A brief interlude: Our breastfeeding journey

I began to write about our journey on World Breastfeeding Week last year. I managed to write 3 sentences before the post was discarded. Threw aside for more important matters, namely: establishing breastfeeding. I wanted to write down an alternative breastfeeding journey - one that didn't begin as I had always envisioned. I'd always imagined …

Lugh’s last day

[This post contains content that some readers might find upsetting. Includes discussion of child loss, baby loss, and end of life care. I have included pictures of Lugh after he has passed. I think he looks so beautiful.] I never thought I would have to type those three, haunting words. Except maybe in the case …

PICU – November (part 2)

[This post contains pictures of my sick baby in PICU and discussion of baby loss - some readers may find this triggering or upsetting.] Friday 1 NovemberRaised my concerns with today's consultant on ward rounds - she was very understanding. She is one of our favourite consultants, I find it easier to speak to her, …

PICU (October – part 1)

[This blog contains pictures of my sick baby in PICU - some readers might find this triggering] The blue lights were bright and blinding - they were all I could hear. I was still crying when I stepped out of the ambulance. I looked around at the parents holding their babies outside A&E; they were …

The new diagnosis

In hindsight, our first trip to PICU might not have been related to bronchiolitis at all. Looking back, the symptoms, the heavy breathing and the agitation, desats and discoloration, sounded like the new diagnosis. One of Lugh's "episodes" as they became known on the ward. The cardiology meeting on Wednesday 2nd October was a big …

The Next 80 Days

Monday 30th September 2019 I'm writing this on my outdated WordPress app, sitting on the bed, Lugh is swaddled up beside me like a little burrito. He's wearing a white beanie on his head, made from a bandage, hiding a cannula beneath. The bedsheets are sterile, cold, and the colour of toothpaste. It's day 14 …

A letter from Mummy to Lugh, on your due date.

Dear Lugh, Happy birth day. Today, July 14th, is your due date. Yesterday you were 100 days old, but today, you are corrected day zero. The clock has been reset, and according to doctors and nurses, you should now be developing like a "normal" term baby. But to me, you are 101 days old, and …

Heaven and Hell

Edit: I started writing this piece 6 weeks ago. I didn't realise, at the time, the traumatic impact this experience had on me, and it only began to materialise as I began to document my memories. I found I was writing paragraphs and then feeling exhausted, emotionally and physically. I felt heavy afterwards; my eyes, …

The grieving and the guilt

Everybody keeps telling me "you're very brave". But I don't feel very brave. I feel the opposite of very brave - I feel very scared. I feel constantly on the edge, all the time. I feel a lot of things - I feel shock. I feel disbelief. I feel jealously of healthy babies and their …

How it all began

I'd been meaning to start a blog for a while, when I was pregnant. I wanted to write about all the disgusting and strange things my body was doing that nobody seemed to speak about. Like the monster poops, the leaky nipples, and the dark hairs sprouting on my chin amongst other places. I especially …