that laughed and had a joke with us, that had to go somewhere. That wasn't just part of his body"

I agree with him and I believe I've had enough signs from him and Sylvie-Rose that they live on. I don't know if they hang out with God, though

I was brought up Catholic as well. But now, like you, shabba, I don't believe in anyone's god now, either. But it's easier to say you're Buddhist or Moonie or pagan or something to get them to go away.

I had a very naughty mate when I was at uni who invited Mormons in and then would offer them lewd sexual services after they said their schpiel.

In Denver, since it's next to Utah, they can be pretty pushy, which is annoying if you work shift patterns or nights. When I was working in hospice, I would get annoyed at being woken early on weekend mornings by them.

I went to a friend's apartment, he worked in a bar and often didn't get home from work till around 4AM, and noticed he had a pentagram sticker and an upside down rainbow triangle sticker on his front door. Now, I knew he was not gay nor did he had any sort of spiritual beliefs. I said, 'What's with this?' He told me it worked a treat for keeping Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses from waking him up.

So I tried it. Result!

The death of DD has made me more spiritual than before as it forced me to question my beliefs. I was never religious before but now I'm not an atheist. I feel there is a whole realm of something, and that we should be able to forge our own beliefs sometimes with reference to religious texts and ideas as a guideline for morality etc.

I have real problems sleeping at the moment. It's like I dread going to bed or going to sleep, I have quite vivid nightmares and things and I just cannpt relax I have too much to do. Not going to bed til 4 or 5 does NOT help when I have to be awake at 7-8 to be at medical school.. I've missed lots of time.

For about a year (yep, that long) every time I fell asleep and woke up I would forget DD had died. It would be a nasty realisation process every single morning.

I don't settle well, either. I can't seem to get my breath. I don't like to sleep because when I wake Aillidh will be dead still.

I'd like to think there's something else out there, given the magnitude of the universe, an afterlife, if you will. But I'm not convinced. I tried reading about NDEs but, well, these people were not dead, the dead don't come back, and most of it I found very cliche.

And as far as God in the Christian sense with which I was brought up? I don't believe in that at all anymore. Not a jot.

Expat I like the symbols on the door idea

We lived with our (Mormon) friends, in Utah, for 6 months in 1980/81. The Mum had a big operation and needed help with her four children - in return they gave us free room and board....we had an amazing time. I found that the Mormon community in Utah were nowhere near as pushy as they are in England. Kind of like they were born into it so its more of a way of life?

Maybe. I only went to Utah once, though I lived in Colorado for 8 years. But at the time, I was climbing a lot and I liked to smoke pot and drink beer (in my 20s, no kids) and it was all such a PITA in Utah. So though I knew people who went there to mountain bike and climb, mostly, I'd give those trips a miss :o.

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Expat. DH bought a t-shirt when we landed in Los Angeles and were on our way to our friends....it said on it 'EAT, DRINK AND BE MERRY FOR TOMORROW YOU MAY BE IN UTAH'

:o

That no coffee/caffeine thing would mean I could never be a Mormon, on top of the no booze, pot or fags (in the past).

xx

I don't know how people survive with no coffee. I can't function without it and get a dreadful headache if I ever try.

DD2 is singing all these carols and hymns at school tomorrow. Of course, I'm going along, she's so excited.

But she did bring up God. I told her the truth: that some people believe there's one and others believe there are many. She asked if I believed in one or many. I said no. She asked, 'But there are angels.' I said, 'Some believe so.' 'But you don't?' I said no. She asked if that's why I no longer say night prayers with her. I said yes. She asked what I thought of the Bible and I said, 'Some people believe it's about God and the word of God.' She asked what I believed. I told her it's an old book with stories in it.

oh could do with a drink, i've just finished that study i was telling you about from oxford uni, about listening to parents after the death of their baby, its taken me two months to build myself upto completiing this, and has taken me two days to do
but i feel good now i've actually managed to do this, as i really wanted to be able to do this in order to hopefully help others.
i think ive done a pretty good job of making sure i don't miss anything out

I think my beliefs are largely b*llocks really, but here's what I believe: that there are many universes and many time continuums time is not linear etc etc. I believe that the bible was originally (in the Torah) written about true events, but that these were jazzed up a little to convey a message. The King James bible is largely rewritten for his own purposes. But the events I think did happen, well, most of them. I personally do not believe in Christianity per se. I've got a copy of the tibetan book of the dead, it's pretty interesting. I believe that we do have souls and that there is a spiritual element to all of our lives. And what I believe happens is that our soul comes to earth many times, in order to reach higher and higher states of light until we are wise enough not to come back anymore but to become part of something bigger. I therefore believe we are reincarnated (I know, crazy alert) and I think that I don't really follow any earthly religion except my own, which is something of a made up, seeking agnostic kind of thing with a dash of buddhism. I strongly believe there is 'something'. Being a medic, most of us are pure scientists and are proud atheists. But anyway, that's me :)

well done on the study white! did you have to answer set questions?

expat - colorado? lovely!! where are you from originally?

me + caffeine = inseperable

tbh the beliefs I hold I think were mainly formed after DD and are probably compelled by HAVING to be able to see her again. I cannot handle the concept of permanence at all. So to me, she is not dead and I will see her again. To me it feels like a lifetime away but to her it won't be very long at all. I read loads of NDE studies and child past life books (like 'old souls') at the time of her death. It was the only way I could cope with it.

Had that not happened, I doubt I'd believe in anything other than aliens

*have

cafecito, that is actually very close to what I believe.

I also have this feeling that I already knew before I embarked on this life knowing what was to come. When she died, although her death was totally unexpected, I had this feeling of "Oh, that's right, this was supposed to happen"
My cousin who has a child with severe SNS says the same, that somehow she always knew.

I feel like Sylvie-Rose was on a mission and that I am part of that mission. I fucking hate this mission! But, on we must go.......

Oh, and white Here you go!

Do you know the weird thing is, I lived in Mexico when I was 15/16/17/18 (long story) and I bought these mexican hearts at the time which read chiquitita, te quiero, te extrano tanto, and one saying precious baby girl. I found them after DD died, and was like weird- because I spoke to her in spanish anyway, (I never have with DS it's just me and DD which is a shame) but they said 'little girl, I love you and miss you so much'. I'm sure it's nothing, but was weird. It was alost as if DD had this incredibly wise look in her eyes, like she knew she wouldn't be here for long.

oh thanks!
well it was 24 a4 pages long, bigger than i thought it would be, there was alot of set questions, but there was alot of open questions as well
such as is there anything else you would like to tell us about your care while you were pregnant or since your baby died.
it was broken down into sections and lots of opportunities to say what helps what doesnt what you think they could do in the future, they wanted to know all about how we were treated during the pregancy, labour and after ds died.

suppose its quite good they are going it really, they say they are going to use the information breaved parents provide to make poliices and draw up care guidelines etc and hopefully to make things that bit easier for people going through this hell, so i'm really glad i actually managed it, even if it did take me quiet a while to build myself upto it, im glad ive done it

heads pounding a bit now, i shall catch up with this thread tomorrow

I'm originally from Houston, Texas, but it was far too conservative for me, so I moved to move liberal Austin to go to university. After uni, I moved to Boulder, Colorado, a bastion of liberalism .

From my own background (my father's mother was pure Mayan from Mexico), I was never comfortable with the idea of Christian heaven, per se. My gran was obsensibly Catholic, but she held many native beliefs, such as that one's soul goes to spirit world after death. Again, she believed in things like portals and that spirit world is just another plane of existence. She was also a lay midwife and pretty much a witch doctor, who cured her own typhoid with some concotion her sister made and wouldn't tell any Western doctors what the hell it was. She also grew and used marijuana in a variety of medicinal ways.

One of her daughters, for example, was asthmatic as a child, and when she took an attack my grandmother would shut herself the bathroom with her, fill her pipe with pot (she smoked a tobacco pipe pretty much her whole life until her death age 92) and toke until the room was filled with smoke. She also used marijuana leaves to make a tea for stomach or period cramps.

She had her own NDE when her village in Mexico was plagued by Spanish Flu in 1920. Her first husband and two-year-old perished, and as did most of the village, buried hastily in pits, and she was pretty much left on her own bar one very old woman who did not contract it and tended to those still alive. She claimed it was just delirium from the fever and dehydration, and it may have been, but her experience echoed many accounts of NDEs.

DD2 believes Aillidh was gone to the spirit world, because I couldn't handle it all after she died so my father told her of the spirit world.

Well done, white!

This was such a big thing for you! You deserve huge congratulations.