My baby's funeral this week

[AnxiousKeziah]

And am broken. Devastated. Isolated.
No one wants to know when no baby comes home. Everyone comes when a new life is in a house.
So alone with awful thoughts. My dh is broken, not able to support me at all and I am, just angry with the whole world; raging at the unfairness.

After 10yrs of ttc, infertility treatment - we have a funeral. He never came home. I feel I failed him. Am on maternity leave - had plans for perhaps going to baby groups and making connection, people to meet up with at parks/over coffee, maybe even a friend. Bought tiny baby clothes, nappies, lanisoh and looked up local sling library. Thought about names, what he would look like. Would he look like ds? Got ds baby things our of loft - what not given away. Age 40, my dreams of what for me was normal and what many people have easily, were to be realised.

No longer felt punished - not good enough to have more than one child. Went without holidays, ran an ancient car, no treats to fund medical bills. Life of ds put on hold to try to give him a sibling, to quench that desire in me I could not quash. As soon as had first scan that desire ceased. We were complete. Found out a second boy. That was just fine - any child was a blessing.

Then it all started going wrong - my fears were realised. Baby stillbiirth, too poorly plus had IUGR and on top it was too much for us all to bear.

And this week we bury him. Bury a child we never got to know. Never got to change a nappy for or dress. His brother never met him. We bury our homes and dreams.

I have wanted to yell and shout and scream at everyone who told me, we had a miscarriage and went on to have multiple number of children, or even had a death and had 3 beautiful daughters for eg. Firstly, my son is dead. Nothing can change it. Secondly this is the end of the road - there is no more money for expensive medical bills to try to conceive and maintain a oregnancy. More importantly I obviously have few healthy eggs left.

After 10yrs of longing we are burying our precious son.

And only one person had visited us in the weeks inbetween. How many if I had brought home a baby or had a baby in NICU? People offer support for babies, ignore losses. Feel so alone. Had a card today from a person expecting a baby same time as me; saying not coming to the funeral. No - she has everything I have lost. And so does everyone I see around me, with bumps, pushing prams, with grandparents. We have no family, no grandparents to push a pram here.

I am selfish. One person accused me if behaving as if my one dc was not enough; whilst they had chosen to have 3 healthy children. Why have more than 1 of what she said was true - one is enough.

He needs a sibling. I needed a baby to hold in my arms, to feed, to nurture.

Life decided I needed a funeral. A funeral bill not a childcare bill. A gaping whole in the ground and a gaping wound in my heart that can never heal.

oh my darling, you poor thing, the pain you're in - its so not far and like everyone here, i wish i could help you, please dont leave us - keep sharing, its good to do so, we are all sending all the love we can to you

We're here if you need us, OP.

Keziah what do you mean you don't deserve sympathy??

Who is more worthy of sympathy than a parent who has lost a child??

Of course you deserve sympathy.

It is a totally natural feeling to want more than one child but that doesn't mean that the life of an only child is awful.

My best friend is an only. He says he always appreciated the advantages of having all his parents attention and time. His DPs arranged lots of play dates and often invited friends on holiday so that he'd have a companion. He is close to his cousins too.

He never remembers feeling lonely or like he missed out. He liked being an only one.

My children have lots of friends who are only children so it's pretty common.

Your little boy won't resent not having a sibling. He'll instead be proud if how strong his mum was.

I did not post for sympathy - I know I do not deserve that

But you do Keziah. You not only deserve it you are due it. I don't know why people feel the need to judge others' pain and decide for them how awful it is. We are listening to you and believe the dreadful reality of your grief.

I would like to judge your DH's response but I won't. I have learned that there are many ways of feeling and being in situations like yours. I think the best thing my DH and I did was to very early on agree that we gave each other permission to do it our own way. He needed to go back to work and carry on as normal. I needed to allow my emotions to take charge for a while. We chose not to judge each other. Is there any way you could have a discussion with your DH like that? Permission to grieve in your own way is very valuable. And when I say permission I mean giving yourself permission which sometimes can only be done in the context of understanding and acceptance from someone else.

I shouldn't worry about your DS being around your emotion. He only needs the assurance of your love for him and he really is too young to remember much else.

Don't stop posting if you find it in any way helpful.

What you are going through is what all of us dread and we all feel that 'there for the grace of god go I'.
We want to help, but we know we cannot, but you are relieving our need to 'help' by allowing us to give out tuppence worth.

Who knows whether you are 'depressed' or not? Depression IS a clinical illness, but can be triggered by bereavement and I think it is recognised that there is NO loss that come equal to the death of a child (no matter what age the child).
You must allow some time to pass and somehow find a way to get through the next 5 minutes, next hour, next day; breathing in, breathing out, and putting one foot in front of the other.
One day you will find small bits of joy in unexpected places or find yourself smiling at your DS's antiques or something. Of you won't. As more time passes a diagnosis of depression may be easier to make or seem more likely. YOU will have to find your own way and your own trajectory through this pain - you will remain changed forever by this experience, you'll forever be Dylan's mother, and you will either find some kind of way to grow a scar over this hurt or you won't.

Your DS will need to make his own journey. I am quite sure that you are being the best mother to him than you are capable of being. It is clear you love him, and your love for him is quite separate from your yearning hurt for the absence of your lost baby .

Please look after yourself. What you're going through is unfair and not your fault and there was nothing you could have done to prevent it from happening. You deserve some healing and nurturing and being looked after - please cut yourself some slack.

Keziah - go back to your doctor. You need help. You need support. You need bereavement counselling. And of course you deserve sympathy - but mostly you need to STOP beating yourself up. Your age is fairly irrelevant to your loss - your feelings are all aimed at blaming yourself for something that just happened, and this needs to be dealt with.

Your DH needs to get a sympathy transplant as well, by the way - he's not helping you at all, and that, while slightly understandable, is very distressing to hear about - I'll say again that you need to go to FAMILY bereavement counselling. ALL of you, or at least you and your DH together.

Please continue to post - you need an outlet.

I am so very sorry. Xxx Sweet dreams to your beautiful angel Dylan xxx

I agree with thumbwitch who has put it better than me. Please seek some professional help through your doctor or in the meantime through somewhere like sands.

I am concerned that you think this awful thing is your fault or deserved in any way. It isn't your fault at all and there is no blame.

You have all our love and support here but please reach out and get some real life help from professionals who can arrange the support you need.

If I knew you, I'd come visit. People sometimes don't write as they don't know what to say. Life deals hard blows sometimes. big hugs xxx

ASAS - sorry, so many kind people posted much blurred and did not post many named replies. I am not good to be around right now - as people have posted on the thread, and I have reacted to ( at least in my head), I cannot cope with more judgments about me than I already have of myself. I am isolated. No one wants to be with someone who is grieving, including my own family, dh, or the few kind people who helped out in the month before birth.

I posted too much: age, infertility, fears of only child. So people tell me all the positives, how better life is for them x number of years with only one child and one dead one. But I cannot see that. I cannot see this week as a positive. I cannot right now and now is where I am at. It is good other people who have had children die, have never been able to complete their family and have coped with the loss of a child, a funeral and the end of their dreams, or those who have lost a child but still have other children ( plural) can comment on how I should feel/criticise my wrong choice of words that do not agree with their experiences. But I cannot see any positives. All I can feel are empty arms, aching and need filling with love, with the precious little blond haired boy that nestled there, cold and lifeless, never feeling my love for him. All I can feel is anger, railing against the world whilst hormones rage in me telling me to feed a baby, to wake up in the night to feed a baby that is not there. All there is now is an empty cradle, empty heart and an empty life.

Thumbwitch - it takes3/4 weeks to get an appointment with my named gp. Otherwise it is an emergency appointment with a random gp who I do not know. ( I know this as had to go after car accident for some stronger pain relief and I had never seen dr before and it was horrid) And I know I can self refer for counselling - it has notices in dr's practice and I looked it up. One assessment and then either: book on orescriotion, online course, group/1:1 CBT counselling for 6 sessions. Or a group 4-6 week block on certain issues ( anxiety was one, forget the rest). My dh saw gp to get his note for work and was told to go private as nothing really on NHS here. Nor can I be under perinatal team as got no baby under 1yr old. HV not have any involvement as I got a 3yr old and they do not deal with the older ones under 5 unless there are issues; I know as she kindly came to visit but said she could not see me again. We got SANDS info, no local phone number or active group from research. Not rung national line, as cannot see what it can offer. Joined forum and got distressed at how most active threads were about rainbow babies ( now I know what that term means), pregnancy etc. not where I a, at, or can ever be at. I did look, did not post. I have tried a little to beproactive.

It just hurts, is raw. I just wanted somewhere I could talk and not be criticised. Yes I know I I beat myself up - who does not when they feel they let a loved one down, when there is no one there to reassure or hold my hand. Surely it is natural to judge and blame self when it feels everyone else is. If only you had heard my MIL you may understand how I am treated. How my pain and blame is intensified by others.

Thanks Poppetina

Beaufortbelle - there is no professional support. If you bring a baby home you get midwife visits up to 28 days ( I saw a lovely one twice due to some birth issues [from breech delivery] who said she could not see me again even though had not got to even a day 10 visit), a Gp 6 week check, a HV to check mother and baby progress, baby weigh in clinics, even perinatal mental health tea, if psychotic ( I am not).

If you get no baby to being home you get a cardboard box with some memory stuff in ( a candle, a stone in a bag, a blanket that has never been near the baby, footprints if you can get a midwife to do them for you - which we did thankfully the day before we came home). A funeral to arrange. One cursory HV and midwife visit ( I got 2 of latter due to physical issue from birth). Then that is it. Down to looking up charities and websites. Which have no energy for. Sorry should say I cannot use phones ( have a profound bilateral hearing loss). We saw a chaplain once which did help. The bereavement midwife has rung twice ( so speaks to dh not me). Had the professional help that is on offer. The rest is down to me - as many posters had inferred - I choose to get over it or not was how I read a few replies. No professional help can give me a different outcome, a healthy child. I cannot cope taking my 3yr old to the activities he did - a play group full of pregnant women and prams, a group where the people saw I had a bump ( cancelled that for this term so cannot go as places are in short supply).

Your post has brought tears to my eyes. I'm so sorry for your loss. It's terribly unfair. I hope you and your family find the strength to come through this.

But thank you to kind posters who asked nothing of me, who allowed me to talk about my precious child, Dylan, when no one in the real world did. When even the grandparents who travelled hours for the funeral and straight back again, not even coming to the home Dylan never came back to, want to know of him. He was their second grandchild and they did not want to know. People do not know what to say, or if they do it is something I cannot deal with - oh I had a miscarriage type comment. Yes it is a loss, but their loss, usually made worse for me by them saying but without it we would not have had 3 further beautiful girl type comments.

Thank you for letting me share my pain enough to get in the car to go to the funeral. To say goodbye in a formal way. Not that I remember much, it was a blur through my tears.

Mild - thank you for acknowledging how unfair it is. I needed to hear that just now ( I mean that, I am not being sarcastic but genuine but not sure how to show that in words).

As a poster of this thread had just pm'd me - I have to go my own way. Sort it out myself.

Thanks for the genuine kindness of posters here, for those who could accept me how I was - broken, imperfect and barely hanging on.

Oh you poor love, your situation sounds 100 x worse now you've explained more about your lack of support - your ILs sound dreadful! your own parents, what about them? Were they just as bad?

I can understand now that you are unable to phone people. I can understand that it takes too much effort to look things up and I am sorry that your local support network is so lacking.

I linked before to Cruse - when you have more energy, perhaps you would be able to get in touch with them through their website.

Talk away about Dylan on here - we're all here to listen. Talk more about how let down you have been by those around you - again, we will listen.

It's in the nature of MN to offer advice - but if it's feeling too directive at the moment, then we can stop doing that too.

But please continue to post - you do need an outlet. And this seems to be the only one you have at the moment.
((((hugs))))

I am so sorry for you darling. If I could take away your pain, I would do. Hugs to you and little Dylan.

Oh, Keziah - here are some virtual arms to hold you whilst you weep for your own empty ones. Please keep on grieving and please keep on letting it out here if it helps you. This is not your fault. We are not judging you. Please keep "talking" to us if it does you any good at all.

I'm so so sorry for your loss of Dylan. It's not your fault, life can be so cruel and unfair.

Sending you hugs - give yourself the space and time you need to grieve.

However you go on from now on is the right thing to do. Obviously people grieve differently and there isn't a wrong way. People say nothing as they worry about saying the wrong thing. I think saying you don't know what to say is better than nothing. No excuse for staying away and doing nothing. The grieving parent is the important one here.

If you are finding it hard to access the help you need, or to find out what there is, the. I am sure there is someone on here who can help you.

RIP Dylan. We never knew you but we care. We care about your mummy too. .

You can come on here and just le it all out. We will read and try to reply without upsetting you. What has happened to you is terribly, terribly cruel and unfair. No-one deserves this to have happened. Grief just has to be got through one breath at a time, don't worry about a day, an hour ahead even.

I kept a little candle burning for you and Dylan these last few days and will keep you in my thoughts x

You won't get any judgement from me. Sending you lots of strength and love xxx

I am so sorry for the pain you are going through. Dylan was clearly so loved.

Please be kind to yourself. One moment at a time.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts on here -I hope that it may help how we comfort friends and family in this situation. I have a friend who dealt with something similarly heartbreaking. I am going to send her a message now to check in -even though it was 3 years ago I don't want her to feel forgotten. Thank you for helping me to be a better friend.

Keziah, thinking of you here today.

Every minute that passes and people's lives go on and the sun rises and sets and Life just continues must be just unbearable for you just now - it is unfair and cruel and, no doubt, undeserved.
If you cannot be broken and imperfect and not coping on here, then I don't know where you can. No judgement from me either.

I am not sure how appropriate this might be for your particular circumstances, but maybe have a look at the website of The Compassionate Friends? It's a site and forum set up for bereaved parents, and yes, some have lost their children later in life that you have, but I believe the sentiments and pain and distress expressed will be similar to what you are living with.

CRUSE offer v good bereavement counselling and you will know when the time is right and you feel able to talk about your tragedy.

I think Glowinthewoods was mentioned upthread - again, have a read and see whether anything on there might help you on this journey that you have no choice but to take.

I am in no way religious, but I lit a candle for Dylan today