Rainbow Child Questions by Dani

Life with a rainbow child comes with many challenges and many questions. Some come out of the blue and knock the wind right out of you. Out of all my mumma loss friends, my rainbow is the oldest, at 5 and a half years old, so I have not had many people to turn to for how to answer these difficult questions. And unfortunately they need to be answered when asked.

It’s difficult to ask for help as well, as everyone’s beliefs differ when it comes to what happens when we die. But what I have found first and foremost is that honesty is the best policy. I have never sugar-coated the truth, and on occasion, have copped some backlash over this decision;  but in being honest , there are no secrets between us. My rainbow Harrison knows he can come to me about any questions he may have about Jasper, death and the afterlife and know that he does not need to worry about my reaction.

Harrison is very switched on, and isn’t satisfied with the basic answers, so my answers have to appropriately answer his question, or there will be millions of follow up questions. And it is amazing just how much he understands.

Here are just some of the few we have been asked, and of course how you respond will vastly depend on your personal beliefs and how your child absorbs and asks questions.

When will you have another baby? Unfortunately mummy can’t have any more babies.
Why? Sometimes it is very hard for a mummy and daddy to get pregnant. Mummy can’t have any more babies because my body doesn’t work the way it should to make babies. When we had you we needed lots of help from the doctor so that you could be born.
Does it make you sad? Sometimes I wish mummy and daddy could have another brother or sister for you, but we are very glad to have you, and you are enough for us and our little family.


How did Jasper die? You know how babies are in a mummy’s belly for 40 weeks? Well Jasper was only in there for 26 weeks, and that is very early for a baby to be born, so he was very sick, so even though the doctors tried very hard he was just born too early.
Why couldn’t the doctors save him? Because he was born too early and his lungs didn’t work properly. Doctors are very clever at saving people but sometimes when babies are born too early, some of their body doesn’t work properly and the doctors can’t fix that.

When will he come back? – this one is particularly difficult to answer. But not being truthful will only cause more confusion about the finality of death.
Jasper lives in heaven now, so although we can’t see him and he can’t come back, he can still see us and watch over us. He can’t come back, but when we are very old and die we will see him again in Heaven.
Can he hear me if I talk to him? Even though we can’t see him, he can see and hear everything we do. If you find a quiet spot in your room and talk to him, he will hear everything you say.

If we cremated him, how did he get to heaven? Our bodies can’t live forever, which is why our soul was created, our soul which is everything of who we are. Although Jasper’s body is gone, his soul lives in Heaven and is watching over us always.
Is he all alone in heaven? No, he has all the angels and your great-grandad holding his hand and playing lots of games with him.

I don’t want my mummy and daddy to die / Will I die one day – this one was absolutely heart wrenching to hear from a 5 year old.
Although everyone dies, usually you don’t die until you are very very old and have lived a very long life with your family. No matter what happens to mummy and daddy, you will never be alone and there will always be people who love you and take care of you.

I miss my brother so much… Mummy and daddy miss him too and think about him all the time. If you want, you can hold his teddy in bed at night and when you hold him and talk to him he will come down from heaven and hug you while you are asleep.

These questions are just the main (and difficult) that Harrison has asked us, and the way we have approached our responses. I think the main thing is, it is ok to say “I don’t know” and we strongly believe that it is ok for Harrison to see us get emotional, for us to miss Jasper too. It is ok for him to ask these questions knowing we will help him understand as best we can. 

Dani

If you require support after reading this blog, please contact Sands on 13000 72637

Danielle Hall

Wife to Corey and Mumma to two boys: Jasper Rhys in heaven and Harrison Phillip Robert in her arms. Jasper passed away after PPROM at 23 weeks and birth at 26 weeks, surviving for 10 hours in the NICU unit. Currently completing a Master of Social Work with the goal to aid in the safety and protection of all children, because all children deserve to feel safe and loved.

Two Years on..by Jess

I’ve had the words rolling around and around in my head for months, I’m finding it particularly hard to articulate my thoughts 2 years on. There may be no real point to the following, it may seem like rambles, but here goes…

How can it have been 2 years already?!! 2 years since you entered the world so silently, 2 years since we looked on your beautiful face, kissed your closed eyes and ruby red lips. 2 years since we held your hands and said goodbye. 2 years since a little piece of me died with you.

I never thought I’d feel truly happy again, never thought I could experience contentment again…I’m still on the fence about contentment but we have been blessed enough to feel pure joy welcoming your little sister into the world! She was the spitting image of you, seeing her sleeping soundly in that hospital cot was both elating and unsettling. Walking her through our front door and placing her in the bassinet we made up for you felt the same. You would adore little Belle Emma. You would have been a doting big sister, so proud of your little baby…I suppose. We’ll never know. Most likely Belle would never have been born had you lived, we would probably have carried on with life as normal. Complaining of the lack of sleep, the cost of nappies, the seemingly trivial day to days of raising a family. Losing you gave us a perspective that you can only gain from losing a child. That’s not to say that we don’t complain about the sleep deprivation, we’re only human after all.

Since bringing our 3^rd child  Belle home, every second of my day is filled with some form of craziness and yet I still think of Emma every one of those seconds. After she died all I wanted was to be pregnant again, thinking it would fix or at least help repair the hole in me. About 13 months after Emma was born I finally fell pregnant and it was beautiful. My pregnancy was such a breeze (physically, not emotionally) and really in a way, healing. I proved to myself that I could do it, that my body could get through it.

When I look into Belle’s eyes I look for Emma and she’s not there. Belle is a little version of me just like her big brother (now nearly 4), only she has her Dad’s beautiful blue eyes instead of my brown. Those eyes kill me. They are the most beautiful eyes you’ll ever see, when I look into those eyes I feel her love for me and I feel our connection. I also feel that hole inside me opening back up. I never got to look into Emma’s eyes. Would they have been brown like mine or blue like her Dads? Another unknown.

Bringing Belle home was a monumental moment. We finally brought our baby home…but it also brought home that Emma will never come home. Belle, Adam, any other children we might have are not Emma, they never will be Emma. She is lost to us forever. It sounds ridiculous but I never realised it until I placed our precious bundle into that bassinet that I lovingly made up for Emma but never used for her. She’s never coming home. For the rest of my life I’ll miss her and I’ll be missing a piece of myself. Adam will be missing his little sister and Belle will never have her big sister to grow up with.

Some days I’m ok with this, some days, like today, it’s more than I can bear to think about.

Happy Birthday baby girl xx  

Jess

If you require support after reading this blog please contact

Sands on 13 000 72637

Jessica Lawless

Jessica lives in Victoria. She is the wife to Shane and a Mum to 2 beautiful kids - Adam, nearly 2 and Emma, born sleeping August 2014.
I like to practice yoga, cook, read and spend all my time being a SAHM with Adam. My family and friends are my whole world, there is barley a distinction between the two.
I hope by being so open and honest about my experiences I can help raise awareness and provide support for others.

Father's Day

Corey writes for us about the recent Father's Day.. his sixth without his precious baby that died.

Father’s Day used to be a day that I wasn’t particularly fond of.   It was just another day that had that undertone that it was supposed to be something other than it was, like when you plan a holiday and it’s postponed or cancelled and then that day comes when you were supposed to leave but you’re at work instead.

I do remember my first Father’s Day. My wife did everything she could to make it special for me, she made me breakfast in bed and we spent the day doing fun things but the day had that undertone I mentioned. I would have preferred to sleep the day away but my wife made this plan so that’s what we did. We went and visited the spot where we spread my son’s ashes, and it made me feel both better and worse.

I lost my boy in the November the year the before, so it had been almost a year between when I lost him and while my wound was healing but there was a large scar -  it was still very fresh.

My second Father’s Day was much better, we were trying again to bring a wonderful little person into our life and at this point we had gotten some answers in regards to what had happened and what had gone wrong and what we could to do to virtually assure it wouldn’t happen again. A month later my wife would conceive, and just before Christmas we would find out we were having a wonderful little boy. I went to my son’s spot again, and it was nice to just be there, my heart ached but I needed it.

My third Father’s Day was the best.   He was only a couple of months old but the day had that spark to it. There was that tiny undertone, but I pushed it aside, focused on what I had in front of me and enjoyed the day. Later that day, while my son was asleep, I took a drive to my first son’s spot, and just spent a little bit of time with him, and thanked him, as I knew he had a part to play.

Today’s father’s day will be my 6^th. Got a full day planned: to see my wife’s parents and just basically busy work.  My rainbow is now 3 years old and he is an absolute handful, he made me a wonderful present at kindergarten and that’s all I ever wanted. I finished work early in the morning and on my way home I visited my son’s spot.   I’m not sure why this year feels different, maybe it’s because my life is a little topsy turvey at the moment or maybe it’s because this year I feel as though I have really moved forward on how I handle my grief when it comes to losing my son.  Maybe its guilt as I don’t think about him as often as I should, all I know is that there are many aspects of my life that I feel completely out of control of but when it comes to father’s day and visiting my son, I know he is with me and I feel like I am with him. 

Corey

If you require support after reading this blog please contactSands on 13 000 72637

Preppie Tidal Wave

Danielle shares with us her emotions as she realises her precious son, Jasper, was supposed to start prep school.

Tuesday January 27th started out like a normal day. Rush rush, taking my 2.5 year old rainbow to Kindy, making sure we hadn't forgotten anything. The occasional tantrum on the way, mostly because he can't take his trains to Kindy. Hubby hadn't gotten back from night shift so I was doing the Kindy run alone. Driving to Kindy, I see schools open. I see children excitedly, and some not so excitedly getting out of cars for their first day back at school. I still haven't realised.

I get to Kindy; I get Harrison out of the car and help him inside. I am making his breakfast and a mum about my age comes in. The Kindy teachers start fawning over the new Prep child who used to come to the Kindy last year – “oh look at you in your new uniform – look how grown up you look! Thank you for bringing him in to see us!” And it hits me like a tidal wave. Jasper was supposed to start prep today.

I rush into the bathroom to clear my thoughts. I have to settle Harrison and get home – I think to myself. I manage to get through the next 10 minutes, made more difficult that Harrison wanted mummy to stay and read and cuddle him, but I needed to get out of there. But I couldn't hold it in all the way home. My chest feels heavy and the all too familiar and terrible ache in my heart. The ache that makes you feel like you can’t breathe or think. The ache that is physical and feels like your heart is dropping right out of your chest. I sat there and cried.

I cried selfishly at first. I cried because at first I forgot. I cried because I wish I didn't have to remember and that it isn't fair. Because I was the ‘unlucky one’ who didn't get to bring my baby home. Because after 5 years it still hurts. Because I will never buy Jasper a school uniform. But then I cried for his younger brother. I cried because his little brother will never experience the joy and jealousy of watching his older brother go to school before him. Because there will always be a big brother missing who he won’t play with – who won’t get to amaze him with thrilling stories of school and who won’t be there when his little brother also starts school. He doesn't have a big brother to look up to, to protect him.

When I pull myself together and get home, I soak in the bath and try to collect my thoughts. I think about the school we wanted to send him to and wonder how he would have coped. And the sad thing was that I couldn't imagine it. And sometimes that hurts more. I can’t imagine what he would be like today. I went on the computer to chat to a friend for comfort and like a knife through my heart I saw my Facebook feed – pictures of proud parents showing off their little prep kiddies in their new school uniform. Parents who have every right to be so proud of their children, but who unintentionally add to the pain. I had to close my computer. I couldn't interact on social media on this day.

Milestones like this hit me like a brick. And they are usually compounded by the lack of support I receive. My husband is my rock but after working night shift, I can't wake him up because I feel guilty. Many family members believe I am ‘wallowing’ and should just forget about him. It has been 5 years and I can never forget about the small little boy, who fought so bravely for life for 10 hours. I can’t simply ‘forget’ the little boy who isn't here, and I can’t put it out of my mind the milestones in life he can never achieve. Although I have a wonderful rainbow that brings me joy and heals my heart a little bit every day, he is not a replacement for the brave little boy I lost. His milestones are his alone and do not replace the milestones that Jasper should have had.

I cannot wait for my rainbow to achieve his milestones and I look forward to them every day, even if it does bring along a reminder of what we have lost.

If you require support after reading this blog please contact 

Sands on 13 000 72637

Danielle Hall

Wife to Corey and Mumma to two boys: Jasper Rhys in heaven and Harrison Phillip Robert in her arms. Jasper passed away after PPROM at 23 weeks and birth at 26 weeks, surviving for 10 hours in the NICU unit. Currently completing a Master of Social Work with the goal to aid in the safety and protection of all children, because all children deserve to feel safe and loved.

Grief is a complicated process.....

Shanelle writes again for Sands.  She talks about how grief is a complicated process and how she coped.... 

It can bring us together, tear us apart or alienate us, the later one, is the one that I identify with the most these past three and a half months since my loss.

I was surrounded by love and at first, many beautiful people in my life reached out to me with this own loss stories following my miscarriage, in fact, one lovely lady, my partners cousin was the only person to visit me in the hospital, aside from him, despite having suffered a recent loss of her own, to give us a small blue teddy bear so I had something to cuddle.

Many thoughts and prayers came to us through calls, messages and cards and all I could offer in return was tears and eventually I started withdrawing. Not because I didn’t like them, or I felt unwanted, judged or anything like that but simple because I did not know how I felt or how to react on my own let alone around others, for one moment all my dreams were coming true after four years of trying to conceive and completing our little family and the next was doctors and hospitals, needles and scans and eventually labour… with nothing to hold after hours of pain.

But I was a mummy already and I had to just get on with it because no parent wants their child to see them hurt and eventually the calls stopped, the visitors stopped coming, life just kept moving on but I just stopped. I stopped talking, with myself, my partner, my family… even to my sister, my sister who knew what losing a child was like, more than anyone else, having lost her beautiful daughter 8 years ago to SIDS at 6 weeks.. I could not bring myself to share my feelings with anyone, especially her because I felt shame and guilt for grieving so deeply for a loss when it could never compare to a loss of her baby. How could I be so selfish to cry over someone I never had the chance to see without scans and could barely feel while she suffered every day, for years, for the loss of her baby girl with perfect little fingers and toes, a head full of hair and tiny button nose?

And so I withdrew even more, weeks would go by without visitors, or even uttering anything concerning my loss except for follow up appointments that cemented my silent grief even further.

With my only outings being school drops, errands and exercise all my relationships suffered until last Friday. Last Friday was my nephew’s birthday and the 8th anniversary of my nieces passing and here I was leaving her alone to suffer because I felt bad because of my grief and how it couldn’t compare to hers? What a sister was I? So I messaged and asked her to come over and so she did and when she walked through my front door, we cried. We held each other and we didn’t need to say anything to share how we felt. We just took solace in each other’s company and cried for our own losses, for each other’s loss and in that moment I learned she didn’t care the differences in our losses, she hurt because I hurt, and I her.

So many women, parents, families suffer in silence for their miscarriages, thinking they don’t have the right to mourn, or are over reacting for a baby they never touched, often never felt and will never hear cry. I was one of these people, I hid it, but no more. I have a right to grieve for the life I lost for as long as that grief may last. 

My name is Shanelle and I lost my baby at 10 weeks and every day I grieve for that little life because that life touched mine, changed my life and I will forever cherish the time we had, though brief because I was… I am their mother, and I will not forget. I will not hide my tears, because they are proof that my baby was real and someone I am proud to share with you.

Shanelle Kay

If you require support after reading this blog please contact

Sands on 13 000 72637

Shanelle Kay

Shanelle is a trainee counsellor and photographer based in Brisbane.
She believes the best sound in the world is her son's laughter and how he sings to himself when he wakes from a nap. She is also a proud mummy to an angel baby and through writing and various arts she is sharing her experience and finding herself, all over again. In her own words.

"I am all and I am nothing, but most importantly I am exactly who I need

to be in this moment... and that is sometimes the hardest thing we have to accept,

openly and honestly.. Ourselves"

Emma......

Jessica has submitted her first blog to Sands and shares with us the emotions that arose when she discovered her baby had died...

It was a Wednesday, a normal Wednesday like any before it. Early that morning I sat in my kitchen, innocently and happily eating breakfast with my husband and son. After my first good night’s sleep in months, I barely noticed that the normally spirited life growing inside me for the past 38 weeks, was still. I called the hospital and they advised to come on over and get it checked out, just in case.



I’d had a similar experience with my son that had turned out to be simple

dehydration so I told my husband to go on to work “I’ll let you know how I go” I’d said. “You don’t think there could be something wrong do you?” He’d asked me. “No way, we’re in the home stretch. Plus we had a check-up yesterday and everything was fine.”

I will never forget the look on the doctor’s face when she told me my baby had no heartbeat. So empathetic, so heartbroken and so afraid. Afraid for me, for what I was about to face or afraid of me, of the way I would react I don’t know. It was the same look she gave me when she handed my perfect sleeping angel to me. “She’s so beautiful,” she’d said. We named her Emma.
She looked remarkably like her big brother did when he was first laid on my chest 19 months earlier. Only she was delicate and dainty and forever sleeping.

There are so many things I’ll never know. I’ll never know the colour of her eyes or the sound of her laugh. I’ll never be able to brush her hair or tell her to stop fighting with her brother but I’ll never forget the short time that I got to spend with her and how much love I felt when I looked into her beautiful sleeping face. 

3 months later that face is still in the forefront of my mind, every second of every day….

If you require support after reading this blog please contact 

Sands on 13 000 72637

                                                                                   

Jessica Lawless

Jessica lives in Victoria. She is the wife to Shane and a Mum to 2 beautiful kids - Adam, nearly 2 and Emma, born sleeping August 2014.
I like to practice yoga, cook, read and spend all my time being a SAHM with Adam. My family and friends are my whole world, there is barley a distinction between the two.
I hope by being so open and honest about my experiences I can help raise awareness and provide support for others.