I wrote letters to my daughter 2 years ago today, the day after I delivered her, before I started this blog. Even back then I chose to use writing as my therapy through the hardest thing I’d ever been through.

After reading through them I decided to publish some of my words:

“Ever since I found out I was pregnant all thoughts of my future involved you, then for all of that to be snatched away in a few hours; I didn’t know what to do.”

“You truly are gorgeous, and I am one very proud mum.”

“After what felt like a lifetime, and a second in one, I knew I had to say goodbye to you which felt awful. After giving birth you are meant to keep your child with you and protect them forever, but here I was letting a stranger take you away to do horrible tests and I would never get the future I dreamed for us.”

“Hopefully you are going to be buried in the local cemetery-it’s not quite my arms, but it’s the best place we could find for you to sleep forever.”

“It’s not fair that you came into my life and completed me. The thing missing from my life was a child-you, and then suddenly and irreversibly you have been taken from it again leaving a bigger hole than I had before.”

“I can’t believe that I have to say goodbye to my little daughter, it’s not right!”

“I love you, Jellybean. Now, forever and always. Mummy xxx”

It may seem weird to you, heck it would have seemed weird to me before my life took its horrible and unexpected turn, but today, my daughters birthday, nothing seemed more natural than spending it with her, at her grave, eating cake.

I had been thinking about Effy-Maes birthday since Christmas. I chose her present and since then I’ve been waiting until I could take it to her! Her birthday seemed ages away then, but it’s really snuck up on me recently. 

I hadn’t planned anything for her birthday, what can you do really? She’s not here to shower with presents and dress in a party dress. That doesn’t mean I’m not going to mark it though. I’ve talked before about not celebrating her birthday, after all, it’s another year since a terrible experience, instead I chose to celebrate the life I carried for those precious 21 weeks. 

So how do you celebrate a life? To me it seemed obvious it had to be at her grave, and it had to involve cake, it is her birthday after all! And of course, with the most important people in my life, my parents and my son.

So yes, to you, maybe eating cake around a grave seems odd, but how else do you celebrate a life that never got to be lived?

Happy 2nd birthday in the clouds my girl.
Birthdays are meant to be happy and full of cake and partys and family,
but your birthday just reminds me of what happened,
of what isn’t,
of the member of my family whos missing,
of what will never be.
Your birthday is in June,
4 1/2 months too early.
Your birthday should have been another day,
2nd June shouldn’t be a special day,
I should have been feeling you kick,
just halfway through my pregnancy.
If you’d been born alive you couldn’t have survived.
It was too early.
I can’t bring myself to celebrate the day I gave birth to you.
it wasn’t a happy day,
I didn’t get to meet you that day,
you were already gone.
I didnt get to bring you home.
But all that said it is still your birthday,
still the day my body tested itself and went through labour – a labour of love so I could see you.
A labour it had to be forced into to let go of you.
But I can’t celebrate that I had to give birth to you 4 1/2 months early.
I shall instead celebrate the life I carried for those special, precious 21 weeks.
I shall make a cake,
I shall buy you balloons,
I shall bring you presents.
I will make it a proper second birthday for you.
To show you how much I love and miss you everyday, but especially on your birthday.
The day that shouldn’t be.

Tomorrow is my daughters second birthday.
Sadly she isn’t here to celebrate with me.
She didn’t even make it to the day she was born.

Last year I couldn’t bring myself to make her a cake.
I couldnt bare to eat it without her.
I couldn’t bring myself to celebrate.
I took her balloons, but that was all I could face doing.
This year I’m more at peace with how things are, that she will never celebrate a birthday with me.
So this year I made her a cake.
It matches her present – a little Jellycat rabbit.

We will give her presents and take her balloons and eat cake.
We will celebrate her life.
Her 21 weeks inside me.
With family.
My little family.
My parents and my Rainbow, Jackson.

It has been 2 years since that fateful day that I heard the words ‘no heartbeat’

2 years since that night that I couldn’t sleep and so started watching the Apprentice on iplayer.
2 years since I tried to find a heartbeat on my home Doppler and failed.
2 years since the morning I received a parcel from my friend that contained a maternity tshirt with Jellybeans on (Bumps nickname) and I said to my mum ‘ I just hope everything is ok’
2 years since my mum told me to book in with my midwife but she was full.
2 years since the receptionist told me to ring the midwife number.
2 years since the midwife I talked to on the phone told me that it was common to stop feeling movement at 21 weeks and that I shouldn’t worry.
2 years since she dismissed the fact I couldn’t find a heartbeat on my home Doppler ‘because I didn’t know how to use it’
2 years since I cried on the phone and told her I was really worried.
2 years since she told me that I could ring and get an appointment at a midwife clinic ‘if I was really that worried’
2 years since I decided to drive my new family car that I’d bought for my impending arrival that I had picked up the day before.
2 years since I sat in that waiting room telling my mum and myself that it would all be ok.
2 years since the midwife started doing all the normal checks before asking why I had gone in.
2 years since she tried to find a heartbeat but her Doppler was low battery and it kept hissing.
2 years since she sent her trainee into sainsburys next door to buy some more.
2 years since I lay there begging my baby to move.
2 years since with a fresh battery the Doppler couldn’t find anything.
2 years since she called the gynae ward and booked me in immediately at the hospital.
2 years since I went to the loo trying to calm down and tell myself it would all be fine.
2 years since I came out and found the midwife telling my mum she could normally find a heartbeat so it didnt look good.
2 years since I still believed it would still all be fine.
2 years since my mums face told me it wasn’t all fine.
2 years since I phoned my fiancé whilst walking to the car telling him to get to the hospital NOW because ‘I think I’ve lost the baby’
2 years since my mum kept telling me to drive home so she could get her car and drive.
2 years since I realised that I was less shaken by this because I still believed it would all be ok so I should drive.
2 years since we sat in a waiting room for what seemed FOREVER waiting for a doctor.
2 years since the doctor called me into scan me and told me he never liked to hear of no movement this late on.
2 years since I thought about what the midwife on the phone had told me about it being normal. THIS COULD STILL BE OK.
2 years since I looked at the screen waiting to see movement like there had been at the 20 week scan less than a week before.
2 years since the silence and stillness told me what I’d been denying myself to believe.
2 years since the doctor told me there was no heartbeat.
2 years since I screamed.
2 years since they left us alone.
2 years since I cried on my mum harder than I’d ever cried before.
2 years since my mum told me my fiancé was hurting too.
2 years since I hugged him and felt him crumple on me.
2 years since I realised I had to be strong.
2 years since they came in and discussed next steps.
2 years since they told me I had to deliver my baby.
2 years since i asked if the doctor could check if i was having a boy or a girl as they had kept their legs crossed at the scan the week earlier.
2 years since he still couldnt tell but assured me that they would find out one way or another.
2 years since he told me that the evidence showed my baby had been dead for about 3 days which was how long i thought i hadnt felt any movement.
2 years since I texted my dad from the hospital bed.
2 years since I texted my brothers and told them their niece or nephew had died.
2 years since I texted my friends and told them I’d lost my baby.
2 years since I was given a tablet and sent home.
2 years since I drove home still totally together because I still didn’t believe it had happened.
2 years since we stopped for fish and chips.
2 years since we got home and I saw my dad and he crumpled.
2 years since I gave him a hug and though he was comforting me I felt like i was comforting him.
2 years since I had to be strong because my world was collapsing around me.
2 years since I wrote a facebook status saying what had happened.
2 years since I sent my fiance home.
2 years since my mum spent the night in my bed with my for the first time since I was a child.
2 years since I sobbed and sobbed because it was finally dawning on me.
2 years since the world as I knew it ended and I had to be strong.

2 years may have gone by but that day will be etched in my memory forever. The day I found out my body had failed me and that my baby had died.