How can Iove someone I never knew?

[35years]

I'm feeling truly heartbroken and can't stop crying but I need to talk and ask some questions (questions are in the last paragraph, in case you don't have time or want to read it all). I'm not feeling well, emotionally and physically, so this might not make a lot of sense. I also feel suicidal. I will not act on my feelings/urges and it isn't solely because of losing my son - I don't know what I want from this message - I think it is as basic as talking to someone about my confusion with love, and because I can't talk to my children about how I still feel (they are all so loving, compassionate, thoughtful and I am so lucky to have them in my life. I don't see them often due to distances between us. 2 of them live abroad, the other in a different county).

I have no-one to talk to as I don't have any friends and no other family apart from mother and sister who I have distanced myself from for my mental health.

Sorry for rambling.

In summer 1984 my 3rd baby, my 3rd son, was stillborn. I don't want to share what exactly happened but they deliberately misrepresented his gestation to avoid recording it as a stillbirth. His gestation had caused queries earlier in the pregnancy and scans at 16 weeks confirmed his due date and that fit in perfectly with the contraception failure.

At 36 weeks he was delivered weighing 1189g. They confirmed at delivery he was very small for dates, but later later denied this, and recorded he was a 28 week delivery. They told me he had to be 28 weeks and one day to be stillborn. He was recorded as a spontaneous abortion and a funeral was denied. He was also part of the retained baby organs scandal and I still cannot accept what happened. I have posted about this under a different name just before his birthday last year (and changed dates so I wouldn't be identified).

I'm rambling. Sorry.

My daughter was born 1 year, 2 hours and 20 minutes after my stillborn son. Every year their birthday breaks my heart but makes me feel so incredibly lucky and proud to have such an amazing daughter and also sad for her as she shares her birthday with a dead sibling she never met. (daughter, if you find and read this, you amaze me every single birthday with your compassion and love x x x).

Losing my son changed me, and the way I parented, for the good. All 3 say what an amazing incredible loving and caring mum I am so I know I did OK as a parent.

2 of my children have very young children {8 months and 6 months) and the other is expecting their first in a couple of months. I am so fortunate. And very much in love with them all!!! But I cannot talk about stillbirth when they are at this stage in parenthood.

As their birthday nears I am having all the heightened emotions. But, I cannot work this one out... I really hope someone can help me work this out.

How can I love my baby son so much when I never really knew him? I never heard his cry, saw him move, saw him look at me and my only physical contact was brief and because the midwife missed the delivery. She was really angry, said I can't be going and touching him like that because I scooped him up and held his close.

The logical stuff feels incredibly irrational and doesn't make sense.

Last week my son who is expecting his 1st soon acknowledged that he can't bear to think about the pain I must have gone through. I told him that I don't think any of us realise how much we build up our hopes and dreams for our children well before they are born.

My questions, that are torturing me:

Do you think maybe thinking I Iove him is just because of these (probably unrealistic) hopes and dreams I had and that I can't possibly love him as I didn't know him?

Do you think I am mixing up this unbearable love with what I pictured his life to be? So, like I am in love with the dreams, not the person because I never knew him as a person?

How can it hurt so much after 35 years? It is so raw, the crying really feels like it is tearing me apart.

Is there any way, with less than 2 weeks til his birthday, that I can find a way to get through his birthday without these overwhelming urges and picturing his lovely little face and replaying his delivery in my mind? I can't face it again.

Thank you so much for reading. I may not answer responses quickly, but I will answer as soon as I can. Thank you.

I’m so sorry that you are feeling this way. I personally have not experienced the pain that you have in loosing a child this way, it must have been very painful at the time. Of course certain anniversaries are going to trigger memories for you. I lost both of my parents when I was quite young nearly 30 years ago and I still miss them every day. Anniversaries of course too, even more so. You say you have 3 lovely children and grandchildren too, so you have everything to live for. It is a shame that they all live so far away from you. One of my children and grandchildren live in another country so I know how that feels.
Have you had counselling for your grief or could you have some counselling now? I found that counselling helped me, I felt very angry that I lost my parents so close together, but over time with some counselling less so. Hopefully someone else with more experience than me on this subject can offer some more helpful advice 💐

Hello OP, we're so sorry.

We hope you don't mind, but when these threads are flagged up to us we usually add a link to our Mental Health resources. You can also go to the Samaritans website, or email them on [email protected]. Support from other Mumsnetters is great and we really hope you will be able to take some comfort from your fellow posters, but as other MNers will tell you, it's really a good idea to seek RL help and support as well.

I’m sorry for your lost. I lost a stillborn baby too. It’ll be 8 years in June. I believe you can love someone you never met whilst they were alive. You carried him and birthed him and held him after. You knew him. You love him. I love my girl too.
I struggle at times- but found some help in counselling- I had disturbing flash backs of her birth.
I went on to have 2 more children after my stillborn daughter and I still feel very nervous around pregnant people. I feel terribly anxious that the same night happen to them- it can happen to anyone and they don’t know...I know I can go warning heavily pregnant people though....I just get anxious.

We love our babies from the moment we get that first positive result. We have hopes and dreams for them, plans for them, things we will do, books we will read, places we will go. We know them as they grow, we know their movements and patterns, they know us.

You are absolutely right to love your baby and to miss him and grieve for him, no matter how many years ago it was.

Look how times have changed with parents being able to stay with their babies, hold them, take footprints and photos. I am sorry you didn't get that chance

I am so sorry for your loss.

Did you give your baby son a name?

I’m so sorry for your loss and the difficulty you are facing right now OP. I’m also so very sorry for the way you were treated. I cannot imagine what you have been through.

If you don’t mind I will share some of my story with you in case if helps at all. My first child was stillborn earlier this year. She died the day before she was due at 39 weeks and 1 day.

In answer to your question, I think there at least two elements to the sense of loss after losing a child before or during birth.

One is the loss of the life you pictured with that child. I had so many plans for my baby girl, Ruby. I have boxes of clothes I bought for her and pictured her in and I had plans for mat leave. Instead I’m sitting on mat leave alone feeling an overwhelming sadness much of the time.

On top of that I feel what is, for me, the much more overwhelming los: my daughter died. I loved her “from the moment she was a line on a stick” (as a friend of mine put it). I felt her move, hiccup, I talked to her and played with her every day (I tried to grab her feet when she got into certain positions). After she was born, I held her, I dressed her, I kissed her and talked to her. I loved her. I will always love her and I will always miss her.

The fact you are still thinking and feeling this way 35 years later shows how much you loved her.

I’m not as far along into this journey as you are OP (in fact I was born in 1984) but from what I have learned from speaking to other people sometimes the anticipation of certain dates are harder than the date itself. You will know whether or not that’s actually true better than I do. I am of course dreading that first birthday but I will try to mark then occasion.

Please share more of your story here if you would like and if it helps. I have found it helps to share my experience and “chat” with other people who have lost a baby.

Sorry OP I said her when I meant him, in relation to your son (my baby was a girl).

The other thing I was going to say is it doesn’t matter how well you “knew” your baby. It’s universally understood that parents love their children, not because of what they’re like or what they do, it’s unconditional. Whether or not you had a chance to get to know your baby you loved him.

The love for each of your children in unconditional and isn’t just switched on when you give birth. The unconditional love starts when you’re trying to conceive or when you find out you’re pregnant. There’s a reason that animals often become protective of they’re pregnant owners as again that love in unconditional from pre birth and a person once told me there’s nothing more scary then goinf up against a mother protecting their child which you do from the day you find out you’re pregnant. So yes you can and I wouldn’t expect anything else in your situation. If it was a random stranger you loved from looking at one photo then that would be a complexity different story.