Baby Banjo

{picture from here}

Yesterday was International Babylost Mother's Day (website here) .  I never knew such a day existed until I stumbled upon this blog another in the thousands of stories of women just like me who gave birth to a stillborn baby.  It's so wonderful that women who have lost a baby are acknowledged in this special way because Mother's Day is so difficult after you have lost a baby. 

You're not really sure whether it's a cause for celebration or sadness (particularly if you have no other living children).  I felt like a fraud - I knew I had conceived a child and I had brought him into this world from my body but I had not truly had the experience of motherhood.  I know other people may feel differently but that's how I felt.  When people would ask me if I had any children I never knew how to answer.  If I said no I felt I was dishonouring Banjo's memory but if I said yes then I had to explain to people that my child had died and that was awkward for me and them.

Discovering this blog made me stop and think about my sweet boy Banjo born nearly 3 years ago at only 26 weeks.  It's been a long time since I've blogged about him or that time in my life because I am lucky to have my Noah to fill my heart and my days. 

At the time it felt like I could never recover from losing my precious baby and I feared that I would never have a child of my own.  Having Noah was an enormous step towards recovery.  I fully expect that if I was still childless the loss of Banjo would have a far bigger impact on my current life.  I was also blessed to have fallen pregnant again by the time the first Mothers Day rolled around otherwise I'm sure it would have been a much harder day to celebrate.

Obviously that whole experience is a huge part of me but now that I have Noah I don't really dwell on it all.  I certainly had a lot of fear through my pregnancy with Noah that the same thing could happen again and I expect I will feel that stress through any subsequent pregnancies - especially since no-one really understood the definitive cause. I still wonder about him and what he would have looked like and what his little personality would have been but I know that Banjo made room for Noah to come into our lives and he is such a treasure.

My heart breaks for every mother (and father) who has lost a child whether it be at birth or any other time in the child's life.  It's an awful tragedy I wish no-one had to experience. 

Happy Mother's Day to you all.