I wrote before about starting to make clothes for tiny babies, but I thought I’d update as it has been a while and my idea has changed and evolved.

It started when I was pregnant with Jackson, my Rainbow Baby, and my local NICU asked people to knit little hats for their patients. I found the rest of the balls of wool I had used to knit Effy-Mae a blanket and used that to knit them (This was where the idea to do this in her memory came from). I found that in a few short days I had knitted up quite a few and I had the bug!

Soon after that I had Jackson and my life became quite hectic, but I knew I wanted to continue making things for babies born too soon and too small, but I decided to change which ones. Before, I had been knitting for those babies who had a chance, those in the NICU, born early, but alive, but then I remembered the blankets that Effy-Mae was presented to me in. Someone had made those and donated them to the hospital for babies born far too small, for babies born asleep. Babies like Effy-Mae, and what more fitting thing to do in her memory?

I had read other stories about similar babies born in different hospitals who were presented to their parents in clothes, what a difference that would have made. Effy-Mae was red, she was bloated, her abdomen was translucent and dark and she was presented to me naked, and it was a shock to see her like that, she looked a little alien. A hat and an outfit would have allowed me to see her instantly as the gorgeous little baby she was.

I never managed to cuddle my little girl, she was presented to me in a basket and blankets and her fragile body was so exposed in the blanket that just holding her made me feel like she was going to break. I think an outfit would have changed that, made her feel more solid, more robust and allowed me to cradle her like a newborn baby, like the first cuddle I should have been getting 4 1/2 months later.

So that was it. If I could make another mums experience a little bit more bearable I had to do it! But how, and what to make.

Effy-Mae was never dressed by me, she spent the whole time I saw her wrapped in blankets, I was never offered clothes for her, and it wasn’t something I considered sourcing and bringing I wasn’t in the headspace to even consider it. They’d have to have been offered to my by the hospital or funeral director, so this is where I will aim to provide my clothes.

I say she was never dressed by me, but she did wear clothes, once. The nurses offered to take photos of her for me after I’d left her, but I didn’t realise that they’d be dressing her for these. When I got the photos back I cried. I sat in the chapel at the hospital and cried to my dad asking what they’d done to her! They had forced her into a knitted dress with sleeves that they’d had to push her arms through, ripping her paper thin, delicate skin. I couldn’t look at those photos for a long time, they upset me too much.
This is key to the clothes I am going to make, I don’t want anyone else going through what I did, so any clothes I make will be totally open with poppers to do them up meaning no limbs will be forced through and no babies damaged. If I can’t make this work as I imagine then I will not make clothes and I shall stick to blankets and hats.

I have recently found some preemie baby sleepsuits on sale that open completely allowing them to be carefully dressed and for their treatment to continue around the clothing, this was exactly what I was planning on designing so I bought a set and shall now unpick these to get myself a pattern. These only go down to 3lb babies so I will need to shrink the pattern to make it suitable for tiny babies from around 15 weeks gestation. I will see what I can make and then contact my local hospital and funeral director to see if this is something they can and will use, but I am quite passionate about this because with a sleepsuit and a hat on I reckon the tiniest baby will look more like the tiny newborn that to their mother they are.

So watch this space – I’ll be tweeting updates with the #SleepsuitsForSleepingBabies. I’m so excited about this project, but I will need to learn to use a sewing machine first (and teach Jackson to sleep!), I just wish I’d had the foresight to make one of these for Effy-Mae.

It’s been almost two years since I lost my daughter and she still hasn’t got a headstone!

It’s stupid for something about as long as a tweet to take so long to write. I’ve been thinking about it the whole time but nothing has seemed right. I’d think of something, write it down, show it to people, they’d like it, and then I’d decide it wasn’t right.

I want something that shows how much she was wanted and is loved, while avoiding the classic clichés that would make her grave like all the others, but something that I will still like in 50 years time. It was tough, and has taken me forever!

Something I’ve always known I wanted, right from the start was the shape, simple and classic (though for some reason not commonly available), and that I want it pale, preferably white (maybe that means marble). I also want her name in a script font, and pink, as it makes it more her (or the personality I’ve given her.)

Lastly I really want her footprints on the top, and for them to be actual size, but they were so tiny they may look silly, so I might need to swap them for another image, or maybe add to the image to make it bigger. We will see.

So now coming up 2 years on I think I’ve chosen the wording and layout I want, only the thing is I think I’ve overthought it meaning nothing about it is simply off the peg (not that it’s totally out there!), so I now need to find somewhere that can make my vision a reality.

Let’s see how this goes and whether I need to compromise on something! I so hope not because I really like my design (I should do – it’s taken long enough)!

I never met my daughter, I carried her for 21 weeks, but I never got to know her on the outside, however, I’ve given her a personality, I’ve built up an image in my head of who she would be.

I always wanted a girl, and decided to make the most of it – I type her name in script and imagine her in dresses. I adorn her grave in pink and bunnies.

She’s my pink, swirly, floral, delicate girl. 

I know that in reality she was quiet compared to her brother – when I was pregnant with him I could see him kicking from 19 weeks (actually see my bump moving) but when I was pregnant with Effy-Mae I barely felt her moving in 21 weeks, (but then everyone’s quiet compared to her brother!) so that fits in with my image of her.

She may have turned out to have been a tomboy, hating dresses, refusing to go out in anything but dungarees, but I’ll never know, I have to work with what I know! Maybe she’s sat, wherever she is, watching me bring yet more pink flowers to her grave (and tutting when her dad has brought yellow ones,) complaining that she hates pink and would it kill me to bring her some orange?!

Yes I sound insane, but giving her a personality, even though it’s all in my head, keeps me sane!

Yesterday we went to the zoo! It was Jacksons first trip and it was a fantastic day out. We went with his Dad and Nanny and we all enjoyed ourselves. He didn’t particularly look at the animals but enjoyed being outside with the noises and the crowds of people that half term brings.
It wasn’t until the journey home that I realised I hadn’t thought about Effy-Mae all day. That’s incredibly unusual, especially, when like yesterday, I am surrounded by children of the age she would be. I normally look at them and wonder. Would she be doing that? Would she be like Jackson and first to do everything? Would she be loud? Quiet? Greedy? Kind?
But I forgot to remember her! I went a whole day out without my mind skipping to her. I don’t normally need visual cues for my mind to go there, but yesterday I had many and it didn’t.
Obviously I was preoccupied. There was lots to look at, it was a new place and I had to keep my eye on Jackson too, but even so. Is this what the future holds? Days where I don’t think about her? Days where I forget to remember? Because I don’t want to. I want to be able to live my life without her, but I don’t want to not think about her.
We are now coming up 2 years on. 2 whole years and barely a day goes by I don’t think about her. Is that beginning to change? Will I get to 5 years and only think about her once a week? 20 years and it be once a year? I don’t want that! She’s my daughter and I don’t ever want to forget to remember her!

Have you ever been told something, and only later realised the deep meaning? I have, and it’s been almost 2 years since it happened.
When I was pregnant with Effy-Mae I bled, and I mean gushing blood, at about 11 weeks. I thought I was miscarrying. It was the middle of the night, on a Saturday night of all nights. I rang the out of hours number and they got me an out of hours doctors appointment. At 1am I sat in the waiting room with my parents, and my mum gave me a huge hug and said words to the effect of “I can’t imagine anything worse than losing your first” my mum had herself lost two babies. One early on, around the stage that I was then, and one at around 18 weeks, but they were after she had had two healthy boys. (Before me). I was convinced in that moment that I had lost my baby, and the doctor couldn’t reassure me any more than to book me a scan for the Monday.
I spent Sunday in bed hoping, but believing all was lost. But it wasn’t. The scan revealed a healthy baby with a heartbeat. I almost ran out of the scan to show my dad the picture with a grin plastered over my face. It was alive. The bleed was just that, a bleed. Nothing more!
Little did I know.
About 10 weeks later I lost her. My mums words haunted me, I’d lost my first. I’d thought I was safe after that first scan-everything was ok, only to lose her now.
Even when I lost her I knew there was something wrong, I couldn’t sleep and just felt, well, wrong, but I was completely in denial, my mum however almost knew. She knew more than me to listen to my instincts. I think she knew I’d lost her before I knew, before the midwife listened for a heartbeat and couldn’t find one, even after that I didn’t believe it, how could I have lost her? I’d had my scare and everything was fine – I wasn’t bleeding when I lost her so I couldn’t have, could I? I only knew it when I watched the scan and saw no movement. I still didn’t believe it until the doctor said the words “there’s no heartbeat”.
I don’t know if it would have been easier if she wasn’t my first. Maybe if I had a toddler to focus on it wouldn’t have cut so deep, but even now I think that if I lost another one, even though I’ve got Jackson, it would hurt just as much.
It was ominous.
I lost my first and you don’t want to imagine how it feels.

I have been scared to look at photos of Effy-Mae for a long time.
She was too red.
Too bloated.
Too shiny.
Too damaged.
I couldn’t do it.

For months after I lost her I couldn’t stop looking at the photos I took.
Just like the day I delivered her, when I couldn’t take my eyes off her, I stared at the photos for hours.
Smiling to myself.
I saw my perfectly formed daughter.
I saw through the imperfections.
As time went on I stopped looking at them through rose tinted glasses and I started seeing that she had been dead inside me for too long.
She had started to bloat.
To change.

I found one photo that, when put into black and white, I could look at, and I framed it.
I put it on my bookshelf.
I decorated it with her name.
This was the image that I referred to when I thought of her.
I looked at it multiple times a day.
I forgot the others.
The ones that upset me.
They remained, unlooked at on my hard drive.
I physically jumped every time I accidentally came across one somewhere.
It was a shock to see her how she actually was.

It wasn’t until about a month ago that I looked through them again.
There she was, just as red as before.
It upset me again.
But there were some lovely photos there.
Some of her hands.
Her face.
Us as a family.

I wanted to look at these photos more.
They are memories of the best and worst time of my life.
Delivering my dead daughter, but also getting to meet her.

I had read about parents of premature babies who had asked on reddit for their photos to be photoshopped to remove tubes from their babies so they could see their faces.
Was there any difference with me photoshopping my photos of her, dulling the redness, airbrushing her skin so it wasn’t so raw?
I’m not very adept at photoshop and I only have a basic version that came with my computer, but I gave it a go.
I was unable to make the redness any less vivid so I gave in to black and white, over exposing them to pale the darkness.
She looked more human. Less shocking.
I airbrushed the edges of her torn paper-thin skin and reduced the shine and instantly fell in love with the photos again.
I spent hours looking at them, perfecting what I could.
Looking at her face.
Re-seeing the beauty I initially saw.
Seeing how she probably would have looked had the hospital not made me wait almost a week from not feeling movement to deliver her.

I had some of the photos printed.
Since then I have edited more.
I will get these printed too.
I have bought a photo album to put them in.
I can look at photos of my daughter whenever I like.
I can remember her.
These photos don’t upset me, they make me smile.
They make me think of my beautiful daughter as I should.
As she would have looked.

As I edit more of them I get better and go back and re-edit some of the ones I’ve already done.
When I have finished I will have a perfect set of photos to honour my daughter.

I won’t, of course, delete the originals.
The stronger I get the less it hurts to look at them.
I will look at them occasionally to remind myself how she really was.
How I really remember her.
But why should I upset myself every time I want to remember her?
She would have looked so different had she been born alive at her gestation.
This is what I want to see.
My tiny daughter, but not destroyed by death.
Beautiful.

Effy-Mae should be 1 year 3 months old now.
I lost her 1 year 7 months ago.
Should I be ‘over it’ yet?
When should I stop grieving?
I can feel people wondering why I’m still sad, why she’s still on my mind so much.
I don’t cry much any more – very very occasionally when something sets me off, but I’m definitely healing in that way, but that doesn’t mean I don’t miss her.
In some ways it seems a lifetime since I lost her, others it doesn’t seem 5 minutes.
We have just celebrated our second Christmas without her, and it still seemed wrong. We visited her Christmas morning after opening Jacksons stocking – I can feel a tradition in the making. But she should have been there celebrating with us. Jackson should have an older sister stealing his presents and opening them behind our backs. There is a hole in our family that although softening around the edges to make it less raw is still indisputably there.

I occasionally look at Jackson and wonder if she would look like him. There are definitely similarities – they have the same mouth. I like to think they would look similar – I take comfort watching him grow up, seeing how she might have looked.

I still try and do things to remind me of her, to keep her on my mind. I draw things, make things, write things.
I love seeing her name written down – I loved her name as soon as we picked it during my pregnancy. I planned on getting everything personalised and looked forward to seeing it on her bedroom door every day.
It is even more special to me now.
But now I have to personalise different things, and make do with little reminders round the house, looking at my tattoo and typing her name on here as much as possible.
It still gives me little shivers whenever someone says her name out loud, and I’m not sure that feeling will ever go.
In conclusion I’m not sure I’ll ever be ‘ok’.
I might never stop grieving.
I will definitely never forget her.

I love my daughter fiercely.
You may find that strange, you may find that impossible.
But I do.

I never met Effy-Mae, in as such as she never took a breath, she never laid eyes on me.
She barely made it halfway through pregnancy.
So how can I love her when I barely even knew her?
To any mother with a living child: did you not love your child before they were even born? Failing that, did you not love them the moment you first held them?
I knew her just as well as you knew your children in those moments.
I love her because she was and will forever be a part of me.
The love of a mother for a child is strong, it’s unbreakable and it’s irrational.

My love for her is fierce because I feel the need to explain it.
People don’t understand.
She was so small, so unprepared for the outside world.
Had she been born alive at her gestation they wouldn’t have even tried to save her.
Does that make her any less worthy of my love?
Of course it doesn’t.
But people don’t see that.
You say the word miscarriage and people instantly feel less sadness.
So I fight to show my love for her.
I fight to make people understand.
She was (is) my daughter, however small.
And I love her with all my heart.