TTC after stillbirth

[toots123]

Just wondering if anyone else is ttc after a stillbirth and wanted to join me on this very daunting journey?

Oh, that’s a difficult one to answer!

My feeling from when I’ve been around is that we are everything to my parents and just perfect. I am absolutely the oldest of two, their first baby with first Christmas, first time being a young parent, all of that, then my brother came along and we were two. I’ve never felt like a consolation, I was made to feel like the most precious important thing in their world.

We are the family, my parents went through something that binds the two of them before we were born. I think that’s the best way I can describe it. I really wouldn’t want any different.

I don’t mark the day, I’d call my mother maybe but it isn’t expected and she doesn’t mention it, she talks to me, her daughter. I know she of course remembers and will shed a few tears, but it’s “oh goodness me” and a hug rather than sobbing. My father might say “it’s your sister’s birthday today”. He’s thoughtful about it. I know the day doesn’t pass them by, but it doesn’t take over.

A lot of time had passed. They’ve raised their children, been through so much with us all, so many wonderful things and are now in love with their grandchildren.

I know they think about her but they’ve made their peace.

She lost a child who she carried to term but the baby couldn’t survive outside the womb.

Sorry, trying to type super early on a phone and respond carefully to a difficult questions!

Growing up - I knew there was a baby who was born but couldn’t survive outside the womb/went to heaven or whatever description used for a child to understand.

Is/was my sister real to me? Well, yes, but not as my brother is. We weren’t made to feel that we had lost someone and were grieving. If the birth order had been different or a child lived for a time I think that’s different. Yes she’s real, I know her story of being born (I asked my Dad when I was about thirty, the story is age appropriate for an adult, the descriptions I had before we more than enough for a child). My grandmother’s faith was important to her, she lost a baby too in the middle of all of her many children, she once said “remember you can pray and the babies in heaven with x,y,z are there and can help you”. So yes she’s real, in the sense that my parents who I know from that age in photos and stories and whose lives and souls I know inside out, went through this before we were born.

Growing up, yes that’s exactly it. I knew they had a baby before me, a sister, who couldn’t live and I just accepted it. I don’t recall being told, it just always was. I did just accept it. I wasn’t made to feel I lost anything and to be sad or grieve. I think that’s important. The simple explanation is enough for a child.

If you asked either of my parents how many children they have at any point after I was born, they would say one, after my brother, two. That’s still the case now. I think I prefer that. If it was constantly we have more but one is missing I think that would be hard at various points in life when maybe I or my brother were struggling with whether we were good enough and our own lives, as everyone does. Instead it’s as if the child they lost is a baby, a child they lost. Then they had us, their children.

I’m sure my parents thought about this more after we were born but honestly I think having us feel the absence would have been confusing to our own identities.

I think it’s really only something you can feel when it happens. I can speak for how I feel and how our family feels, my identity within that family as absolutely enough, a treasure and the beautiful eldest daughter who is and was treasured by them both, plus my sibling, the beautiful younger baby one ;now a parent and adult!) who we also treasure deeply.

Does the day mean anything to me? Well as my parents daughter, I think of what they went through. They were very young, younger than me now of course. As an adult I can think “oh god, that’s so sad and painful for them”. However I also know everything that came after, so I know they had and have their joy. I guess I think of what they went through through the view of knowing that it was going to be ok, when of course at the time, they were so distressed and didn’t yet know this.

I know my sister’s name. I think it is very possible for there to be two parallels. Yes they went through this but they also then had us. Anything else messes with my head a little to be honest and upsets me! I guess that’s because the idea of being a rainbow baby rather than everything I’ve ever known shakes my world a bit! Times are different though, whatever psychology terms we use come and go, but from seeing, knowing and feeling these deep experiences of my parents, my grandmother and now my own and that of friends, I really believe that the emotions are universal and timeless.

My aunt lost a child, died in childbirth and was avoidable, between my cousins. I was little but I remember. I asked her again about having a child after a year later when I was an adult and going through my own things. She said that she did réalisé and think of the fact that if that hadnt happened she would have the child after, who is now an adult and losing her would be unimaginable. My aunt said “really, you want both”.

I’ve thought occasionally what it would be like to have a sister, but then I’ve thought what it would be like to have two brothers. My first reaction here is to instinctively jump to hold my brother. I freaking adore that cutie pain in my ass wonderful angel of a man. We are and we’re two and everything we had together as it was, no changes I would ever want, is one of the greatest and lengthiest joys and blessing of my life.

When my parents go will my sister’s memory go with them? No absolutely not. No! As much as she exists now she will always exist. She is real and part of the story of their lives. I may probably think ok they are with her again now. Oh that makes me sad! It’s a moving thought! That would be consoling thought and actually, I really do hope they do get to hold her again.

Are we all crying by now? Oh dear. Even me.

It’s for my parents that it gets me, the thought of knowing what they went through and lost.

Goodness me. For me, I lost, in a different way to a stillbirth (not a miscarriage-let’s just go straight past my experiences please here), but that primal maternal soul ripped out feeling as children go from you way. I have never known anything so intense. I know that the children I hope I will have and now desperately dream of will come from that story and are everything to me. It’s healing almost, to think and feel that way, and it’s not a choice.

I think that possible sums it up for me and my experience with my parents. Yes they went though an incredibly sad loss, that and the child they lost at part of all our stories and she always will be. When they then had us, their children who would grow and go through all the normal things as life, this was healing. It’s acceptance and seeing that yes, sad things happen, we hold on to treasure of knowing there is a little spirit somewhere and we are blessed that this story and that part of the story lead to our family.

Phew. Well that’s a lot of tears for this time in the morning!

I think the important thing is that any part of your story is shared with all others you connect with and is never lost. I think also that with time and more beautiful souls coming into your life, there is peace and healing.

I hope for me too! It’s day by day huh, every day of life.

Much love

Wait, I’ve got it....

I am my mother’s eldest child. That who I am.

I’m not her first child. I am her eldest!

That’s the way I should have phrased that, that’s the way I feel.

It’s not a competition for place, just as my brother is her youngest, her son etc, I’m her eldest child. I’m not her first child. Saying that doesn’t put any of us out of place or take away from any. There’s space for all of us in our own important places.

That’s the way I mean to describe it! I’m her eldest, but I’m not her first.

Thank you so much for answering and your replies did make me cry. I suppose my story is slightly different because I already have older children, although they are young enough to either not really realise what happened or not fully understand, but they did meet their little sister. Also, despite this thread being for stillbirths, she did live although only for a few hours. I also imagine that things were very different years ago as I have lots of physical memories of my daughter as well as photographs. In the same way I spoke to my older children about my pregnancy, I speak to them now about their little sister. Do they underhand? I don’t know but I hope enough sinks in that, like you, they grow up just knowing there was always another one who is not here with them now. I have pictures of all of them together and they were included in the funeral. They won’t remember this but they will be able to look at the photographs whenever they want and know this. I also know with absolute certainly that if I do have another baby he/she will not be a consolation prize but unbelievably treasured and wanted, much like you clearly were to your parents.

Hi @LilacIris

I'm so sorry to hear of what you are going through.

Yes, children understand. I think the difference between children and adults with something like this is that the children know, understand as a child does and accept. Children are learning about everything in the world around them all the time, so they are absorbing everything in a curious way, making acceptance more natural. Adults feel it hard. For us as children it wasn't a source of pain, which I think is actually a good thing. That we, we know, remember and think about this child in a way that is love for her, our parents, our family and each other. So she stays with us in a positive energy way, if that makes sense?

I think the photos and knowing I was present would be something I would absolutely treasure. As I said, this is something that is part of our story, binds our parents and is she very much part of them, even years later when the pain has dulled to a peaceful thoughtfulness. I think my parents would treasure a photograph.

When my Aunt lost a child in childbirth when she had older children, she did hold the baby and there's a photograph of him. She put in her home immediately, it's a baby photo, it's still there in amongst all her others. Her child is also referred to by us all by their name. She's a grandmother now herself, the photographs and the child are still there. I know and remember that child's name and I was very young when that happened, her own children growing up of course know.

I think as we become adults we realise how soul wrenching this is for our parents and what they went through, whilst also becoming incredibly moved and impressed with them when we realise what the got through whilst being wonderful and joyous parents for us, taking care of us, loving us as perfect (even when we drove them crazy as usual and we were all chaos) family and making us feel that way. I think that's the parallel. It is possible to always think of another child, have them part of the story, having them always very close, without always feeling the deep grief and wishing for a different outcome.

It will absolutely sink in, for us, with very little fuss and no memory, we have just always been aware and never have or will forget this baby. We also heard the words "your sister" and that does really connect on a deep level.

I think what you are managing to do for your children is wonderful. As I said, I am amazed now to realise what our parents were about to cope with and go through, whilst also making life normal and happy for us. I've seen plenty of drama from both my parents over the years, but there is always a peacefulness with the mention and memories of this child and the experience they had. So I feel as if this is an extra I have in my world, from myself as a young child and now. It's an extra blessing to know that there is a baby sister who stays a baby to us connected to us.

Of course when I look from the adult perspective, my heart breaks for my parents and everyone dealing with these losses. I think you are wondering about how your children will feel, so yes, as a child, I feel I have an extra blessing, I feel that there is something special and close. I know in a time of absolute devastation of my own I've thought in a spiritual way, oh could my sister please be here now in spirit to be next to me in this. This is a baby who could not live outside the womb and I never met, but I still found myself thinking that way. When my grandmother mentioned the babies in heaven, I was around thirty. My grandmother has a lot of children and a crazy number of grandchildren and great grandchildren, thirty something years later the babies that weren't with us were right there in her mind, including her own from more than fifty years ago. I think the sadness fades, the child never does.

If you have more questions please do feel free to ask

Much love

Lu xxxxxx

Thank you so much for taking the time to respond @LuMarie. It’s really kind and I find it really helpful to hear so I can try to understand from my older two’s perspective.

@LuMarie, I have no business being on this thread but clicked on it anyway. I just wanted to say that I think your posts on this page are the most eloquent, moving words I’ve read on this site.

Best wishes to everyone on this thread, on their journeys.

Morning all, BFN from me but still no AF (although now three days late on anticipated 'shorter than before' cycle). Still feel nauseas, bloated and boobs are sensitive but must be something else/PMT.
I feel so let down and frustrated by my body.... i was pretty sure when i ovulated so no idea why AF hasnt appeared. I guess i must still be settling back to normal. I am not disappointed i am not pregnant but feel so out of control about getting to that point if my cycles are all over the place. Hope everyone else is ok?

@lumarie i haven't read through all your words as my tears just wouldn't hold back but it sounds like you have a lovely family.

I am sorry @39Suzy. After my first mc I felt like my cycles were genuinely gone mad, I think my body had gone into shock of some description. I went to fertility acupuncture for it and it really helped (fell the following month). Anyway just if you hadn't considered something a bit woo, it might be worth it. Also I find it to be a safe little space for me to just be for 30 mins.

Thanks @miami81 i think i will have to ride it out and see what happens in thè next few weeks..... this is only cycle #2 so i guess i am being unreasonable but i am open to trying alternative therapies (said sat here twiddling my rose quartz crystal bracelet). Hope you are feeling ok?

I’ve had acupuncture in the past as well @Miami81 and only have good things to say about. How are you today?

My GP surgery has called to arrange an appointment with me based on contact from the consultant at the hospital. Has anyone had this? Any idea why it could be?

How is everyone today?

@lilaciris could it be to discuss plans for any future pregnancies?

@39Suzy I’ve got a copy of the letter now and am certain the appointment will be regarding my MH.

Hello everyone.

I can't help wondering if some of the wonkiness of cycle is down to the emotional stress of expectation/hopes/fears... hot cups of tea, distraction, and general empathy to all x

Reading that back, it sounds crass. It wasn't meant to be. It's just what I think re my experience.

If it is @LilacIris then I'd be interested to hear what they say to you (if you feel like sharing). I think our hospital could be a bit more aware of MH issues involved for what we've been/are going through

It doesn’t sound crass at all @Testar0ssa. Sometimes I find it hard to convey what I mean to say by text. I’ve had four pregnancies get to at least the second trimester but my periods have always been all over the place afterwards, in the same way they have after an earlier loss. It just seems extra cruel of my body!

It has been more than five months and I had an EMCS but no follow up or check at all. The appointment was the second one I had for post mortem results and I spent most of it crying, so I think the consultant was concerned about me. She did say I wasn’t emotionally ready to try for another baby. I am really surprised more isn’t done for couples in our situation. I was even under the perinatal mental health team but everyone just seemed to forget about me once I left the hospital.

That is good they are looking out for you

Still catching up but wondering how you are @39suzy
I'm in the tww now. Everything crossed

Hey @toots123 i am ok thanks. AF finally turned up yesterday , smack on CD29 which is 'normal'. So i am either back in my normal cycle or just my body messing with me!!! Bit heavy today but i think it will tail off quite quick. Hopefully it will give me a better chance of working out next months ovulation.
🤞 for you x

Hope everyone is having a lovely weekend

Good luck @toots123 🤞🏼

Nothing happening here. Still waiting for first AF at just over six weeks. Quite keen to just get it over with - unless we've been incredibly lucky to catch first time. Not feeling very optimistic though.

My periods have been pretty irregular at the best of times so will be interesting to see how they are affected.

Hope everyone is okay and good luck to any currently in the "window" ☺️

Thank you @Goostacean , that's so kind and really means a lot.

We all have our secret battles and pins, as everyone here really knows. Kind words can make such a difference. So thank you, I'm really moved by yours.

Hi @LilacIris and all amazing woman here,

I've been thinking about all of this a lot since we first chatted. One thing that you asked really made me ache for you, when you asked if when my parents go, would my sister's memory go with them. I said Oh goodness me, absolutely not and that's still very true.

Thinking more about all of this, what I know of what my parents went through and just my gentle knowledge of a baby before me, I wondered this.

If I could change things and not have the experiences of my parents before my own birth and the existence of this child who I never met, come before me, no photos and only know a name, a heartbreaking story for my parents, would I change things so that none of this happened and instead we were just born as we were.

Not, can I give my parents all three of us, of course that's what I would want for them, but what if I could erase that part of their story so that the first child experience didn't happen.

So in that reality, my parents would not have had to go through what they did and the child who could not live would never have existed.

My answer to that, without hesitation, is no, god no. I'd lose my sister. This is a child I never met, who was born before me, who I have no photos of, only a name, an awareness that my mother carried a child to term who could not survive outside the womb and now after asking my Dad a little bit more as a woman feeling losses myself, a story of a birth. But god no, if she suddenly didn't exist, I'd feel an immense loss. Of my story, the story of my family and my parents, this child who could not live but is real, my sister. I'm upset at the thought of that being taken away. She's part of me.

So, for your children having connections to their sibling and the child's memory and tangible realness now and always, there is a very instinctive closeness. She's my parent's daughter, my sister. If suddenly that was taken away now, I'd feel grief. Not just sadness, actually grief. I don't want to lose her in my, their and our story, that of all the wider family, who all remember.

Of course, if I soothe my young parents going through hell with the pain of such a terrible loss, I would want to take that pain from them. I wouldn't want to do that at the expense of taking the child's existence from them, as she is part of them too.

I know that seems strange, I found it so interesting as I thought more about all of this myself. If I can't give them all three, or even just the first one healthy and give my own little place in the story up which I would do for them, if I literally have to choose between erasing what happened and the little one never existing, or to keep her as best we have her, I choose keep her. She is part of me and she is part of us all.

For anyone suffering from miscarriages, my mother had several between me and my brother. They had me and were thrilled with having a child and family (this was before I started p-ing them off!), but of course, it's another sad thing and was happening a lot. My Dad told me that one day, after a ridiculous number of them, my mother who was pregnant again but they had been through so many miscarriages thatches had become the norm, said to him "I'm bleeding". He said that he was so used to it by then, they both were, that he didn't even move. He just thought sadly, "That's another one gone".

That other one, for reasons no one knows why other than some kind of light just occasionally for once getting through, is now a father himself, after being a joyous, healthy, beautiful little boy.

All this pain, and as I said good god do I know my own, I think it just has to go somewhere. It has to turn into that little bright light, that silver lining, that peace. It just has to.

No idea how on earth mine will because wow, if I thought my parents were drama, I really have managed to get to unimaginable new levels of seriously, what is this pain. But you know what, hope kept me alive for a long time. When I find myself sinking, it's because I'm struggling to hold on to my blessing wherever I can find them and because hope is getting out of my grasp. I don't think there is anything the can be called false hope. Hope is the last thing we have to hold onto, and we must (note to self note to self note to self). Just pure hope for peace and happiness again, in whatever form that takes.

However, in my parents story, there it is. Sister that is part of a fabric of all of us who I take as she is and value deeply, who binds my parents, parents who went on to have their children and become so immersed in this normality that they really became normal, with normal lives.

My mother doesn't speak to me because my losses were too much for her (no sympathy mother!) and she doesn't handle various things well, nothing to do with her own losses, I just get the feeling she is more comfortably pretending I don't exist. My Dad is my hero, but he forgets now and again that maybe I don't need to hear about how freaking amazing my brother's life is compared to my wonderfully crazy catastrophe. It's not deliberate and I don't think he realises I feel that way, it's just that his world has become so happy (which I adore) that the concepts of these pains are very faded. Who knows, I can't figure them all out. As bizarre as it seems, I'm almost happy for them in this. It's not all that lovely or easy for me, but it shows how they have lived on to be so very normal. My mother is as crazy as always, my Dad as generous and pure as always. Isn't that a normal description of family? The am I really related to this chaos and good god can you all hear yourselves/good god Lu is fine just leave her to it. Normal family, not perfect family, I'm the one who sees the light because I have to so I may sound like I'm describing a really beautiful family, but I expect many psychologists would note my own views on hope and gratitude and not quite agree that is all so sunshine:)

It's all how we see things and how we make ourselves see things, because we have to. So regardless of what may have happened, my parents managed to create their own normal family. I'd go for less drama and a few adjustments in my own, but they survived, they have joy in their lives above all else, they did things their way and above all, they are happy.

And so will you all be, I'm the one looking in at things that happened before I was born, to my two young devastated parents. I know the way the story ends. Love and happiness.

Oh LuMarie reading that made me cry. Thank you for coming back to share that. I can’t get over your mother’s behaviour towards you. Even without having lost a child, it is something I can’t get my head around but to be like that when one of your children has died is even worse. I’m glad you have such a wonderful dad and brother.

I don’t know if you have heard of something called fetomaternal microchimerism but it means that your sister and mother will have shared cells that will have continued to live in your mother but they could also have been shared with her future children, so you and your brother, as well. I find it incredibly comforting to think that my daughter is still alive in some way in me and that she will be in another child as well.

I’m about 9/10dpo now. After a shaky few days at the weekend when DH decided he didn’t want to try for another baby, he has amazed me by changing his mind and agreeing. I’m so relieved!

How is everybody else getting on?

Hi @lilaciris that is good that DH has come around. I think it is normal to sway back and too as they feel so helpless.

My AF has finished now and despite being a little heavier than 'usual' for one day was pretty normal otherwise. And was a 28/9 day cycle too which is usual for me (Yay!) Going back through my app and daily symptom notes, i think the bloating/ queasiness /spotting was ovulation which apparently can feel like early pregnancy symptoms if you havdn't ovulated for a while. Anyways.... looks like i am settling back into my normal cycle which is a big positive.

I also feel like i have turned a corner in myself too.... not overnight, but over the last few weeks i feel brighter and lighter almost. Popped into work for a coffee last week snd stayed about half an hour chatting to a few of my collegues and the usual office banter. A few people did a big swerve when they saw me but most people gave me a lovely reception. I think i am going to look at going back in August on a phased return. And have a holiday booked for the end of the year..... the first thing we have planned really. Done completely on a whim but feel like it's a biigggg step in looking forwards.

I also bumped into an old collegue/friend this week who was 9 months pregnant (i didnt know she was expecting but not suprised either).... i couldn't avoid her but stood in the supermarket queue with a stupid smile wishing her well whilst trying not to well up, DH was stood next to me and it was equally hard for him too. I made a (rude) early escape before she could ask anything about me.... she is the sort of person that wouldn't have noticed (or the fact that i was stood in a supermarket in shorts and t shirt at 11am on a Tuesday with no make up and unbrushed hair rather than being in work). I didn't feel jealous but just brings it home how utterly shit this situation is and just wasn't quite prepared for coming face to face with it. My due date is coming up and i think i am fine about it but looking forward to getting it out the way. I have unfollowed my pregnant /newborn friends for the same reason. I would rather see that news when i want it and not unsolicited if that makes sense. It won't always be like this but feel like it is a bit of self-preservation for now at least.

@nutellaoffthespoon hope AF makes an appearance soon for you so you can crack on.

Any news from you @toots123 - are you going to test early or wait for AF?

Hope @MrsLCW and @miami81 are both feeling ok ladies?

@39Suzy you have my complete sympathy!! I think this is one of the hardest situations and emotions I've found to deal with!
I'm feeling good today, the anxiety is still at bay today, so I'll embrace that for as long as I can! Xx