Nine months of pregnancy; nine months of excitement.  For me those nine months were a time when I was utterly bursting with anticipation to meet our little bundle, and blissfully unaware of the path that our lives were about to take.  So as we approach this coming week, and the 16th February, I am reflecting on nine months since the day that Teddy was born; nine months of loss.

Other than my wonderful husband; there is one other true love in my life.  He is about thirty centimetres tall, likes wild days out and cosy nights in, and never fails to make me smile; no matter how sad things are.  I am, of course, talking about Boris.(He’s a pug by the way; just in case you hadn’t got the gist of this one from the title?)

You are so brave.  Four words I hear so often now.  I’m not going to lie to you; I don’t think I am.  I know that when people say those four words to me they are simply expressing, in the only way they know how, that they don’t quite know how they would react if they were faced with the loss of their first born child.  Let me ask you this though; what do you ordinarily do when life throws something your way that you weren’t anticipating? Something that is entirely out of your control.  I can tell you now that you deal with it; you might not like it, but you face it head on.  Why?  Because you have to.

Teddy.  Edward Constantine Wright.  Born on Monday 16th May 2016 at 6.45pm weighing just 6lb 2oz.  He was full term (well 4 days short of his due date).  I was induced following leaking waters and reduced movements, and was in active labour for six hours after they broke my front waters.  Gas and air got me through (and lots of yoga breathing, posing and trying to reassure myself “You’ve got this”). I must have guzzled down about two litres of Lucozade energy and eaten my body weight in jelly babies during that time in an attempt to “Keep my energy up!”