I've been trying to post this for days but couldn't muster the strength.
DS2 was stillborn at 39 weeks last weekend. My placenta detached 24 hours before my ELCS. I did 5 days of induction but eventually he was born naturally and peacefully.
Please can someone tell me this horrific heartache will get better? It just feels so endless. Like nothing will ever be any good ever again.
The mornings are hardest when DS1 (3.5) is in nursery school, the house is so quiet and we have nothing to do but the awful practical things that need to be done.
Today has been one of the saddest days - we saw the vicar to discuss his funeral service, dropped his little outfit off to the funeral director for them to dress him in, had to go shopping for something for me to wear for his service and emptied his nursery into boxes that are now in the loft.
It's now just an stark, empty bedroom - we're going to turn it into a playroom for his big brother but it just is so horrid having a room I'm so scared of in a place we're supposed to feel safe, our own home.
Every day my stomach gets flatter and my lochia is lighter and it feels like I'm still slowly losing him.
When the sadness hits it's terrifying, the emotion is so strong I feel like I'm going to vomit and my chest is going to cave in with the pain. It feels like my brain is having to remind me ever ten minutes or so that he's gone and I just want to wake up from this horrible nightmare.
The midwifery team at our local hospital have been utterly amazing and are supporting us so well, as are our families and friends so we are lucky in that respect but despite it all I feel lost and alone and scared and angry, so very angry all at the same time.
Please, anyone, does this pain get better?
Bereavement
Life after stillborn - will this ever get better?
Impatientwino · 21/03/2016 19:39
OP
You write beautifully, thank you for sharing. I have not lost a child but have and continue to deal with loss and grief and your words are helpful/insightful.
Your story and others' are heartbreaking. Life is so cruelly unfair.
I am glad you are finding strength to carry on carrying on. Xx
Anna I am so so very sorry that this awful thing has happened to you. Not even once but twice. Reading your post made my heart lurch.
You poor poor thing, you must so very very angry, I am so sad and angry for you. You do not deserve any of this heartache and if you want to talk I'm here. Can't offer much wisdom I'm afraid, I'm totally lost myself but I will always listen
My alerts on here aren't working so I just have to keep checking to see if any new posts are on here so forgive me if it takes a while for me to reply.
I am so very sorry that little William isn't here with you now 
My daughter Azra was stillborn last March and my stomach still lurches at the thought of where I was mentally at that time. It is consuming in every sense of the word. It doesn't just change your present but your future and also your past. I used to look back at my pregnancy photos and even photos of DH and I when we first met, and sob because I knew what lay in store.
I'm 14 months down the line, I'm coping much better now. It does get easier, that new normal is very true. Some days I cry more than others, but I see the pain I have for my little angel as beautiful now. It is my connection to her, part of a relationship and bond that is much much stronger than death. If the only thing I can do for her is grieve then that is what I am going to do.
I too feel baffled when seeing babies that got to survive, while she died. There is a little boy born a few days before her, that is now toddling up and down the street where I live, I can't help but stare despite the pain.
Keep talking about him my lovely he is your son and you need to celebrate him as much as any other new mother.
I just wanted to say how desperately sorry I am for your loss. My DS was born just before your darling William. I am so sorry - life can be so incredibly cruel.
You and your family are in my thoughts
Flambola and Disillusioned, thank you so much for your recent messages. Im so utterly sorry for both your losses, I've seen your posts on here and my heart breaks for the loss of James and Rumer. You both seem like extraordinary women.
I'm sorry to BelleEtoile and Augustrose that I haven't replied to you. I've not been able to write down how I've been feeling for a while, please don't think is didn't appreciate you sharing your stories, I'm sorry I didn't reply at the time, we were reaching the week of Williams funeral and it all got too much.
I'm finding my way through this new life. We have good, bad, horrific and ok days, Some days are better than others, some are like walking through tar and others I feel like I can breathe, function without the constant pain in my chest for short periods.
There are two mums from my first sons class who had babies the week before I had William and having to see them twice a day at the classroom door is killing me, seeing their sons wrapped in blue blankets when mine should be next to them makes me want to vomit. That's my hardest part currently, watching them live the life I should be living. It consumes me. It makes me so angry, I'm so fed up of being angry with everyone.
I'm finding ways of coping, getting back to running in the last week or so I've found really helpful. Just exerting some force, feeling the wind in my face and music blaring in my ears makes me feel something...
My husband has gone back to work and I feel very jealous that at least he gets to go back to something, I work from home and certainly am not ready to return to work so I drop DS1 at school and then try and fill my time until it's time to fetch him again. My husband on the other hand wishes he was at home with me so I know that being at work makes him feel no better, it's just a distraction from the sad for a while each day...
Williams ashes are being interred next week and I'm dreading it but am looking forward to having somewhere to visit, to sit with him, talk, tell him off for leaving us, to have him finally at rest.
I'm finding the fact that the world just keeps on turning so hard, I know my friends are sad for us but they keep living their lives and that just seems so wrong, how can everyone's lives still be going on like before when our entire universe has imploded inwards. I look at strangers at places we go laughing or moaning about the mundane and think 'don't you know, don't you know what happened' How can you possibly be ok. I know this makes no sense it's just how I feel.
I don't hear from many people now, the first few weeks I got 20 messages a day which was lovely but a bit overwhelming but now somedays it feels like everyone has forgotten William. I guess no one really knows what to say so they just don't pick up the phone. I get it, I wouldn't know what to say to me either. People ask me how I am and I think how the fuck do you think I am? My son is still dead, everything is ruined. I guess it's one of those questions we always ask isn't it? How are you? We don't even want the answer we just ask it like a routine question.
On a positive note (if there is such a thing) I have said to my close friends that although I don't feel any better I do feel stronger, more in control of my emotions. I feel a glimmer of hope every now and then that we will be able to survive this, that we can function and make lovely memories for our first son. I don't want his life to be consumed by our sadness. He asked me only today if we would see the baby again now that we've said goodbye - he's only 3.5 yet he remembers Williams funeral. I know he won't remember for long but it feels so special to hear him talk in a simplistic way about his brother. I will be able to tell him when he's older that he said things and I know that will mean such a lot to him.
We've had all of Williams placenta tests back now and no official cause has been found aside from the fact I had a fetal maternal haemorrhage. My placenta showed no obvious signs of abruption but they said it could have just been a small shear that isn't visible and the genetic tests have come back clear. William was perfect and it makes no sense that he is not here with us. I cannot believe that I will not get to speak his name freely every day, to hold him the way I do his brother, do all of the things I wanted to do with him, to tell him how much I love him, to be his mother. The only way I can do all of this is in my mind and that has to be enough and it all feels so desperately unfair and cruel.
I'm sorry this has been a bit of a brain dump, I just sort of started typing and this has all come out. The utter exhaustion and grief of the early days has faded a little and I am doing ok but I'm scared about the future. Thank you to all who have thought of our little family and know that our hearts go out to others in pain no matter what form
I'm so sorry for the loss of your precious baby boy OP
We lost our DS2 at 37 weeks 6.5 years ago, yet I can remember your pain so clearly. He died on a Friday night and was born the following Monday and I think about him every single day.
I'm sure you have had some good advice so far (sorry I haven't read the whole thread) and can also recommend Sands, their forum has been a lifeline to me on so many occasions when I felt I was going out of my mind with grief. Talking to others, even online, can be so good just to get through each day in the very early days and I hope you are finding some comfort in others.
Each journey is different and hopefully the pain will ease with time for you, sadly there is no time limit and you have to take each day as it comes, some will be better than others until the better days outweigh the bad ones.
Writing about my son in a diary or on his online remembrance page helped me too, I made his memory box which I still add to, and talking about him as often as possible.
My DD2 was only 2.5 at the time and she seemed so wise and understood so much for her age, she is 9 now and still has a caring instinct. There were days when I thought I couldn''t do anything but having the routine of other children made me have to get up and go outside.
It's good that you have been to see William today, I know seeing my DS again was so important for met.
Take care
Good afternoon,
The OP's asked if we can move this thread over to our Bereavement topic so that all of your kind words of support don't disappear. We're moving it over now.
Impatientwino, we're so very sorry for the loss of your lovely boy.
for you, and for everyone else who's been through this.
Please don't hide your grief from your Mother allow her to grieve with you. My DS and Ddil were told their baby would not survive birth and were advised by several doctors not to continue with the pregnancy. Their first child, DDil in her 40's this was their "miracle" pregnancy.
Because they had to have what was in fact a termination at 21weeks they hardly told anyone and because they felt guilty for making that decision.
It has been so hard for them both and I can see them holding it all in, and they would not anyone to come to the funeral.
I am grieving for that grandchild that I will never know, and would love to tell them how much we would have loved him. If I mention anything I'm told we don't want to cause any upset!.
OP I'm sitting here at work with tears in my eyes after reading yours and all the other people who have written their experiences here. My heart goes out to you all.
Please let your family and friends grieve with you.
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