No one knows.......

No one really knows exactly how I truly feel. How much I still miss you and ache from your absence in our family. There are simply no amount of words, or the 'right' words I can express to say how I truly feel, not even to those closest to me. I think about you every day, I still cry tears out of happiness of how much I love you and how blessed I am to be your mummy. You have changed me incredibly. My beautiful, beautiful little girl you are a true gift.

Tears stream down my face. I don't know if I will publish this post, but it's here to help me when and If I decide to. I wonder if anyone will mention your name, if your sweet name will pass through people's lips, if you will be thought of on your birthday. I just miss you so much. I am so grateful to have your baby sisters and older brother to love, care and cherish each day. At the same time I feel your absence and wonder about what you would be like.

I was asked recently 'Are you OK now?' by a newly bereaved family. The questioned stumped me as I wanted to answer and say yes, I am OK, but I was honest. It gets easier.....sometimes and other times I think it gets harder. Milestones, anniversaries, birthday's, holidays, at each moment in time you wish they were there a part of your life. There are days when it can be like yesterday that I held Yasminah in my arms and all the pain and heartache resurfaces like an old wound aching in the winter.

But there is also hope, hope that a new child can bring. I briefly shared my story of our rainbow girls and how they have helped bring joy and happiness back into our lives. The tears ease as the days pass. You slowly venture back out into the world of doing the mundane tasks like cleaning, shopping and socialising with friends and family. Bravely holding in your sadness as you pass a pregnant woman or a family cooing over a newborn baby. It's hard when friends announce they are pregnant. You wish them nothing but happiness and pray that everything will be OK, but you wish you had your child in your arms, or if you have started the road of trying to conceive you wish to be pregnant too. Not to fill a gap, as nothing can or ever will replace the child you lost. But to once again have joy in your life, to nurture a baby, to watch them grow. Once you are pregnant you vow never to take for a granted a restless nights sleep, a dirty nappy or having the last feed splatted all over you, the lounge and the floor. You wish so much to be able to do those things.

When your pregnant friend goes into labour, it feels like a knife going deep into your chest. You hope and pray that everything is going to be OK and that they will get to take home their baby, that the labour will go smoothly. That their child will be born healthy. Then the baby is born and you know you will have to visit them and hold them in your arms. You brave the shops buying newborn clothes and hold back your tears when asked by a passer by when are you due? As you still have a 'baby' belly and look pregnant. You walk into the maternity ward, remembering the last time you were there. You then realise the last baby you held in your arms was your own and that soon another sacred moment will be gone. You feel like a thousand eyes are watching you hold that baby, too scared to say something wrong that might upset you. It feels strange to have a warm, moving, breathing baby in your arms, but comforting at the same time.

Friends status updates wishing that their child would 'go to sleep' have a different meaning. You would do anything to be kept awake by a restless baby, because at least they would be alive and you would be holding them safe in your arms. For weeks after losing Yasminah, because everyone kept referring to her as 'born sleeping' I used to freak out about my son dying in his sleep. I was a member of an online forum where mothers who had lost babies and children to SIDS shared their stories. Because my eldest was only 20 months old, I feared that God had already taken away one of my children, what was to stop him from taking away my son! I checked on him every night to make sure he was still breathing, still moving, still alive. It might sound crazy but it's true and completely normal to feel this way. If you have other children, I think you smother them with love and affection and maybe spoil them a little too much. But you do what you need to do, to get through each day. Life is short, our children we have lost have taught us this. Take each day as a gift, hold your loved ones, tell them how much you love them.

No one really knows what this is like, and even then each person's journey is so different and unique to that family and their special child.

No one knows.......and I wish no one ever had to know what this truly feels like.