Walking together on a journey - sharing experiences, tears, anger and sometimes even laughter. United we stand, divided we fall.

[shabbatheGreek]

This special thread was started in 2008. Its a special place - one which nobody would ever willingly come to. I hope we pay tribute to our lost children by helping each other. xxxx

Pah! Facebook. Rargh! That is all.
Don't want to say too much in I upset someone.

Morning girls xx

You OK Snorris? x

Yeah. It's just I came across something on there. I don't have a problem with people talking about their loss but there are some things that I feel are best kept private and not shared with the whole world .

snorris that's hard. Want to talk about it more? This space is for support, so you would be safe in saying what you feel here.

Finding the Mia/ Finn coincidences more marked and challenging at the moment. I know it is because it's October, a beautiful but terrible time of year for us. Just harder than normal to be rational about my fears.

You know what really makes me mad? Those blubbing X-factor wannabes. I find their tears so insulting. Just because you may or may not get selected for the 'opportunity for a lifetime' isn't a reason to cry. Have a real reason.

Oh yes Mias - the young kids who cry and say 'If I dont get through to the live finals it will feel like my life is ended!!!!' I always scream at the telly 'NO IT BLOODY WONT!!' Why does this society tell our kids that they have to be famous???

Totally understand about the x factor crying, it makes so much sense.

Does anyone feel so totally consumed with sadness sometimes? A difficult month as our daughters' birthday is approaching (two weeks) and I know things are hard already. Found out last night that a friend's son has leukaemia. Just don't understand how bad things can keep happening to lovely people. It makes me feel sad on so many levels, some of which feel rather selfish and that makes me feel worse.

Things are never the same are they once you have lost a child. Everything changes but few people see that.

Oh yes, X factor. An awful lot of blubberers on there this year. How they will cope with the fame if they do make it is beyond me.

I get fed up with people and their pets. Don't get me wrong, I love my animals and miss them when they're gone but they don't take precedence over my family. There's a lady at my yard who has a shrine in her garden to her departed horse FGS. She spent over £500 having him individually cremated . Yet she's watching the pennies because her husband is out of work . No doubt I've offended someone with my views!

That isn't what I was on about earlier btw, it's to do with another bereaved parent so I am trying to be sympathetic. Without going into too much detail they have put a photo on a FB that I think really should be kept for themselves only. Maybe it serves me right for clicking on a link but I did have a kind of connection. Anyhow, I've had a clean up and removed a few people and things I don't need in my life any more.

I understand Norris. I used to be animal mad before losing DD. I love my pets (not that we have any right now) but losing them now means less. That sounds bad but I just can't feel as devastated as I did before, that is reserved for DD only.

Sorry to hear about the FB post. As a community of bereaved parents we do things differently and it can be hard sometimes. United yet sometimes poles apart.

snorris, do you not think its upto the parents what they choose to do with the photos?
sorry i dont mean to be touchy but someone told me that headstones are not the place for putting on photos as they are about moving on.....
and its always stcuk with me what right does anyone else have to think they can tell others what to do
i'm guessing perhaps its a photo of a stillborn baby or a photo of the child after he or she died

but i totally agree with you about x factor prats and pets

I guess you're right. I think it may also partly be down to the fact that I find some people put a lot of stuff out in the public domain then get upset when they don't like what others have said, which is not always negative either. I suppose having been in the world of life-limited children I have sadly seen it several times this year. Like it's been said above we are different and I don't intend to offend anybody.

I find that odd that someone said that to you about photos on headstones as that seems a logical ( not sure if that's the right word) thing to do.

yeah the headstone thing didnt make sense to me, and i don't even have a photo of ds on his headstone anyway

it was just the way someone said to me, oh i hope your not going to get one of those headstones with a photo on it, that i found upsetting as i think if thats what i or anyone else wanted, it should be fine

i know alot of people who i have met through sands etc that only have photos of their child where the child has already died because they are stillborn, and i just feel a bit defencevise over them

our ds died shortly after being born, but i know friends [sands etc] friends that would have loved to see there child alive if only for a very short time
and we have photos of ds when he was alive and after he died

anyway i certainly would never want to upset you xxxx
never xxx

hi all

I was at my inlaws tonight and they had pictures out that we took while our house was being built

I was looking at me outside the wooden structure and thought no-one knew I was pregnant
That's when it hit me .. 10 years ago just now I was expecting Fraser.. 10 bloody years ..how can the years go by so fast ... we were sooo excited... new house new baby ..

sometimes old grief catches up wit you

Hope you have a gentle evening Fraser's Mummy. It's so hard when grief catches up with you as you say. Days move into months and into years but nothing really changes does it.

FrasersMammy - I have missed you on here. I feel slightly doolally (crazy) if that makes any sense at all. Got a head full of useless worries and sadness. Its been 31 years since my Gareth died and 21 years since Matt was killed BUT I think about both of them many times every day. You are normal, my friend, you are normal and thinking about the 'what ifs' and the 'could have beens' - sending my love and thoughts to you tonight xx

Oh, fm

I have just come back from a "girly" weekend in a hotel with spa and my SIL was talking about another hotel we had stayed in for a family wedding. I was saying that I hadn't hugely enjoyed that wedding and SIL said "But of course you were pregnant which didn't help!"
And then I remembered that I had been pregnant and that as far as I was aware, I was going to be raising my fifth child.

Dh and ds2 and I went up to Sylvie-Rose's grave today and prepared the soil properly for a little hedge around it. I planted some of the little box hedge plants. It's not finished but it looks so much better now than it did. I just mentioned that I had forgotten the watering-can and really the plants should be watered. When all of a sudden it started to rain. She's clever, my girl. And it was nice that we were doing it together. Dh finds the graveyard tough, I think, so usually I go alone.

snorris please don't think too badly of the couple in question. I think a lot of people find it very hard not to have their baby acknowledged and looked at when they were born sleeping and maybe share things that other people find hard to look at. I honestly don't know what I would have done, had Sylvie-Rose been born sleeping. We are lucky to have pictures of her when she was living and breathing and share those happily. I feel fortunate that at least we have those and don't have to make the decision to share photos of her after she died.

I just want to apologise if I've upset anyone, I've been worrying about it. I think I made the mistake of seeing it from my point of view and knowing how upset my dad would be if I had posted a similar picture of Seren. I normally try hard not to judge people, something MN has taught me! Of course people will want to share their precious photos.

Morning girls xx

Snorris you dont have to apologise. I get irate at FB - OFTEN!!!!

snorris, don't feel bad. I know that people share things sometimes that I wouldn't, or don't think I would. Facebook can be awful too. One of my aunts means well but some of the comments she makes on photos etc can be dreadful. It's like she doesn't stop to think before she posts.

snorris no need to apologise. You were upset by something, and explained why in a very rational manner. And others here then put forward some other views in a nice polite way too - so we all learnt something. Just imagine if we all thought exactly the same way - no-one would ever say anything, and no-one would ever learn anything either! And personally, I would get very bored talking to myself every day...

I talk to myself all the time.......

fm those memories can sneak up on you, can't they? And time does not diminish that pain. xx

shabba dolally? What's going on, my friend? Trying to keep it all together for your Mum and Dad, your sons, and the rest of the family without any time for you, or to remember Matt and Gareth?

Salmonella so glad to hear that tidying up Sylvie-Rose's plot was a family affair. I am not at all surprised she made it rain, she has always demonstrated a remarkable capacity to respond to you.

Two touching moments today. People can be amazing sometimes. I talked about the Mia's Wood ball again today with another set of parents, and then I was surprised when one of the teachers then announced that she was giving Mia's Wood a sizeable donation on behalf of a local women's group, who had heard about Mia's Wood, but until today, she hadn't realised that I was Mia's mother. Tears all around at that point... and then tonight, we have received an email from a local father whose daughter died last year, and while he can't come along to the ball, he wants to donate goods for the charity auction in memory of his girl. Hidden pain lurks everywhere, doesn't it?