25 Days of Giveaways from Bereaved Mothers to Bereaved Mothers

Welcome to day three of the 25 Days of Giveaways, the brilliant idea of Tina at Living Without Sophie and Ella.

I like to knit and so I searched for something that would be meaningful and easy to knit in a few days. I stumbled across a lovely pattern for a wrap called the Stolen Moments Wrap by Amy M. Swenson. I've been knitting a lot since our baby was born still; keeping my hands busy has helped me cope when my arms are empty and shouldn't be.

I think that all of us who are grieving the loss of children have a very deep understanding of Stolen Moments and so the name naturally resonated. Plus, I liked that it is a knit creation that could be worn by mums in freezing winter or in the warmer climates of places on the other side of the world that are heading into their summer and not our winter. I chose a black wool (75% wool, so it is washable and not itchy) because it is elegant and goes with most things.

I don't know about you other babylost mummas, but I have been freezing cold since losing our baby George in May. I'm not usually a warm person, but I am icier than usual. Freezing. Even in the heat of summer I was chilled to the marrow, I think from the shock of losing our baby. So that's the other reason that I thought a wrap would be appropos. I hope that it will warm the heart and extremeties of some other babylost mumma.

I'll choose a winner using the random gizmo that Jeanette at Lazy Seamstress used yesterday. I'll wait till the wee hours of Monday morning, after 12:00 a.m. Pacific Standard Time, so that people both sides of this globe have a chance to enter if they wish.

I have to confess that I'm not finished knitting yet because I was helping with a fundraising trivia night for our children's school. I have written a weekly trivia column for a daily newspaper for nearly 20 years and so I was in charge of all the trivia for seven rounds, plus a bonus round in case we had to have a tie breaker. I also prepared the scoring sheets for the judges and all the answer keys of course. Here is a photo of the wrap so far, at about 1/3 of the way finished:



I'm just home now from my duties as head judge at the fundraiser, held in the parish hall. It was all adults - no school kids - but there was a shadow baby there, a baby born the day after our George was stillborn at full-term.

The mother is a teacher at our children's new school. We had met just days before George was born when I'd driven out to this city to get school uniforms for the older boys for the coming school year at the new school; we'd bought a house and were getting ready to move after the arrival of our baby. In the hallway this woman and I compared very pregnant tummies and talked about our babies. She lives where we used to live and so she wondered if we'd meet at the hospital in a few days.

I'd been hoping for a home birth with this baby but when there was no heartbeat when my contractions were 20 minutes apart we dashed the few minutes to the hospital only to have our worst fears confirmed.

Wouldn't you know that the day after our son was born, this other mother laboured outside my room on labour and delivery while my boys came in to the room (where I'd been kept) so they could hold their baby brother's body, brought up from the morgue. She and her mother and husband saw my children in their school uniforms for their old school and she recognized them. They asked excitedly, "What did your mum have? A boy or a girl?" My husband didn't know who they were exactly, but smiled wanly at them and shepherded our sad little boys out of the labour and delivery ward. My oldest son told me later, "Mum, I didn't mean to be rude but I didn't answer her. I didn't think a new mum would want to hear our baby died." Children have way more insight than we give them credit for at times.

So meeting this lovely little baby boy has made this a hard night for me. Seeing this boy just one day younger than our George was bittersweet and brought what should of and could have been right to the forefront of my brain. The other judges selected this family's table as best dressed (it was a western theme) and our priest asked if I would crown everyone with their prizes of 2010 Olympic toques. I couldn't do it and told him why. When they came up and the crowd went wild applauding for this darling little baby dressed in cowboy duds, I was in the ladies room having a cry.

I've had four Kokanee beers, more than I've had to drink in ages after so many years breastfeeding and being pregnant. But while I did cry, I didn't break down in public and I was able to smile at that little shadow baby and his happy, proud mother. I'm not angry or upset their baby lived, I am just longing for George. I did drink enough to take the edge off my pain but I didn't drink myself silly. Watching them carrying him, his sweet little self smiling in delight at the crowd gathering in the parish hall and being passed from one person to another, wrenched my heart because I thought of the little soul who should have been in my arms, nestled in the sling, with us at that event as a breastfed nursling, too.

I'm grateful to the mothers I've met at the new school who know about George who saw this baby and realized it might be hard for me. They came to me quietly during the night to ask how I was and to give me a hug. It means a lot to me to have that support. And it goes without saying having my husband beside me at the table of judges was an enormous reason I got through the night. He held my hand and loved me through the rough patches.

So if you leave a comment to win this Stolen Moments Wrap, I'd love to know what special things people did or have done or continue to do for you and your husband or family to help you through the grief of losing your baby or babies. Several things come to mind for me, most of which I posted about for the September Secret Garden Meeting so I won't rewrite them now.

Sorry for the rambling post. That's what happens when I'm up alone in the wee hours, sad and slightly tipsy.