I suppose it didn’t feel right for me to launch this blog series without a little introduction from me as to why I think it’s so important.  When I found out I had been nominated for the Tommy’s The Baby Charity “Mum’s Voice” award I felt so proud, of Teddy.  I felt proud to have been able to tell the world about him, and that they weren’t afraid to read it.  People weren’t scared that it was catching or that I was trying to share a message of doom and gloom.  I felt proud that I had been able to chip away at that stigma that baby loss is still haunted by, that there would perhaps be less head-tilters and more people saying “Tell me more about your son…”

Just because you see a rainbow, and it’s beautiful, and it’s wonderful, and it makes your heart smile; it doesn’t mean that the rain didn’t just happen.  It did.  Everything is soaked, including you.

Of course, I’m not talking about the weather, am I?  No, I am talking about babies (no surprises there then?!).  What I want to say here may not come out in the intended way; but I am going to give it my best shot and see what happens.  Obviously we want another baby, quite badly now I might add.  Teddy should have been two in May, even if he had lived; I think I still would have hoped I was pregnant with another healthy pregnancy by now.  Alas, neither.

Looking like a true survivor.  Well,  Elton had it pretty bang on didn’t he?  The truth is, when I launched this little blog this time last year, I had no idea that it would be so needed.  Not just for me, for my sanity and to express many of the emotions I had kept to myself, but for all of the other women, the survivors, who have contacted me over the past year.

I know that sounds like a statement of relief, but it’s really not.  I feel as if “Another Year Done” is a huge tick in the metaphorical box of life, a massive achievement on our part.  I am not one to wish time away, quite the opposite; but I knew from the start that I had to be kind to myself in 2017 and so getting through it feels epic.  This time last year I felt utterly miserable; I honestly couldn’t see the wood for the trees.  I couldn’t fathom how, after Teddy had already died, we could go on to lose another baby; our rainbow.  Life was feeling incredibly, dare I say, unfair; and I wanted things to turn around for us so desperately.   I recall the walk we took on New Years Day, as we do every year; and I remember us saying to each other that this year, 2017, it had to get better.  Let’s face it, I don’t think it could have got much worse.