Little Pip and the rainbow wish

Last October something special happened. 

I was sitting in front of my computer in the very early hours of October 15 2013. The act of being up late in itself rarely happens any more. With a young baby, it has become the norm for me to become somewhat less coherent the closer the clock ticks to midnight. 

So there I was, going through my emails when I came to an offer for children's books. I was absent-mindedly scrolling through the page of discounted books when the book "Little Pip and the rainbow wish" just jumped off my screen. I sat there staring at my screen with my heart thumping in my chest. 

If you're a regular reader of my blog, you'll know that Pip is our name for our first baby. We nicknamed our baby "Pip" because when we found out that we were pregnant, she (strong girl feeling) was the size of an apple pip and so the name Pip just stuck. Sadly Pip was lost to us in an early miscarriage and this blog is my story of how I am still putting myself back together after her loss. 

In baby loss circles, the term "rainbow baby" refers to a baby that comes after a pregnancy or infant loss because rainbows symbolise hope, just as a rainbow baby carries all the hopes of his or her parents that he or she will arrive safely in this world, especially after the trauma or the "storm" of baby loss previously experienced. 

As I looked into this book a little more, I realised that the main character called Pip was a boy mouse. Even though I "know" in my heart without a doubt that my Pip is a girl, I still could not shake the feeling that this was an incredible coincidence.

After we lost Pip, to say that we felt her loss deeply would be an understatement. We still miss her now after all this time. After her loss, we also prayed, hoped and wished for another baby - a rainbow baby - to join our family.

What made this even more special is that this book found me in the early hours of October 15. In baby loss circles, October 15 is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance day. 

I wanted to contact the writer, Elizabeth Baguley, to share this story with her straight away. But instead I sat on it for over a month until finally I knew that I had to do it. So I wrote to her last November. A few days later, she wrote back in a lovely response:

"...I'm glad that you did write to tell me all this: it's such a touching story.  Although it's pure serendipity that Little Pip has such a resonance with your circumstances,  I feel somehow proud to be part of your life, especially since there's such a happy epilogue to your tragedy (although the tragedy still remains, I know).

I hope you'll read Little Pip to your daughter when she's old enough – and I'm certain to think of you whenever I read it to children when I visit schools."

I wrote to her again to ask if she'd mind that I share this story on my blog. Happily for me, she was delighted for me to do this. So thank you Elizabeth Baguley for writing this book and for allowing me to share this story here on my blog. I know that as my little one grows up, your book will be one of the most special in our library. 

Fly free my beautiful girl

It's hard to believe that one year has already gone by since that awful night when what was left of my beloved child left my body. Sure I knew that she was no longer alive long before then, but the hope for a miracle never left my heart until I physically experienced my miscarriage. 

What a year it has been. Looking back now, there is a very clear "before" and "after". My life will never be the same again but that's not good or bad, it just is and I am perfectly okay with that. This past year has taught me so much about life and death, about love and compassion and about pain and healing. As a mental health professional I find behaviour endlessly fascinating and in many ways my experience of miscarriage and loss has given me an incredible insight into human behaviour surrounding the grieving process, especially in regards to how grief is viewed, accepted and processed and how the grieving person is treated. 

So many unexpected surprises and blessings have come out of Pip's death. Some of the very people I thought would have no patience with my grief have in fact turned out to be the most supportive in their own quiet and beautiful way. People I didn't even know from all over the world reached out to me in ways I will never be able to repay just to let me know that everything I was feeling and experiencing was and is normal. That in fact, there is no "normal". Each experience of grief is personal and individual. I have made so many new and wonderful friends through this loss that I would not have met any other way. Then there are the people who have had their own experiences of significant personal loss and they were the ones I thought would be most likely to offer understanding and support, but for some their own grief was the yardstick by which they judged me and my grief. I lost a lot of respect if not all respect, for a few people I had previously held in high esteem. 

I struggled with how at times it seemed like my husband and I were the only ones who really felt like our baby was a real person. People seem to dismiss miscarriages as "God's way or nature's way" of dealing with a defect. Natural selection, if you will. There is sometimes very little compassion for early pregnancy loss because "it" is not yet a real person. I still can't quite wrap my head around that. I am the kind of person who loves with my whole heart or not at all. From the moment we knew she was our child there was no question that she was truly and completely loved. It didn't matter to us whether she was a bundle of cells or a tiny human being with a rapidly developing body. To us she was and always will be our baby girl. That knowledge to me is so basic and fundamental that it surprised me when I found myself needing to explain it to others. 

I wondered if I would feel differently now that I am pregnant with our rainbow baby. But no, the same thing happened this time as well. As soon as I knew she (yes we are blessed with another beautiful girl) had started her life with us, I claimed her as my child. My love for her is absolute, just like my love for Pip was and always will be. I guess that is why I find it hard to understand how people can so cruelly and thoughtlessly dismiss any child no matter how young they may have been. 

This first year of grief has been a roller coaster I never wanted to ride on. But I'm choosing to see that perhaps life just is a collection of rides. Some more bumpy than others, but all collectively taking you somewhere. I know that my grief is not as raw and overwhelming now as it once was. I haven't "gotten over it" as many like to so delicately put it. Instead this grief and loss has become another facet of who I am. Integrated and painfully pounded into the very fibers of my being. People see my pregnant belly and innocently ask "Is this your first child?" My heart says no. My mouth says yes because I don't want to share the precious memory of my child with someone who will not understand or show her memory the respect it deserves. If there is a chance that I think they might understand I say, "Second pregnancy and if all goes well our firstborn". But even that doesn't quite capture it.

We still see signs of her everywhere. Yesterday hubby sent me an MMS of a picture of a double rainbow in the sky outside his office window. I see her name in car number plates at the most unexpected moments. I see children wearing clothes with halved apples and apple pips on the designs and it makes me smile whereas before it would have only made me hurt. Some may probably think we're reading too much into it, but to us these little signs are wonderful and comforting. 

My heart can't deal with the math sometimes. If Pip had lived, we would not have our little jellybean now. Pip was due in March 2012. We fell pregnant with bean in April 2012. While technically it would have been possible for me to have given birth to Pip then fallen pregnant immediately afterwards - even after meeting many women for whom that scenario was indeed the case - I know in my heart that that possibility would not have been the outcome of our story. How do you live with knowing that had one survived the other probably would not be here? Maybe I'm just greedy. I love them both and want them both. 

Ordinary days are no longer a struggle to get through. There are still sad moments and I am sure there will always be. But now when I see a sign of Pip or have a memory of my pregnancy with her, I am thankful for the opportunity that I was given to be her mother no matter how brief the time, I say a little prayer and I can send love and peace to my baby without my heart falling to pieces. Some days it's harder than other days, but on the whole the sadness is not as heartwrenchingly bottomless as it once was. Special days are a bit harder, maybe because of the lead up to them and knowing what they symbolise, such as the 3 month anniversary, the 6 month anniversary when I would have been at certain points in my pregnancy, her due date when our lives would have changed forever and of course now the one year anniversary of the date she left. I don't know when she died exactly, so the 8th of September is the date I choose to remember her passing from this life because that was when she physically passed from my body. 

I like to mark special dates by doing special things and when the 8th of September rolled around this year, I had to do something. The timing couldn't have been worse, it was just days before the international removalists would be coming to relocate our lives to another continent and there were a million things to get done. But I knew I would be useless on that day and so I compensated before and after by giving myself permission to do whatever I needed to do to heal, love and remember my little girl on that day. It's amazing how I never really have anything planned for special dates, but then somehow some special project always makes itself known. 

This year when I heard about Carly Marie's October 15th beach prayer flag project, I knew that it was what I would be making on the 8th of September. At first I didn't know how I would do it when half of my sewing things were already packed away, but somehow the universe conspired to assist me in creating a simple and meaningful prayer flag for Pip. People from all over the world made prayer flags to remember their children and mailed it to Carly Marie in Western Australia so that she could include them in her special October 15th memorial project at Christian's beach.

I started with the dimensions suggested for each flag and no clear idea of what my prayer flag would look like. First I needed a strong backing fabric to be the backbone of the flag. Most of my fabric stash had already been carefully packed away, behind a mountain of other boxes that I had no hope of reaching without the help of two strong people to help me move. So when I found a piece of my husband's jujitsu gi (martial arts uniform) that he had assigned to the rags pile, I knew it would be perfect to have a piece of her father "carry" her prayer flag. Martial arts uniforms are made from very strong fabric and I was satisfied that it would stand up to the winds on the beach and hopefully the test of time as the flags are being kept by Carly for future ceremonies and not returned. 

Next I wanted to add a symbol of her. To me Pip's symbol is an apple with heart shaped pips. So I found some applique fabric and designed a simple apple with fabric marker pips drawn on. I loved the thought of her flag flapping along in the evening breeze and my message for her to fly free came with the next thought. I added the words with printer transfer fabric. Unfortunately I was a bit over zealous and the iron setting was too high when I ironed on the transfer. For the longest time I kicked myself for ruining the flag when an awful iron print appeared over the words at the top of the flag. But after a while it faded and left a graded heat mark on the transfer portion of the fabric. To my surprise and pleasure the few friends whom I shared it with kindly commented that they thought it was actually part of the design instead of something I'd almost ruined. That made me feel so much better!

Image modified to preserve privacy

It looked too plain so I went digging for more fabric and found some precut squares of red gingham and a red and gold spotted fabric that I had prepared and put aside for another Christmas project last year. They were just the perfect size for hearts and miraculously fit three in a row without any measurements or manipulation on my part. I like to think that it symbolises mummy, daddy and Pip. 

Normally I would have spent hours on creating a more elaborate design and something that I could detail a bit more, but that was not the point of this exercise. I was happy that in the middle of our moving madness I was able to carve out a chunk of solitude on Pip's day to make something that was purely devoted to her memory. It isn't going to win any prizes, but I'm going with elegant simplicity. Looking back now at the "before" version of who I was pre-Pip, I probably would have started the whole flag again from scratch. I may well have if I had the time and resources, but for today it was enough. 

Then I wrote Carly a letter to tell her about Pip and to explain some of the symbolism in my flag. I packed it away carefully into an envelope and ironically I put it aside with a bunch of other envelopes that were ready to be mailed containing presents for friends who had recently given birth to their babies or are about to. 

For the longest time after Pip died I couldn't walk into the baby section of a store and avoided the rows of tiny baby outfits as much as I could. To be truthful, I didn't allow myself to do the same this pregnancy for bean now either until I was well and truly past the 20 week mark when our congenital abnormality scan showed that absolutely nothing was wrong and all signs were pointing to a healthy alive baby. 

The thing is when you've lost a baby, you tend to go back to the basics. Every vital sign that appears is a cause for celebration. Waiting to hear the heartbeat on bean's first scan was such an anxious and terrifying experience for the both of us because it brought back the trauma of a different time, in another darkened room, staring at the ultrasound screen with great expectation only to face the most crushing of disappointments. We hung on to each others hands and my mantra was "Please be alive". Hearing that heartbeat was just such an incredible sound that I cannot describe the intense relief, love and joy that we both felt at that moment. 

In many ways this is a strange month. On this Saturday the 8th of September I am alone by choice working on this prayer flag for Pip. Next Saturday my home will be full of family and friends who will come to celebrate bean as I'm having an early baby shower before we leave the country. At this time last year I never would have imagined myself remembering one child and soon after preparing to celebrate another. Sometimes that's just the way life works out. Wherever you are, I hope that you're happy and flying free my beautiful girl. We love you, we remember you today and always will. 

With Brave Wings She Flies

The longer I am on this road, the more I realise I don't know. Every single day I discover another thing I thought I knew, which really, I didn't really know until that moment. It's a bit hard to explain, but some of these things are smack-you-in-the-face obvious, some are a bit ridiculous and others are just plain strange. 

This week, I discovered that one of those things I didn't really know is how much I worry about my Pip and how she may be, even though she is no longer. Now this may sound strange for a woman who is grieving the baby who started to grow then died suddenly inside her. I guess that doesn’t really make sense, but perhaps the closest way to put it is I need to know that my child is alright, wherever she may be right now. Be that heaven, a parallel universe or just dead. I know that sounds awkward but it's just so hard to explain this feeling without sounding stupid. So I will leave it to be what it is.

I have been dreading this week just as I have been dreading the approach of Christmas. I'm that person you probably know who loves Christmas, Birthdays, Anniversaries...you name it, I probably love it! 

Until now. 

For the first time in forever, I'm not excited about Christmas. I'm not even really looking forward to it. Part of me is sad that I seem to have become the Grinch that doesn't really like Christmas or maybe I'm morphing into that Bah Humbug person. But the other part of me understands that it will never be the same again. And that is okay too.

I've been finding a lot of comfort in my fellow babyloss mamas blogs. There are so many amazing ideas out there on how to honour our babies. I read them all and file mental notes on what I can probably pick up on soon or in the future. So when I came across Fran’s 12 days of Christmas posts, I loved hearing from all her different guests on how they honoured their children. 

Which is how I stumbled upon her blog giveaway for day 8 (part 2). 

The moment I saw this necklace that was donated by Beth Quinn, I was in love. It wasn't in a coveting sort of "must have that" love, it was just that feeling that made my heart sing in a way I thought impossible in a time when everything hurts so much. 

If you read Fran's post, she explains Beth's concept behind the necklace: 

"...her piece “with brave wings she flies”  was created from knowing that everyone she has there own story .. life isn’t always easy … every she is going through or has been through a life experience that has challenged them in some way  .. and sometimes we just need a little reminder that we are brave and we can fly .. making it through our journey of life .."

I remember reading this at the time and the more I looked at the picture, the more I thought that if by some miracle I won this with my very ordinary entry post, I would take it as a sign from the universe that Pip is okay. And so I entered my name along with the 129 other hopefuls to have a chance at winning this beautiful piece of art.

I was so convinced I didn't stand a snowball's chance in hell of winning that I actually didn't even really pay attention to the time when the winners of her giveaways would be announced. I just vaguely remembered that it was sometime during that weekend. 

On the Monday morning, I logged on to see who the lucky person was and almost fell of my chair when I read this. I literally had to read it about five times to make sure that it wasn't a joke!

And even then, I still couldn't believe it. I emailed Fran in a blurry haze of tears and asked for confirmation and told her what winning this necklace, with those words, at this time of my life meant to me. Then cried some more.

It really seemed too good to be true. I was entering a giveaway for the first time on her blog and to be honest, I'm not really the kind of person who wins things!

Over the next few days, both Fran and Beth were in touch and I only said thank you about a hundred times to them both, I must have sounded like a broken record. But how else do you express a sense of gratitude like this?

I know there may be some out there who probably think I'm reading too much into this coincidence, but I still love the thought that perhaps this is my girl telling me that she is indeed okay and will wear it when it arrives to remind me that she is somewhere better now, pain free. Maybe someday when this heartache isn't quite so severe (will that time really come, I wonder?) I may be able to wear it for myself as a symbol of this experience and a reminder that I too, have flown before and maybe, just maybe, can fly again. Broken wings or not.

Thank you so much Fran and Beth Quinn, from the bottom of my heart.

An angel for my angel

This week must be my lucky week! I feel so blessed to be surrounded by wonderful people who show me in very special ways that they are thinking of me all the time. Jeanette surprised me today with a little angel figurine. 

I was never really much of a figurine person before all of this. To be honest, I also didn't really "get" angels. I mean I thought it was a nice concept to have a celestial being watching over you, but post-Pip angels have a whole other meaning. Do babies who die become angels? I don't know, but it's a comforting thought that even if they don't, they live on in heaven and are being cared for by angels. 

Every year we have a tradition of adding a special ornament to our christmas collection. Having been lucky enough to have lived in some interesting places, we have managed to collect some pretty special things over the years. And so this year, like every other year I'm on the lookout for lovely ornaments to add to the collection, but this year unlike every other year, I'm searching for a very special ornament to symbolise a very special person. 

This year I've been on the lookout for an angel to add to the collection. It's been so hard to keep walking into shop after shop and looking at ornament after ornament that should symbolise a happy beautiful event, but in my heart symbolises the beautiful girl who couldn't stay. So many shops and yet not one ornament seems "right" as yet. 

The search for the 2011 Christmas angel ornament continues. But in the meantime, I am grateful for beautiful people in my life who think of me when they see something special. I do love the upturned wings and the wavy hair on this little cherub, thank you Jeanette.

Learning to live with the pain

Hi baby girl,

These past few weeks have been different. I'm starting to find that these days I have more good days than bad days.

When I say "good days", that doesn't mean a day when I don't think about you, because I can't see that happening anytime soon. I think I will always find you in the little things - a pretty flower, the flutter of a butterfly's wings, a rainbow... There isn't a day that has gone by when I haven't thought about you. The difference is now I can think of you and begin to smile, knowing that you are transformed, living a life that is pain free, I hope you are living it up in Heaven and rocking with the angel baby family you have up there.

At first, not feeling the same deep, deep sadness that I felt at the start made me feel guilty and sad. But I know that everyone grieves differently. Just because I'm not a sobbing mess anymore doesn't mean that I love you and miss you any less. It's not like any of this makes any more sense. Not at all, I still don't get why things had to happen this way. I still wish with all my heart that you were here and growing bigger and stronger every day inside me. I don't think that wish will ever change.

How do you grieve for someone you've never met, yet love with all your heart? I don't know, so I had to find my own way. My way has been to honour your memory by talking about you to anyone and everyone who will listen. By finding other mummies who live everyday without their precious babies, just like daddy and I live everyday without you.

My way is to pour all the love I have for you into creating something special and beautiful just for you. My way is to dream about you while I sew another little stitch into your very own quilt. Do you like the colours I've chosen for you? Do you like the patterns and the shapes? I hope so. Maybe one day you can tell me exactly what you think of it.

I know that you wouldn't want me to be sad forever. Daddy said that to me the other day and so did some of the other angel mummies I speak to often. Most days are good, but some days are still bad.

The other day I drove past the hospital where I went to see the doctor for you. The thought that if everything had gone well, I'd still be going there for you brought tears to my eyes. Then another day, a lady I work with brought her newborn granddaughter in to work. It broke my heart to hold that tiny, beautiful little girl and know that I will never get to hold you like that. Nor will your grandmother, who was so very excited about being a grandmother, get the chance to introduce you to her friends like that. 

Yes, some days are still bad. But most days are good. I still love you and miss you every single day. I still wear the necklace I had made for you and it helps to know you are symbolically near, even though I know you will always be in my heart.

Another angel mummy said that this means I'm learning to live with the pain. I want you to know that while that learning process is still hard, painful and awkward, I'm getting better everyday. I don't like the thought that you may be worrying over me or daddy, because you're a beautiful child of heaven and should be happy and free without worries. So know this my love, I will never stop loving you but very, very, very slowly I think that great big gaping hole in my heart is starting to mend - ironically, with the very thing that makes it hurt so very much. My love for you. 

It's a swelteringly hot day here today, I hope heaven has ice creams with chocolate sprinkles for you. 

I love you always and forever my baby girl.
You are always in my heart.
mummy xxx

Angel hearts

This weekend I finally had a nice long block of time to sit down and sew. I only managed to get two blocks done, but it's a start. 6 more to go. 

I'm really glad I swapped around the fabric I used for the pieces that make up each section of the wings in each block. Adds a bit of visual interest without detracting from the generic pattern of the blocks as a group, I think. 

Also glad I picked red thread for the blanket stitches - red for love. Before I started, I wasn't sure if it would give enough definition to the outline of each part, but I really like how it's all turned out.

Names in the sand

Several days after our second scan of doom, hubby was sent away for work in a trip that had been scheduled long before we found out that we were pregnant. While he was away, I miscarried Pip :( and as you can probably imagine, it was a devastatingly awful time for us. We needed so much to be together, but couldn't.

So while we were apart, we planned to go on a short holiday together upon hubby's return. Thanks to technology, emails, skype and viber, we were able to stay in touch pretty well. But what we really needed was some couple time. Some time to be alone together, time to talk and time to cry.

That's how we ended up in Jervis Bay. A glorious spot on Australia's east coast, home to Hyams Beach where the whitest sand in the world lives, according to the Guinness book of world records. The perfect place to heal and recover after such a traumatic time in our lives.

In the lead up to October 15, which is pregnancy and infant loss memorial day, I was wondering what we would do in memory of our beautiful girl. I don't know if some people will find this strange, but a friend once asked if I felt like I was a mother. I answered yes without hesitation. In my heart I do feel like a mother, I carried my baby for as long as I could in my belly with love and joy and I can honestly say that I would have given anything within my power to physically continue carrying her. Now I continue to carry her in my heart with love and joy. 

I may not have given birth to my child, I may not have nursed a sick baby late at night or early in the morning, I may not have wiped runny noses and worried about whether my child was warm enough, but by God, I wanted to with Pip. Those dreams were taken away from me the day I heard the words "I can't find a heartbeat". So what makes a mother? I know I haven't experienced the full gamut of what motherhood has to offer, the good, the bad, the ugly, the joys and rewards and little moments that make it all worthwhile. But still, I will always and forever be Pip's mother and she will always be my angel.

While this loss is so very personal, I feel like any proud mother I know. I love my baby so very much and I want to talk about her. I think it's sad that in this day and age, talking about miscarriages is still tabboo. So my way of getting past this was just a single small step, but I believe a very important one. 

I had no idea what to expect when I posted the "I am the face" picture as my facebook profile picture. In all honestly I was prepared for some not so nice comments, because the reality is that there are some not so nice people in the world. I was just hoping that none of the people I considered friends would be among them. I'm relieved to say that what I got instead was a lovely outpouring of support from family and friends. Some of my friends even sent me private messages to share similar losses they had experienced. I never would have guessed. They sent virtual hugs and messages of hope. They shared stories of their own pain and healing. I feel so blessed to know each and every one of these special people.

That day we walked along Hyams beach and I found it very therapeutic to write Pip's name in the sand along with the names of all the other angel babies we know. I still can't say why, but maybe it's because in my heart she is real and I want the world to know that. She existed, she was here, she lived and then she died. That's my girl and I will always love her.

October 15th

I'm sad to admit that before any of this happened, I had no idea that October 15th was pregnancy and infant loss remembrance day. I'm sure that had I known, I would have been sad for all the families out there who had experienced such pain.

But now, that pain is personal. That pain is my pain and that loss is my loss. Our loss. Although October 15th is only really recognised officially in the US and in Canada, I believe the UK is starting to recognise it too. But as far as I know, we're still behind here in Australia. I signed a petition the other day to bring this to the attention of the leaders of our country.

The statistics tell us that 1 in 4 experience this loss. If you think about that for a second that almost means on average, for a small-ish family it's roughly 1 per family. For an average family, 2-3 and for a large family more. So why is it still known as the "silent grief"? 

Why are we not talking about this some more? Why do mums and dads, grandparents, brothers and sisters have to fumble their way to help when it is so common? Why do doctors not have resources on supports available for families ready to hand out? 

Life is too short to stuff around. It's time for families to stop grieving in silence and to think they're alone. When we found out about Pip, we felt alone too. I was lucky that I was part of a very supportive online network and was able to be linked in pretty quickly with other mums who had experienced the same sort of loss. Together we cry and together we talk about our babies. We talk about the love we have for them and our hopes for them. I honestly don't know what I would have done without the love and support I found with these beautiful ladies. My hope is that all families affected with this loss find the support and strength they need in those awful times.

So come on world, let's break the silence on miscarriage, infant loss and stillbirth starting now. If you are a fellow parent who has experienced this, or if you are a supporter, especially if you're on a social networking site like facebook or twitter, it won't take much effort to change your profile picture to an image similar to the one above to get people talking about October 15th, to spread the word and to maybe, just maybe, help someone who is struggling with it not feel so alone in their grief.

Pip's Memorial Quilt

One of the reasons I started this blog was to document the progress of Pip's memorial quilt. Here you'll find all the posts relating to the quilt, so that it's progress is easier to follow with older posts at the bottom of the list and more recent posts at the top.

Enjoy and please feel free to leave comments, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the quilt and it's progress. 

May 2012
Slowly slowly, 5th May 2012


January 2012
Back up, 4th January 2012


November 2011
Angel hearts, 6th November 2011

October 2011

Fabric, love and fabric love, 31st October 2011
Prep and math, 30th October 2011
The heart block, 29th October 2011
Healing heart blocks, 10th October 2011
Threading lightly, 9th October 2011

September 2011

First block finished, 20th September 2011
Deep peace, 16th September 2011
Design, 6th September 2011
1st piece, 4th September 2011