Author: nayelyadelphafoundation

Periods, for 23 years I’ve been having periods and for the first 5 years that’s all they were, but then I lost my first child and every period after that was like a painful reminder of what I lost. You see when you have an early miscarriage it’s just like a very, very painful period. I knew I wasn’t in the right place in my life to be the best mum I could to that baby but I still wanted it and it still hurt when I lost it and 18 years ago an early miscarriage wasn’t even recognised as a real loss. I got told things like, it wasn’t even a baby really and its only a miscarriage, not like I actually lost a child! But I did lose a child because it was my baby. I was only 16 and the dad didn’t even know about the baby and he still doesn’t to this day, so I was completely alone with noone to grieve with.

I promised myself that the next time I got pregnant would be with the right man and I would be in the right place in my life, kind of like a promise to the baby I lost, I promised I’d do better next time and so after a year or two, periods went back to just being periods. Then 7 years after my first loss I found myself in a good relationship with a good man, a man that I knew would be a good dad. We’d been together for 3 years and it was going well so we decided to try for a baby and we fell pregnant! But unfortunately it wasn’t to be, the baby was ectopic, it broke my heart and once again periods became a painful reminder of our loss but with an added twist this time. You see we didn’t know we were pregnant because I had my period as I should have but then 3 days after my period finished I was in a lot of pain and I started bleeding again, that’s when we found out I was pregnant so after losing that baby, every time I had a period not only was it a painful reminder but it was a scary thought that it might be happening again, I couldn’t trust my body to let me know if I was pregnant, if there was anything even slightly off about it I’d wait until it had finished and do a pregnancy test to be sure. When all you want is to be a mum doing endless negative pregnancy tests really messes with your head especially when deep down you know you’re not pregnant because you had your period, but how can you trust that when you’ve had an ectopic.

After the ectopic I was finally blessed with two beautiful girls one with the father to the ectopic and one with my husband and oh my goodness they are perfect! And then came Nayely, 16 weeks and 3 days pregnant when I gave birth to her perfect, beautiful but lifeless body. I’m now 34 years old with 5 pregnancies and only 2 living children, with every loss I experienced, I learned a little bit more about all the different ways you can lose a child and now every period is a painful missed opportunity to be a mum again and every clot I wonder is it a period or is it a baby lost so early I didn’t know it was there. Every period is a heart stabbing count down to my last chance to conceive, a child I didn’t conceive, another feeling of loss.

I know how lucky I am to have my girls, I know too many women who haven’t been blessed with children. I don’t wish to sound ungrateful I just wanted to give an insight to how something as every day as a period can be so drastically affected by loss, we don’t just lose a baby and get on with it. Loss affect so many “every day things” it changes you entire world and every loss is different, I thought I knew how to go through the motions with Nayely – after all she wasn’t my first loss but I was so wrong I didn’t have a clue. So if you know someone who’s lost children please give them time to grieve every loss differently because just as children who live are all different, so are the ones who die and every loss is different.

Do you ever wake up and think ‘how am I going to get through today?’

I do.

Today is one of those days.

I woke up this morning. Absolutely no idea how to function.

I managed to get myself dressed. Luckily I had set my clothes out last night before bed. Otherwise I don’t think I would have bothered looking for them.

Then the drive to work. I don’t remember it. I got in the car on the drive and the next thing I know I’m at work. I don’t recall any of the trip. Just autopilot. Because that’s what we do when we can’t cope. We just exist.

So it’s just gone 9am as I write this. I’ve got another 7 hours before I’m heading home.

7 hours of pretending I’m OK. Just being ‘normal’ before I can go home again and see my family. Before I can go home and be me, the broken shell of who I used to be.

The Christmas break from work made me realise just how much I need my family. How much they hold me together. If it wasn’t for them I don’t know what I would do. I sometimes wonder if I would even exist without them. They are what keeps me here. They are the reason I still get up.

It hurts so much that Nayely is not with us, I sit and think about all the things she would be doing now. She should be 6 months old. Instead we have her memory and all the pain.

Love you Nayely Adelpha

I remember the lead up to Londyn’s first birthday, all the things she had achieved in what seemed like the fastest year ever!

The years really do go so fast, I can’t say the same about the ones that don’t get to grow up….. One year ago today I gave birth to my youngest, it’s been the longest most painful year of my life and if you know me you’ll know I’m no stranger to long and painful. But this past year has hurt more than all the rest of it put together.

One year ago today I was forced into labour at only 16+3 because my baby was dead and my body (despite not being able to keep her alive) didn’t want to let her go. They induce you by giving you a tablet to bring on contractions. I could only have half a tablet at a time due to having had cesarean section with both my other girls, I was told I’ll never have a vaginal birth, they were wrong, I can birth naturally, just not living babies.

Because I couldn’t have the full dose and I had to wait longer between half doses they said it could take days to actually give birth but within an hour of my first dose the contractions started, I was in labour.

Over nine long hours of full labour contractions, and then one massive contraction lasting 20 minutes and a lot of pushing and there she was, our beautiful, perfectly formed, silent and lifeless daughter. My heart broke all over again. The midwife wrapped her up and put her in her bed whilst I delivered the placenta, although this was not straight forward, I hemorrhaged, the cold rush over my body as the blood poured out of me. There was a split second where I thought about pushing, I just wanted to be with my baby. It was only a split second thought because I knew I couldn’t leave my other two and I couldn’t put Nathan through that.

We spent the night with our girl, I’ll never forget the way she smelt, the feeling of her skin when I kissed her or that magical time we had to say goodbye, we were in our own little bubble just us and our girl. It sounds crazy but having already lost two and not having the chance to say goodbye that one night will always be a difficult but happy memory.

One whole year ago, it’s been such a long and agonising year. My heart still hurts and sometimes I still forget we lost her, how can someone so perfect, beautiful and healthy just die, it doesn’t seem real but I know it is because my heart still aches for her.

I don’t really know what today is, it’s her birthday because it’s the day I gave birth to her but it’s not her heavenly birthday because she died long before she was born and it’s not the birthday she should have had if she hadn’t died but it is her birthday, it’s been a year since I stopped being pregnant and a year since I met her and a year since I faced leaving hospital without my baby. Birthdays are supposed to be happy occasions and yet this one hurts so much.

I hope you know how loved you are Nayely Adelpha Clapp, I hope you know how much we wanted you and I hope you know that even though we didn’t get to keep you, we will never regret having you, our little sky baby 👼. One year since…………

I’ll start this with a trigger warning, not because I’m going to talk about our dead baby, after all that’s what this page is for, a place where people can feel free to talk openly about their angels without judgement! but because there will be slightly graphic description of a period and some might find that difficult to stomach…….

A year ago today (13-12-18) we went for a routine appointment, we were going to hear our beautiful babys heartbeat for the first time, at least that’s what we thought…. “It’s bad news today, I’m sorry there’s no heartbeat” those words have played over and over in my head every day for the last year.

I’ve been dreading today coming around, how would I cope having to face this day, the day that changed our lives forever, the day when a little bit of us died with our daughter, the I broke my eldest daughters heart.

Now I said I’d be talking periods but for that to make sense I need to talk child birth, I never noticed this with my first two girls, I guess I didn’t really pay much attention to the little details, why would I I had my beautiful babies alive and well that was all that mattered.

When I gave birth to Nayely, 6 days after the news that she had died, she had a very specific smell to her a smell I’ll never forget not least because I get a monthly reminder of that very smell. Newborn babys smell like blood, like period blood! I hadn’t noticed it with the other two girls because they were fully developed, alive and able to be cleaned up. But it’s true, for the first few hours after living babies are born they smell like blood.

This morning I woke up full of anticipation as to how the day would affect me, then my body done one of the cruelest things it’s done since letting my daughter die, early hours of the morning I started lactating, enough to soak my top and then my period arrived, I was greeted this morning with the smell of my dead daughter, exactly one year since finding out that she had died and periods last a week so in 6 days when I have to face her first birthday without her I’ll be smelling exactly the same as I did a year ago when I went through over 9 hours of labour, a loss of 1.5 liters of blood had a panic attack so strong they put a heart monitor on me and drugged me with maximum dose of oromorph, diazipam and a whole load of gas and air just to calm me enough that I could breath. I went through all of that to bring my dead baby into this world and now at the time I need my body to be kind to me – it does this! As if I don’t have enough triggers at this time of year!

I told my psychologist last week that my body hates me, she couldn’t understand why I feel this way but as I sit here now writing this blog about how cruel my body is being at such a painful time of year, I’m having to stop and breath through a pain that I can only describe as feeling like contractions!

I don’t know, maybe my body doesn’t hate me, maybe it is all just a very unfortunate coincidence!? The one thing I do know, I hate my body, I hate it for letting her die.

One year on and my heart still hurts for what we lost. We will never be the same again but I hope for my other children’s sakes that I can learn to live with this pain better.

Pregnancy, Loss, Grief And Beyond…… It’ll always be to be continued as our grief is as never ending as our love.

I’ve just read an interesting piece online about divorce after loss and it got me thinking. If the death of a child is the reason cited for divorce then why is that? The following piece just scratches the surface of this matter. I would welcome your thoughts so please feel free to share them with me.

So why might grief be cited as the reason for divorce?

Each partner becomes deeply involved in his or her own grief and is often dissatisfied with the quality or depth of their spouse’s grief so when this is then coupled with the anger, frustration, guilt and blame that often surround a child’s death, parental bereavement can be a time of extreme volatility in a marriage.
It’s extremely important that each spouse understands the importance of communication (sharing of feelings), one partner should not judge themselves for the way they reacted to the loss, they should not judge their partner either.
It is vital that during this process we recognise that no two people grieve alike, so there is wide range of differences in the expression of grief.
These differences between the partners grief may cause one or both parties to feel that their partner has rejected them or that their grief is in someway less important.
A bereaved couple may find it impossible to give comfort to each other when both are feeling a similar type of grief.
Each partner may expect too much and give too little.
This combination of feelings can create a huge divide in a relationship, but it can be avoided if each accepts that they are both deeply hurting and they work together to address their feelings without judgment.
Many of the negative reactions and stresses that are experienced through your marriage result from your pain of loss and not from something lacking in your relationship and it’s important to remember that although you may feel pushed away your partner needs you now more than ever.

Further reading did highlight this statistic which suggests the previous piece I read may not have been factually correct.

However, it is not true that most couples divorce after the loss of child. Recent studies offer some hope, showing that a much lower rate of divorces – only 12–16% — are related to the loss of a child. Perhaps with more of an understanding about grief, there will be even fewer. Just think about your partner and the way you feel about them. Do you or your partner need more? If you do then please talk to them.

As I held you in my hands, you were gone; as were our plans

People say that time will heal. Heal what? Completely empty is all I feel.

I will never get to hold you, no matter how much I want to.

Society dictates I must be strong, its dark, I’m crying, that feels wrong.

I hold your mummy when she cries, it hurts to see the pain behind her eyes.

I hope you are sleeping peacefully, I love you so much my tiny baby.

The truth that I try to hide daily, is that your death has broken me.

Following on from yesterdays blog we continue with our series on insensitive things to say – please leave your thoughts below.

• Think yourself lucky that you were early on – LUCKY? Where is the luck? I had already experienced the luck when I was lucky enough to find out I had been blessed with being pregnant. In relation to my pregnancy that’s all the luck I needed. How is losing a baby and going through all this heartache and pain in anyway lucky? How am I supposed to carry this pain with me everyday and still count myself lucky?
• Are you going to have more? Now whilst this isn’t necessarily an insensitive thing to say it is all about timing. Just as a note to anyone thinking about asking this question our advice is this – WAIT!!! This is not a question that you can ask upon finding out that someone’s baby has died. In fact the more I think about it, this question doesn’t need to be asked at all. Just be there to support us if we choose to have more children.
• You can always have another one – As if my baby is simply replaceable. I don’t want to ‘replace’ my child. I wanted my baby. Also, whilst I may be able to have another baby did you stop to consider that I might not want to. I may not ever find the strength to face the risk of going through this pain again? Will I be able to put my family through this again? Will I be able to cope with peoples insensitivity if I have to go through this again? SO MANY QUESTIONS.
• God wanted him more – INCORRECT! No-one could ever want my baby more than I did? No-one could ever love my child as much as I do. It’s just not possible.
• You never ring to see how I am, I just lost my grandson – This was said to one dad who had lost his son. The grandmother offered no support to him at the time. This kind of thing where one persons grief is deemed more important than someone else’s is something we have touched upon before and a topic we will be looking at in greater depth at a later date.

This next few parts of this blog are direct quotes. Some of these are unbelievable.

I called the nurse at my doctors office on a Friday afternoon at 15:00 to get some advice the response was this – “Your wife will miscarry in 6 to 7 days, make an appointment and come back after it happens” CLICK…… The nurse had hung up on me, they said no more. This man had phoned for advice, some support, sympathy, why was that too much to ask? How many other people had this nurse treated this way? How many people had been left destroyed and feeling alone like this family did?

I recently had a doctor tell me that I needed to forget my Daniel and move on. This was after I went to her because I was experiencing emotional difficulties. I mean even if it were that easy I would never forget my baby boy just because it was too painful to remember him. I just had no words. I asked her “did you just tell me to forget about my son?” It was at this point back-peddling ensued but the damage was done – she couldn’t put that shit back in the donkey. Now this man had been trying to make sense of his feelings only to have them dismissed by a professional, someone whose job it is to provide resources, support and if necessary medication to help people cope. A professional who should know better.

Another man states the midwifery team who ‘looked after’ him and his wife following their loss was terrible. His wife wqsnt given medication to induce her labour. The room that they were allocated at the hospital wasn’t cleaned during the week they were there and he reports that they were ‘pretty much forgotten about’. HIs wife was told during her labour that ‘it will be just like a normal birth would be if she was still alive, you will be able to hold her straight away’. What actually happened was quite different. Their daughter was born at 09:33 and was taken away. No cuddles, no kisses, no photographs – NOTHING! Their daughter was returned to them at 12:30. This couple were told they could have as many people as they wanted and needed in the room they were given to support them and to meet their daughter. This was quickly changed following the birth and a strict 2 visitors only rule was implemented and people were asked to leave. He also suggests that one of the midwives who tended to them had also spoken of experiencing a miscarriage so why was she so unsympathetic? Do these staff not have any training relating to compassionate care?

Writing this blog has asked more questions that require answers so we will look at those in future posts.

If you follow us on social media you will be aware that we were going to write this blog as we asked for your input so if you relate to any of the comments in this post there is a very good chance that your shared experiences have contributed to the writing of this blog.

So as the title suggests we are going to write about the insensitive things that people have said following the loss of a baby.

This seems to be more common than you might think. Is it purely that people just don’t think before opening their mouths or can people really be that horrible and insensitive?

So where should we start? I suppose we should start with the most common statements, things like ‘it wasn’t meant to be’ ‘at least you were early’ ‘you can always try again’ ‘it’s gods plan’ or ‘it wasn’t even really a baby’.

• It wasn’t meant to be – how is that supposed to bring anyone any comfort? If it wasn’t meant to be then why was a baby growing inside me? If it wasn’t meant to be then why did a woman have to go through the joy of finding out she was pregnant only for that to be ripped away from her?
• At least you were early – like the gestation is some sort of marker for how sad you should feel. How hard you should grieve. You should only feel this sad because you were only this far along in your pregnancy.
• You can always try again – this one is horrible on multiple levels. Try again? – You failed this time. Try again? – You can do better. Try again? – Replace your loss. All such horrible things to feel just because someone says you can always try again.
• It’s Gods Plan – If you believe in a God or any kind of higher power then ask yourself why the ‘creator’ would allow something so heart-breaking to happen to anyone. Why would he choose people to suffer this immeasurable pain? I this higher power truly loved us all then loss wouldn’t happen to anyone.
• It wasn’t even a real baby anyway – who determines when you can call a baby a baby. For us personally our baby was a baby as soon as we knew she was there, as soon as we knew we were pregnant we were having a baby.

Surely no one believes up until their 12 week scan that their pregnancy is not a baby? Do they? Are there people who think that a pregnancy is just a ball of cells until the pregnancy is complete and the baby is born alive and well? Maybe there are.

One lady who shared her experience with us shocked us, below is a statement about her miscarriage experience:

“When I lost my little one it was a horrific miscarriage. I was taken for a scan in the middle of the night after suffering substantial blood loss. The woman scanning me clearly wasn’t impressed about having to open up the department in the middle of the night. The sonographer scanned me and said “It is non-viable” and at that point she handed me some paper towels and left the room. I was devastated. How can anyone be so cruel? Do these professionals not have a duty of care to work within.

Another lady who got in touch with us reports just being asked the following question – Do you mind filling out this questionnaire about how we dealt with your case today?

How would you even answer those questions? How insensitive on a scale of 1-10 were our staff today? How happy were you with the outcome of your appointment today? As if your experience today wasn’t bad enough please tell us how we can improve our service – how about some empathy? The lady who submitted this statement had already been seen in the Early Pregnancy Assessment Centre as this was her 5th consecutive loss in a year, this information would have been available to the staff on duty. So why was she treated so badly?

Following the news that Sands had trademarked Baby Loss Awareness Week and Wave of Light here is their response when questioned about why they had done it and the implications of the decision. It is not as people were claiming, noone has to pay to use these terms and we are free to use them in relation to matters within the baby loss communities. They are hoping that by trademarking these terms we can all work together to raise awareness of the impact of babyloss and fund research into prevention.

“With this in mind, we want to make it absolutely clear that both the Baby Loss Awareness Week and Wave of Light brands have always been – and will always be – available without restriction to everyone who wants to remember all those pregnancies and babies who have been lost.

This means that the Baby Loss Awareness Week and Wave of Light brands and logos can be freely used by everyone for remembrance, for awareness raising and for fundraising purposes, as we know so many people want to support the baby loss charities that are close to their heart during the week.

We will shortly be issuing clearer guidelines to this effect and we will make it absolutely clear that there are no restrictions on their use by organisations and individuals who want to commemorate, raise awareness and/or funds for charitable causes relating to pregnancy and baby loss.

What we do want to do is protect the brands from commercial exploitation by organisations that are not connected to pregnancy and baby loss. This is the sole intention behind registering the brands. In this way we hope to make sure that everyone who wants to commemorate, raise awareness or funds for pregnancy and baby loss will have that ability protected into the future.

Indeed, by all of us in the pregnancy and baby loss community using the brands together, we can be even more effective at raising awareness about pregnancy and baby loss.”