When a Friend Loses a Baby…
My name is Lyndsay, I’m a mum of four who loves homemade chocolate and essential oils. Our life is a little chaotic; its busy, we have a sausage dog called Margot and we juggle a million things. We are also bereaved parents. We navigate ‘missing’ our daughter Francesca whilst also weaving her into our family life in a way that honours her, yet protects her siblings from carrying our grief. This is life when you lose a baby.
I never imagined I would be the one walking this path. I remember when I was pregnant with our first baby in 2014, a friend and I discussed it was our worst nightmare. It was only a few years later, on a summery November night that I sat in the dark on our couch and realised I was now living that nightmare. It all happened so fast. I was full term, Frankie was high risk, but there was no indication anything was wrong. I birthed her after an 18 hour labour, and I stared into her hazel eyes. She cried in my arms and was then whisked away to the Canberra Hospital NICU, which was not unusual since I had experienced alloimmunisation when my Anti_D shot didn’t work, and I knew she would be checked urgently at birth.
At this point, we had no idea anything was wrong; well, not officially. When I look back now, Ian my husband knew. He collapsed in the birthing room, and later told me he knew something was wrong, such is the power of intuition. I was wheeled into the NICU a few hours later and saw him sitting with a neonatologist, with his head in his hands, and in that moment, I knew too.
I have shared my story many times as I promised her she would not be forgotten. I promised her that her life would have meaning and that she might help others after her. When you lose a baby, you lose the privilege to say that babies name in everyday conversation. You lose the ability to say ‘hey Frankie’, or to book Frankie into preschool, or to pick Frankie some new clothes. A few weeks after she passed, we received a phone call. I had forgotten that I had booked her for a newborn osteopathic appointment and the receptionist was calling to confirm. I dropped the phone and screamed in desperation, and Ian had to call and explain. In that moment I had a devastating revelation; she was not coming back. The flow- on effect of a baby dying is never ending and incredibly complex.
It has been four years for us. Four trips around the sun without her. It is true that time has helped, although I would say it will never heal. We don’t want it to go away because we want to think and talk about her for the rest of our life; just like you do with your living children. I imagine she is growing alongside us in the afterlife, and I’m grateful to have connected with her on a few occasions. I’ve also shared that she comes to me in a dream at least once a year. I am more spiritual than ever before, and I know she is safe and loved, and held by my grandmother in spirit.
I have reflected on how to help when your friend loses a baby, and whilst I am sure everyone is different, here are the top 3 things my friends did for me, and 1 thing that as a community, I believe we can do better. I hope this helps when you find yourself supporting a friend through grief.
Practical help: Drop over a meal. Food is healing, and it’s practical. It’s hard to know how else to help. Now that I have lived through this, I can say with certainty that meals are soothing. For us, food was lifesaving. I couldn’t step back into the kitchen, because throughout my pregnancy I took pride in cooking and nourishing my baby, and stepping back into that room reminded me of her. I didn’t have the capacity to think of meals, nor to plan or to feed my big kids. So my friends cooked; they organised a roster and they dropped my kind of food at the door. They knew I hated sugar, and loved spray free vegetables - I was really embarrassed by the fuss, but I ate their meals with love and gratitude, and so didour kids. Cook a meal or bake some biscuits with love.
Keep showing up: It is hard work supporting a friend through grief. I cried a lot. I couldn’t talk about anything else. I would stand up and leave half way through a meal. I would cancel at the last minute. I cried more. I was angry. I was resentful. I didn’t return messages. My friends showed up, and they kept showing up; through the bushfires, through COVID, through their own hardships. They gave me permission to be a terrible friend in return, and they forgave me when I rose from the ashes about 10 months later. Keep showing up for them, even if they don’t reply, or turn down the coffee invitations. Keep asking.
Say their name: Say their babies’ name; honour their birthday and text them randomly when you think of their little one. I have received all sorts of texts about Frankie over the years. My favourites include a text with “look frankie popped over today” alongside a photo of a rainbow, a receipt from a friend with the waiter’s name being Francesca (timely on her birthday) and a story about their child mentioning her. I love that Frankie’s name is spoken, texted and thought about. The greatest gift you can give a mother who has lost a child is to acknowledge that baby and their life. Say their name, drop it into conversation, mention that you think about them.
My number 1 tip to help families who lose a baby
I believe we can do this better as a community, and I hope to change this.
Support the siblings: I’ve realised over the last four years that siblings can often be overlooked. In those first few months I was a new version of myself, and a new version of a mother, and our kids struggled to understand why I cried all the time, was no longer fun, and where the baby went. I haven’t shared this before, but my 5 year old opened up to me one night by confessing she was angry at me for handing Frankie to the angels. She was confused and didn’t understand who to blame, and so I had to repair our relationship too.
You can help support grieving parents by spending time with their children - talking to them, drawing with them and reading books to them. Supporting a child through grief is relentless and it is exhausting. I remember my sweet friends would sit with our daughter and read books about grief. They trusted our family friends and they opened up about their sadness, and in turn my friends spoke about heaven – it was heartbreaking, but gave me relief and I was grateful for our tribe. The old saying ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ can never be more true than in grief. It takes a village to pull you out of grief, and it takes a village to console and soothe grieving children.
Our family is behind an initiative to help newly bereaved parents soothe their children. On the first night after Frankie left, our daughter spoke to her in the stars. I wrote about it for HerCanberra (link here). The ‘Stories from the Stars’ campaign is run through the Newborn Intensive Care Foundation, (NICF), a not-for-profitthat provides life-saving equipment and support to the Canberra Hospital NICU. You can donate a book through our website, or make a tax-deductible donation, which will be used to fill a cupboard of grief books for families when they lose a baby. If you know a baby taken too soon, we will honour this baby by including a card in the book, in their name.
Sometimes the hardest part is simply starting the conversation. Books are a tool parents can use in their darkest hour to talk with their kids about what has happened. We want all siblings to leave the hospital with a book, which will aid in healing, and understanding this challenging life experience.
We know we are not the first family to lose a baby, and won’t be the last. We hope these grief books will comfort grieving children and make one thing easier for broken parents as they navigate their newly dismantled lives, until they too rise from the ashes.
You will be OK. I wish someone had told me that I would be OK. You will never be the same, but a new, stronger version of you will rise from the ashes of this experience; a deeper, stronger and more resilient you. My heart goes out to any mother walking the first 12 months of baby loss.
