Dear Janaki

Today is 16 July 2008. Exactly one year since the happiest day of my life, when I had my 19 week scan at Qld ultrasound for women.

I cannot remember very many events in my life that have made me just as happy as I was on that day. Your daddy and I were just completely over the moon on 16 July 2007 when we found out you were not only perfect in every way, but going to be our first baby girl.

Now we are coming close to 29 July 2008. Exactly one year since the darkest day of my life, the day I gave birth to you sleeping.

I wish we had had a chance to say goodbye. But every day, I am growing stronger. I still miss you so much and would give up anything to have you back in my life, living and growing, making your daddy and I so happy. But life is not like that.

Baby, here is what I have done as a tribute to your loving memory. I made up little packages with bears in them and a letter to other angel moms and dads. We gave 20 of those packages to Caboolture Hospital and we will be giving 20 of them to North West Private Hospital this saturday. I took some photos of those teddy bears and my letter to other angel parents is below.

We are thinking of you and missing you so much. 

Say hello to all the other angel boys and girls up in heaven where you are.

I love and miss you more than I can ever express,

Mum

Letter to newly bereaved parents:

Dear friend and fellow parent of an angel (or angels),

I am so terribly sorry that your precious baby or babies have died. If only I had the right words of comfort for this cruel blow that life has dealt you.

I am writing to you today, on the one year ‘angel’versary of my daughter Janaki’s death, in the hope that my letter will bring you some (even if cold) comfort in the difficult days of grieving ahead of you. It is not a manual in any way, just the thoughts of a grieving parent who is further along in this difficult road who is facing the one year anniversary of her firstborn daughter’s death. I wanted something positive to come from her short time with us when she made us so happy.

I hope you are not offended by me sharing my daughter, this letter and this cuddly bear. I do not intend to intrude upon this very private time that you and your family are going through. I know this is a time of privacy and solitude as your grief and pain is so raw and new right now.

My only daughter Janaki was conceived via IVF and was one of twins. Her twin died at 6 weeks into the pregnancy, the doctors ‘assure’ us most likely because of chromosomal problems. Janaki grew beautifully but tragically her death – discovered via my home doppler at 21 weeks gestation – was a complete shock to her father and I. They have a cold, cold name for this tragedy. It is called in utero foetal demise. When I gave birth to her, she was perfect in every way. Her autopsy results received six months after she died stated that every organ had been formed and was functional for her gestational age. The reason for her death is ‘unknown’.

After she died, I felt very alone. The hospital was kind enough to suggest a few things to us at the time, but we were in shock and did not know what to do. There were a few dozen pamphlets that were given to us, but I did not want to read them, I just couldn’t. I remember them in a haze of confusion and pain. I remember I wanted so desperately to die after she was taken from me so brutally. I felt so alone, singled out; numb that this was happening to me (again, as I have suffered 4 miscarriages). I felt cheated as I lay there in the delivery ward surrounded by other moms & dads who had screaming, healthy babies and walked them around proudly. Our birth suite was silent as was our suffering.

The hospital encouraged us to spend time with our daughter and hold her. We did. The hospital encouraged us to take photos. We did. As time has passed, these photos, together with ultrasound photos and ultrasound dvd, have become precious and sacred in our remaining memory of Janaki. I have a few regrets about that short, bittersweet time we had with her. I wish:

· we had more photos of her (we only have a handful) and photos of her being held by her heartbroken mum and dad;
· we had kept her pink birth clothes and hat so we could have a keepsake of something she had touched with her skin;
· we had held her for longer; and
· I had someone who had ‘been there’ to lessen my feelings of isolation and severe depression.

But everyone grieves in a different way. Every heartbreaking death of a child or children is different.

I want to reach out to you and let you know that no matter how you grieve for your child or children and what you have done, please be gentle with yourself. It is a difficult time you are going through and you did the best that you could do, in the circumstances.

I would like you to know that you are not alone. The days and weeks ahead are going to be a nightmare of epic proportions as you return to your home to face the empty nursery and the physical aftermath of having a baby or babies but no baby or babies to hold.

The feelings of emptiness, profound longing, extreme depression and exhaustion, constant crying hit me when I returned home. I even went through days where I felt no one, including my loving husband, understood how I felt and what I was going through. I would wake up and run to the nursery, scream and bawl for my baby, scream WHY over and over until I was exhausted and fell asleep holding Janaki’s teddy bear. I did this for days.

It is so important to understand and realise that these feelings and emotions of grieving are normal in the circumstances. We are going crazy with grief, not going crazy!

After Janaki died, I had the need to tell and retell the story of my daughter. My husband grieved very differently. For the first week, we grieved hand in hand. I never felt that close with him before. He was my rock. Without him, I would have surely never made it. After the first week, he ‘put the wall up’ and threw himself into work. I could not do that. At the time I did not understand it and hated that he didn’t grieve like me. I felt that he did not love our daughter enough.

These are normal reactions for men to have. This I have realised over time. They are socially conditioned to ignore their feelings and to put the wall up. They are conditioned to be there for us, not the other way around. Communication is what has saved us. I talk about our daughter and slowly my husband responds. He loves her too. He misses her too. He thinks about her all the time.

The reactions of people will vary from very supportive to the complete opposite. We had friends who stayed away from us instead of offering their support. Friends who did not offer a single word of condolence and treated the situation as if nothing had happened. My husband had to return to work a week after Janaki died. A co-worker said, “you should be over it by now, right?”

The death of a child is something that a parent will never “get over”. The love of a parent transcends death.

If there is one hope I can offer you for the future, it is that in time, you will slowly heal. (I know it sounds like a condescending cliché. I remember getting angry when people said that to me.)

I now realise, one year after the darkest days of my life, that it is true. Life changes in a drastic way. The first few days are all about survival. You survive each minute, each hour, each day and each week. Slowly… life changes to the “new” normal as we adapt to a world that no longer includes our much anticipated and loved child or children. If you have a living child or children you are put in a position to return to the world of parenting while grieving for your newborn(s).

Please be gentle with yourself and allow yourself to grieve and heal in the days ahead in any way that you wish.

In Janaki’s memory,

Janaki’s parents