This morning we were woken up by a little voice over the baby monitor “mum are you awake? It’s my birthday!”
We went and got them and bought them into our room to do Londyn’s presents. We got her an air hog, it’s the only thing she’s asked for. Paisley got her a reading light so she can read in bed, The girl loves a book!
Down stairs we went for breakfast and then Londyn went off to her dad’s for the morning and we got ready for her birthday party, this will be the first time we’d seen people after we’d given birth, I was very nervous about not being able to hold it together, we’d sent out messages to everyone to ask them not to mention the baby if Londyn was in the room, she didn’t want to talk about it (I think she thought if it wasn’t spoken about then it wasn’t real) and I didn’t want to upset her, she’d already said to me last night that she didn’t want her presents, she wanted to give them all up to have the baby back.
Deep breath, game face – we can do this! The decorations were up and Londyn was due back any minute, a few guests arrived just before she got home, Nathan went into the kitchen and started cooking the hot bits of party food and making drinks for people. Londyn got home full of excitement as her guests arrived with more and more wonderful gifts for her.
Finally the one she’d been waiting for, her best friend Kian arrived and that was pretty much the last we saw of her, other than popping down to say hello and goodbye to people or to get food, she and Kian spent the day playing in her room.
With Londyn upstairs it allowed people to talk about the baby, I had been dreading it but to my surprise I really liked it, being able to talk about the labour and the birth just like I had with the girls somehow validated the baby as a person, I think when people hear you’ve had a miscarriage they assume it’s just like a heavy period but it’s not, the act of giving birth is defined by “the separation of the offspring from the body of its mother” and therefore every child is given birth to no matter what the gestational age! I told them about my 9 hour labour and how hard I pushed and that the baby got stuck as it was just too small for me to push out and they all listened and more than that they seemed genuinely interested and I could see that some of them had not realised that to give birth to a 16 week baby required the same process as giving birth to a 40 week baby (minus the over stretched foof and ring of fire!) It was good to know we were making people think twice about how they react to miscarriage, educating people that no loss is ever “just a miscarriage” and infact all miscarriages are someone’s child dying.
That’s when it hit us, we needed to do something, we needed to raise awareness and make a positive change in the baby loss community, we would make something positive from the awful loss we’d experienced and we’d do it I’m memory of our beautiful baby!
The day went on, more people came, Londyn’s Aunties, cousins, godparents, close family friends, every now and then she’d pop down to get some food or see people, to open presents and say thank you and good bye to people. Nathan kept the teas coming and I kept the food topped up it was the most “normal” we had felt since that awful day they told us.
Eventually everyone left, Londyn and Paisley were absolutely knackered, Londyn had had a great day and they were both excited about it being Christmas in the morning! (I say they were both excited, Paisley was excited but I’m now sure she knew why) off to bed they went and within 10 minutes we heard them both snoring over the monitor.
And so the fun begins, you see our Christmas decorations don’t go up until Christmas Eve, because Londyn has her birthday on Christmas Eve we keep the house normal so we can decorate it with birthday balloons and banners and it’s all about her birthday and not about Christmas. So once the girls are in bed we take the birthday stuff down and tidy up and then “Santa” comes and puts up the tree and all the Christmas decorations (it’s his birthday present to Londyn!) Then he leaves all the gifts under the tree and stockings at their bedroom door scoffs the mince pie and grabs a carrot for Rudolph and off he pops!
We managed it in record time this year, we were in bed by 1am!
It was a hard day but we’d done it we made it through and Londyn had enjoyed her birthday and that was all we could have hoped for and more, now to get some sleep to do it all again tomorrow!
Nayely Adelpha Foundation 