It's been almost six months since my healthy, full-term twin son died during a botched labour. I understand the seven stages of grief and I know that the final stage is usually acceptance.
I've been rumbling along fairly well for the last six months. I have two older boys and my little surviving twin, Elijah, has kept me busy. Yesterday evening, while doing the washing-up I started to cry.....and cry.....and cry. The pain was intense. I was picturing my lost little lad's face and I kept thinking and wondering what he would have been like now, if he'd lived. He was a perfect 7lb7oz baby. Not a little scrap who would have stood no chance of survival anyway. He was a little boy who should have been. And the only reason he isn't with me is because other people didn't or couldn't do their job properly.
Has anyone else been through the grief of losing a child through negligence? I feel desperately sorry for anyone who has lost a child through miscarriage or 'natural' stillbirth, and I'm not suggesting that the pain is less acute. But I'm finding the combination of grief and anger, because he should have been born almost too much to bear.
Is this going to hit me so hard at regular intervals for months and years to come? Does the anger diminish? I can almost cope with the grief but the needlessness of his death and the anger caused, is worse.