Due Date: 13/05/2019

Dear Liam,

So THE day has finally come! At the start of your pregnancy I was eagerly counting down the weeks until this day and I remember typing each week into my phone calendar and making sure the big milestones were in bold. I also looked at what we had on in the weeks leading up to your due date because I thought you may surprise us like your brother did and come early too. Well Liam you definitely surprised us but I never anticipated you would come that early.

After the 31^st of January the countdown to this day Liam hasn’t been eagerly counted down at all and has been really hard for Mummy and Daddy. I have been crying a lot, especially in the mornings, which I hope you don’t always see. Thank you for letting your brother know that he needed to make sure each day started with a cuddle and a kiss for me, from the both of you, I really needed them to help me get going. Liam I have noticed this week that Caden brings his toys into your room more often than usual and sits there and plays with them and talks to you. I really hope you can hear him because he is the best big brother you could have ever asked for and he is getting smarter and a little cheekier every day.

As if the lead up to your due date Liam couldn’t get any harder I have had to push through my first Bereaved Mother’s Day. A day I am embarrassed to admit I didn’t even know existed before you taught me about it. We went for a walk to the Weir thinking of you even more (if that is possible) on this day Liam. A gentle day spent together with the creek flowing steady along the path, the sun shining on us as we reached our destination and I glimpsed a few butterflies flying in and out of the shrubbery along the way…I really hope one was you checking in. Your brother walked over 3km which both your Daddy and myself were impressed with, I am sure you were too. We think it was a perfect way to celebrate (or is it better to say acknowledge?) my new title. 

Yesterday was ‘Mother’s Day’ and my emotions were all over the place. In a perfect world I should have been holding you both this year on Mother’s Day and I was not. I felt robbed, I felt angry and I felt betrayed because I only had Caden there to touch, to kiss and to hold. I also felt so proud to be Mummy to both of you:  two strong, perfect and beautiful boys I created with your Daddy. Then the emotions would swing to sadness when I started to think about all the futures we would not share together Liam. How we would miss out on sharing your burnt toast that would leave crumbs on the bedsheets or laughing together as I fake a smile after sipping a cold cup of tea, which you had so carefully made and then carried over to me with Daddy’s help. I was sad thinking how your brother now has to make sure he alone picks the good presents at future Mother’s Day stalls and how he would have to make all of the meals, on special occasions, all on his own.

Social media is something I avoided for the rest of the day after momentarily slipping up and seeing several, “Happy Mother’s Day” messages and pictures of mothers with all of their children there with them in the photo. I know it sounds terrible Liam but I had a huge wave of hatred, anger and negativity flow over me. Every day I mourn my loss of a happy ending. I mourn the loss of my opportunity to post similar pictures. I mourn not having both of my boys to celebrate special events with. I mourn you. Liam today I felt like a baby giraffe trying to find her feet just after birth. I wobbled my way through the day, stumbled often but I kept going and kept trying and Liam I did it all thinking of you. Thinking if you were looking down on us in that moment what kind of Mummy would make you proud and what kind of Mummy would Caden like to enjoy the day with.    

So Liam I made it through the week leading up to what was meant to be the happiest day of our lives but instead turned out being the countdown to the biggest reminder of our worst. Liam these hard times and dates will keep popping up, I know that. I hope this will be the hardest year to get through them all, after you…without you.

Some exciting news little man in two days your brother will go on his first plane journey. This holiday will not fix anything because dear boy you know that only one thing could do that and ‘it’ cannot happen. I must say though I am looking forward to leaving behind the pitiful stares and silent avoidance. I have started to be strong enough to talk about what happened with people outside of my immediate circle but I notice that when I see them the next week or again another time after telling them about you they see me then turn or quickly scurry away. Some no longer make eye contact or if they do make eye contact they fumble an excuse to be somewhere else. Some people ask me how I am and I tell them…the truth not the lie ‘I’m fine’ and I can already start to tell that most people would prefer the lie.

Liam you dying is and will always be the hardest and worst part of my life but people not knowing what to say to me or how to act around me now it is hard too. I don’t know if I should just start lying and say everything is okay, when it clearly is not. There are some days more than others where living in a world where everyone talking about their children is acceptable, unless they are dead, is hard…it is really, really hard. 

So I hope you don’t mind but I am going to start sharing these letters I write to you with the world…yes gorgeous boy the entire world. I think people, including myself, need some help with how to talk about the death of a baby and I think those who have experienced the death of their baby or child need as much support as they can get to know what they are feeling someone else is feeling too. So my little man Mummy is going to be brave like you. I am going to write everything down in a letter to you as often and as honest as I can. With the hope that someone will stumble across it, read it and find some comfort or support in it. With a personal, almost selfish hope that friends of mine will read it too and we will never have to be the ‘bereaved parents’ at events that people avoid speaking to because they don’t know what to say us. Even more so that Caden will never be the kid that isn’t invited to play dates because other mums and dads don’t want to have to talk to ‘the bereaved parents’.  I hope together Liam, that you, your Daddy, Caden and I can help others talk more openly about grief, loss and the unimaginably uncomfortable shoes that bereaved parents walk in every day. Your footprints no longer walk this earth sweet boy but that doesn’t mean they cannot leave an impression on the world.

Love Mummy