It’s been a whole year since the worst day of my life and I can still remember every detail of it like it was yesterday.

I have come a long way since then, I am now pregnant with Effy-Maes little brother, Jackson Theo, and the pregnancy is going well, but there are days where I wake up and feel a kick in my tummy and I am back to a year ago, still pregnant with my first baby, excited, innocent, and I can almost forget the whole last year has happened. That is, until I open my eyes and suddenly it all comes flooding back.

My pregnancy with Effy-Mae was perfect. I had morning sickness – ok a lot of  morning sickness, and that prevented me enjoying the pregnancy as I should have, I even gave up my job I was feeling so terrible with it. But all the midwife appointments and scans showed everything was progressing normally. I was a normal first time mum, excited and wanted to set up my nursery. I was desperate for a little girl, and when she kept her legs crossed for the 20 week scan we booked in for a private scan so we could find out what we were having so I could go on a shopping spree and deck out the nursery in either pink or blue. But a year ago today, at 21 weeks pregnant, I was told my baby had no heartbeat. I wouldn’t need a nursery, I wouldn’t need that private scan, I would be meeting my sleeping baby in a few days time.

Since that day I have never known how to write her dates down. More down to not knowing than anything else, the date I have chosen to use is that she was born sleeping on 02/06/13. I had infact lost her a few days before I found out, but was completely unaware at the time, still out shopping for a sensible 5 door family car, which I purchased the day before I found out. I found out I had lost her on 29th May 2013, and delivered her on 2nd of June 2013. Her death date is before her birth date, and I don’t even know her exact death date. Her movements weren’t very defined and it took me a few days to realise something was wrong, I thought to start with maybe I hadn’t actually been feeling her move at all (the movements still felt like gas bubbles at this point) but only when I hadn’t felt anything for a few days did I realise that they had infact been her moving and that I hadn’t been feeling them for a few days. At that point my maternal instinct had kicked in and I knew there was something wrong – I couldn’t sleep the night before I found out.

And that brings me on to how to mark her birthday this year which is coming up in a few days time. I shall of course take flowers to her, but I don’t know if I should be doing more than that. On her first birthday I should be making a cake and dressing her in a pretty party dress and having a little gathering of friends and giving her presents, but that’s a life that could have – should have been. I’m not sure I want to make her a cake to be eaten without her, and her grave doesn’t need any more ornaments. Really she needs a headstone, but I cannot decide what to write on it. It seems wrong to be celebrating her birthday without her, but it’s not like I have much choice.

Even though her birthday technically is 2nd June, she wasn’t due until 8th October, and I judge how old she should be by her due date, for example, when Jackson is due on 8th August she would be 10 months old, sitting up, smiling, however she will have been born and buried for a year and 2 months.

I have felt my mood slipping, from what was a fairly optimistic and hopeful, positive pregnancy glow, pretty much since the beginning of May. I’m trying not to let it get me down too much, I’m trying to enjoy this pregnancy, as well as keeping Effy-Maes memory alive, but May and June will always be hard months for me. May, the month I lost her, June the month I gave birth and buried her.

“Make it through the hardest storm and bad weather”

“She took the light and left me in the dark, she left me with a broken heart, now I’m on my own, if anybody sees her, shine a light on her.”