Funerals and rituals do not help with grieving after Stillbirth

Why the ritual's we do after stillbirth are so potentially damaging

Stillbirth wasn't exactly a word that I had heard throughout my pregnancy. It's the secret hushed word that nobody tells you about. Like a thief in the night, we are robbed of dreams, yet, we have no idea that this might happen to us. When I first knew what stillbirth was, and that it could happen at the end of pregnancy and indeed had happened - to me. I was beyond shocked.

From the moment that we stare in wonder at the two lines on the stick, we worry, that something might happen to our baby. We expect that for the first 12 weeks we might miscarry. We are prepared for this. It is the reason why, there is no booking for midwifery care until after this time - because we are told, that up to 12 weeks, we might lose our babies.

We expect, and prepare, and breath a sigh of relief when we pass the 12 weeks and have finally been booked in with the midwife, and given our handheld maternity notes. We know that we are not yet home and dry yet.

For older mums, (like me) we had extra blood tests at 14 weeks. We hold our breaths again as we wait for the results. It was with joy, that everything was normal, and blood results showed that I had results of a woman much younger.

Next came the 16 week scan, so far so good. At this point we do not know whether it is a boy or a girl. But still, we are,  in the back of our minds, worried.  We do not know whether anything will happen for us to go into early labour.  We fear it. But we know, and accept that it really might happen.

When we get to 20 weeks, many of us know whether it is a boy or a girl, the tests seemed to cover everything (especially for a mum that had not had a baby in 20 years). The scan looked at her brain, her organs, her body.  things had came a long way since the 1980's. I was impressed. The nurse tells me that my baby that I thought was a boy, was indeed a baby girl. It was so lovely to see her, and now she seems real as I watch her sucking her thumb an drinking water from the amniotic sac.

At 24 weeks, again we breath a sigh of relief, as we know that after this point, the medical services will try to keep her alive should I go into labour early. Now she is starting to feel more safe, and I can visualise a life with her. I start to make plans for her life. And look forward to sharing my life with her.

From this point on, we buy pretty pink clothes, and bedding. I decide to call you Maya. Such a perfect name for you. I didn't realise until later that it is the name of an angel.

At 31 weeks, there is another scan, and again you are well. You are a good weight and size and you seem to be thriving well. There are no problems and no reason to think that anything would happen.

The word 'stillbirth' has never been mentioned. I  have never been told, and I never heard anyone else who had a stillbirth. Not late in pregnancy. I was confident enough to sell my house to financially support you. I thought that in the last trimester, I could sit, and put my feet up. I never really had the time, but i felt relaxed. I never in a million years thought that something could happen to you at the end of pregnancy.

By now I am dreaming of the life that i would lead with you.  I have absolutely no reason to think that anything could go wrong. Nobody has told me that it could.

1. You are healthy and well

2. You are now viable to live outside of the womb and will survive if you are born.

Nobody mentions the word stillbirth. I did not know it existed. I had no knowledge of it. I think that kind of  thing happened in the Victorian era, with poor medical care. Today, with scans, and blood tests, I am lured into a false sense of security, I thought that everything was well. That I was now secure. Scans were good, blood tests were good, your weight was good. There was nothing wrong with you.

You become the centre of my world. Everything I do is for you. At 37.5 weeks, I go to the hospital with decreased foetal movements. You are not moving so much. I tell midwifes but nobody listens. I come home, again with a false sense of security. I sit for the next 3 days confused. I went to the hospital, but they sent me home. At home, you are still not moving properly. But i am confused, I do not know what to do. So I wait until 3 days later i can take it no more. When I go back to the hospital, you are gone, there is no heartbeat.

The midwife was silent as she tried to get a heartbeat. She moves me to another bed with a scan. I still didn't really understand, perhaps you were lying awkwardly, and they found it difficult to pick up your heart. The midwife is silent as she puts the gel onto to my tummy, and waves the wand..... you come up onto the screen.....It was one of the worst things I had ever see..... you were still. Absolutely still. You were not the same as before, when you were sucking your thumb, drinking water, kicking, no, this time you were  just still. At this moment in my life, right at that second, I realised that there was absolutely nothing that I could do. Nothing at all. I couldn't beg, reason, nothing. I had never felt so powerless or so helpless in all of my life.

At this moment, my entire world blew apart. I had focused everything into this little girl. Sold my house to support her, moved away from my neighbours. She was a part of me.

What was to follow was the most horrific event, that continued for 3 days. 3 days of being drugged to try to force me into labour, pessaries inserted 4 or 5 of them, repeated vaginal examinations. I was already shocked that my daughter had died. That she was, what they termed 'stillborn'.... a word i had never heard before, a word that I thought did not exist in this day and age. Something had happened, that I never realised could  ever happen.

I was already shocked, and then, with a severe long standing fear and phobia of vaginal examinations, which was well documented for  more than a decade. Something which was so severe, I would have chosen to die of cancer than endure vaginal examination. With a dead child inside of me, I was repeatedly examined. Each time drugging me so that it could be tolerated.

On the third day, I lost it. I had an energy from nowhere. My therapist has described this as a fight or flight. I couldn't leave so I had to fight.  I couldn't believe how cruel they were being. I so wanted this little girl. I had changed my entire life for her, and then in that instant she was gone. Then more shock, as nobody had recorded my fear and phobia, well they had, but nobody took action, they then went forward with induction of labour, my biggest fear. I begged for a C section. They said no.

On the third day when I lost it, i met a wonderful consultant, who actually LISTENED. He was the first person in my whole pregnancy to LISTEN to me. He agreed to a C section. I was the first to have one without (they thought at the time) medical grounds. Policy was changed immediately in the hospital - and later for all hospitals throughout the UK.

So, I was already shocked. I said that i didn't want to see her. She was gone, it didn't think that it would benefit me.

Midwives persuaded me that I should see, touch, hold, dress bath my baby.  If I didn't then it could make me feel worse. They told me that it would help with healing. I didn't think that this was true, but, I decided to try to trust them.

In a shocked state, in a traumatised state, I then spent the next 3 days treating my daughter as if she was a live baby. We had gone home and picked one outfit for her to wear. In our shocked state, we looked at our daughter,   we had to love her, no matter what she looked like, she was our daughter.   Over those 3 days in the hospital, I fell in love. I fell in love and bonded with my dead child, who was extremely macerated. At night, instead of lying in the cot next to me, she went off to the mortuary.

Next day she was delivered back, cold, as she had came from the fridge. If she was moved, blood would pour from her nose, her ears, her mouth. But, I was told this was healing to spend time with her. And at that time, I thought perhaps they were right. I was bonded with her. I loved her. She was my daughter.

But i was bonding with, and loving a dead body. A macerated body. I left the hospital with nothing. Leaving my child who I now loved, behind and in the fridge at the mortuary. Wanting to know desperately what had happened, I asked for a post mortem. I wasn't to see my daughter again who I loved so much, until 2 weeks later, the day before the funeral.

Over those two weeks, i was lost. I had gone from being pregnant with my little girl, to thinking nothing could now possibly go wrong, to that false sense of security, to bang.... not only was my world blown apart, I had now bonded with a macerated child who was dead. I organised the funeral, order of service was agreed with the vicar. I  chose flowers at the florist to sit on top of her coffin. I went to see her at chapel of rest, 2 weeks later, day before the funeral. She had deterioration worse than before. I was so shocked and stunned.

Then there was the funeral. I organised balloons, and spent the night before with my two older daughters (now in their 20's) arranging flowers for her, and things for the funeral the next day.

There at the service, I gave a speech, I don't know what I said, I was just in shock. I then watched as the vicar laid her body into the ground, and we set the pretty pink heart shaped balloons into the sky.

I came home, stunned. What had just happened? I was now in love with my baby. I had held her, dressed her in her clothes, sang to her, loved her. We had spent time together alone as a family. I wanted her back, even as a dead child, I wanted her back. I remember thinking at that time, I would have spent the rest of my life with my dead daughter beside me - as that was far better than this feeling. Whilst in the deepest shock,  I was loving and caring for my dead child as if she were a live baby.

Her name was Maya, and she was born on 19th January 2010. It is now 3 years later as I write this. The reason it has taken me so long, is because i have lost 3 years of my life to shock. I was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I have been 'away' for a very very long time, my brain was left frozen in shock.

I found some support through social networking sites, and was amazed to learn it wasn't just me. I met other mothers who all felt the same as me. All grieving for their child that they fell in love with, that they bonded with. They put up photos of their dead child, all dressed in clothes. I wanted to put mine up but my daughter was so macerated I couldn't. Right there, right then, I had became part of an exclusive club that I never asked for membership for. A club that was there for life, there was no way of leaving. Within this club, I was NORMAL..... but i was far from normal to everyone else.

I watched these women, who just like me, over time had learned to become silent. At least they were silent to everyone in the real world. But there, on those groups, they mourned the loss. And this continued for years. We celebrated our children's birthday.  Many women, baked cakes, let off balloons, decorated the grave. It was the same at Christmas. I learned that we became good actresses, to fit into the rest of society, and to pretend that what had happened, didn't. But in our own secret world, we could be open and honest. We could celebrate our dead children, just as we had done, in the hospital.

Everyone else in society got on with life, friends and family, and many left us behind as we were stuck in our grief, and therefore stuck in the past. Many lost jobs, and many other relationships. Many women went on to have another child, desperate for their child back, and women talked about how devastated they were, when their new child born, was a different sex.  Often, to the outside world, we were labelled as crazy. Perhaps we were, to the outside world, even to our friends and family. But we knew that as we were the same as all the other women in this secret club, behind closed doors we were all the same. We knew we were neither mad or crazy.

I googled this subject, coming out of the other side of shock 3 years later, and waking up and realising that my life and my entire world had been shattered by this experience. After three years, there was little of my life left.  I read that there was a lady called Patricia Hughes, who did a research study in 2002. She evidenced that women were at bigger risk of psychiatric injury by seeing their children, and doing the rituals, than women who did not. She received bad press from organisation such as SANDS who objected to the findings, saying that a study of 65 women was not comprehensive.

I  should add, that it is likely that all of those who had objected had bonded with their child too. They too were part of this secret exclusive club.

It is a natural instinct for a mother to protect her child. A grieving mothers natural instinct is to protect her child's memory. So therefore, those who were objecting were protecting their childs memory..... which is an entirely normal things to do, when you fall in love with a child who is dead, when you treat the dead child like a live baby, being told this will help with healing, it is entirely normal to feel forever attached to the memory of your child.

Living a secret life, where it is not acceptable, socially to raise, apart from on your child's birthday. Then... then it is acceptable.... as everyone remembers their loved ones birthday, whether they are alive or dead.