Things just kept moving forward, but for me, things were standing still – everything had stopped the day our little boy’s heart had stopped. I hadn’t been left on my own, my eyes were constantly swollen from all the tears and now we were faced with Louis’ due date, August 13.
As a standard, I would head to bed around 9PM after Dave had successfully put Charlie to bed, but things were very different and I was scared to be alone. Therefore, Mum would cook dinner and hang out with me while Dave literally fought Charlie to sleep. Then he would either come to bed with me or at least stay with me until I too was successfully asleep. But it was time for my parents to head home and we all knew it; this would be one of our first big steps in moving forward.
The caravan that had been positioned down by the shed for weeks now would be towed away on the Sunday after Louis’ service – leaving a sobbing mess of a family (us) in the driveway as they drove out. Charlie screamed-cried the same way he had when the hearse had pulled away only days before, taking his baby brother with it.
The deliveries of food had stopped, the flowers had started to wilt and there were no more cards arriving in the letterbox. The quietness was a trigger for me and my mind started to consume me with unsolvable questions and unwanted negative thoughts.
While pregnant with Louis I had commented to multiple people that I was, “petrified of having two boys.” This comment, alongside the discussion of having a third child, will continue to haunt me for what feels like the rest of my life.
I felt guilt for working up to 36 weeks gestation and I felt I had been selfish in wanting to complete my diploma before Louis’ arrival – yet now I was questioning if I would even return to the childcare industry at all. Would all that work I had put in that had consumed all my focus have been for nothing?
And finally, the fact that Louis was ‘another’ boy. I had always pictured having a boy and a girl, and I had been quite vocal about the fact that I had longed for a daughter.
But what really broke me was the nursery.
It’s not as it seems, our end bedroom was still set as the nursery from when we prepared it for the arrival of Charlie, but it was not set for our little Louis. At the time I found this as a blessing because we wouldn’t need to pack everything away when we started to move forward, but seeing the nursery in the state it was, just made me sad. There were boxes of baby clothes piled up, dust, an empty bookshelf and just random crap everywhere.
When I felt strong enough, on my own I moved some of the items from Louis’ funeral into the nursery and on display in the bookshelf – which made me feel a little better but it wasn’t enough. I decided to ask mum if she would help me set up the rest of the room, allowing me to find some comfort in setting a place in our home for our little man who never made it home. We put fresh sheets in the cot and bassinette, laid blankets out, wiped the dust and cleaned the window. But more importantly I placed a butterfly on the door, the same butterfly that had been on our door at the hospital – this butterfly had become a huge part of our healing.
The sun kept rising day after day and I continued to spend time in the nursery as I needed. I bought several picture books about grief and the loss of a baby brother – I deciphered through which ones felt more suited to our story and the ones I found horribly sad. These books now lay in the cot as easy access for Charlie who also finds comfort in spending time in the nursery, asking us to ‘sit’, asking for ‘book’, and stating ‘baby sleeping’.
During times on my own in the nursery, I started to feel a huge pull on my heart when I placed my hand on the jacket and heart shape that had been given to us at the hospital. I have since learned to accept this and be open to this feeling – finding that Louis has his own way of communicating when we needed him the most.
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Physically I was healing well and continued to be surprised by how different my recovery had been compared to the birth of our first born. But it was evident that all was not well to the outside world. I had lost weight and my eyes continued to burn every time I cried, and you could see the hurt in our friends eyes every time they looked at us.
Although Dave’s strive to continue was Charlie, mine were the animals. Our beautiful mini foxy, Doti, never left my side – I was literally never alone. She was my ‘ride or die’ and she honestly took her job VERY seriously! Our cat, Lucy was also very attentive during this time, fighting Doti to sit on my lap while resting on the couch. Most mornings I had my own personal weighted blanket, consisting of both Doti and Lucy curled up together.
I read somewhere that when a cat sits and purrs on you, they’re trying to heal you. Again, this raised more questions, rather than comfort, due to the flood of memories of Lucy doing just that (healing) while I was pregnant with Louis. I questioned why she hadn’t alerted or acted differently, done something, to let me know he had gone? Or even better, indicated something was wrong and could have possibly saved him. This opened up a whole new meaning the statement ‘mum guilt’ and I would continue to feel this way until we had some form of answers, three months later.
Then there was our eldest border collie, Scout, who had been with us for nine years. Scout suffered from serious anxiety and to be honest with good reason due to the point in time he came into our lives. He had nursed me through heartache and loss many times before, and it was he who got up to accompany me during late night feeds when Charlie was a newborn. Now he would sit at the side gate outside the nursery window, intently listening while I cried – he had eyes and ears on my every move and would yelp to alert others of my sadness.
'Our Little Louis' 