Learning to Live after Loss

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Postpartum With No Baby

We lost our son, Charlie, at 12 days old.

He was born in the morning on the 6th of January, 2025 in a planned home birth. Just before he was born, we realised he was in a breech position but when he came out he was not moving or breathing. He was airlifted to a city hospital and as a precaution was put into a hypothermic state to reduce any secondary swelling on his brain that may have been caused by birth trauma. When he was slowly warmed, he still wasn't moving and MRI's on his spine and head came back normal. To this date, diagnostic testing hasn't been able to identify what went wrong. A muscle biopsy from his leg, show disorganised myofibrillar that suggests a systematic mutation in the way his body was built. Research testing continues.

This is his story and the story of the love he left behind. To share or not to share? That is the question of this digital world. And yet, to share is to allow people to bear witness to the strength of Charlie’s love. It is to allow me to be lightened of the load of feeling as if I must hold this in, in a culture that is not overly accepting of displays of grief. It is to allow others, experiencing a similar journey to feel less alone in their own narrative.

The Grief Identity and Breaking Rules

It's my endeavour to begin breaking down the rules in my own mind about what a grieving mother looks like. She doesn't have to look sad constantly, she doesn't have to reject intimacy or to light a candle every night. It's ok to live simultaneously with those things. It's not about giving Charlie up to live life. It's about loving him through living life

6 days ago4 min read

The Brick Wall of Grief: Writing After A Collision

This moment. How to describe it. A sudden rush of grief that slams me out of nowhere. I know the feeling now. It's like slamming into a brick wall, knowing that you are going to make contact, knowing it'll floor you, that it's kind of inevitable and necessary that you will end up a crumpled mess at the base and that in the next few hours, days, however long it takes to pass, you will need to muster the energy to somehow pick yourself back up and continue on.

Jul 264 min read

Shifting Lenses: Relationships After Baby Loss.

For almost six months, I fought to find her again, the old Lauren. I had in my mind that I needed to try and find her again. That I needed to get the old me back but I've realised that I can't because to do so would be to pretend that Charlie, his love, his grief, never happened and that would be to treat his life and death as if it was a little blip, a minor inconvenience.

Jul 217 min read