A New (And Happy) Chapter

Genevieve expresses her thanks to Sands and those that have supported her along her journey of grief following the death of precious Amalie.

     "I want to thank everyone at Sands and the wonderful mums I’ve met online 
      in other forums for their incredible support, care and empathy – both at the 
      time of Amalie’s death and ongoing."

It is 6 months tomorrow since my infant daughter Amalie died.  It seems both like yesterday and a lifetime ago.  I want to thank everyone at Sands and the wonderful mums I’ve met online in other forums for their incredible support, care and empathy – both at the time of Amalie’s death and ongoing.  I won’t go as far as saying I wouldn’t have made it through without you all, but I certainly wouldn’t have made through as well as I have done.  

I can honestly and gratefully report that I’m happy. Not just coping, but truly and deeply happy. A lot of credit goes to my wonderful partner.  It was not easy, but we worked through our grief together and have emerged far stronger as a couple because of it.  This is not for a minute suggesting that there is not still a lot of pain around our loss, and that there always will be.  We have just got better at integrating it, and at celebrating what we have rather than focusing on what we have lost.

We have decided to get married early next year. I know this seems like the wrong order of things, but the piece of paper didn’t seem so important to us before.  We are going to have the wedding at Amalie’s tree (her ashes were scattered in the roots as we planted it) so that she can be there with us.

And in other happy news, I am again pregnant and due in early January 2016. As usual, I’m as sick as a dog  (severe nausea and vomiting) and so the cat is out of the bag (apologies for the mixed animal metaphors).   This is my 7th pregnancy and they’ve all been the same in first trimester, so I wasn’t expecting to get away scot free this time!  So far everything is going as it should, and we’re very excited.

The tide has well and truly turned for us.

Genevieve

If you require support after reading this blog please contact

Sands on 13 000 72637

Genevieve Yates

Genevieve is a GP, medical educator, medical writer and musician from the Northern Rivers region of NSW. After a long and difficult road to motherhood, her beautiful daughter, Amalie Ella, was born in December, 2014.  Tragically, Amalie died of neonatal sepsis after only four days.

Through her clinical work, teaching and writing, she hopes to she can use her experiences to help support both patients and other doctors in managing the complex emotions surrounding fertility issues and perinatal loss, and also encourage more open discussion in the general community.

Her website can be found at: http://genevieveyates.com