Remaining positive

When I volunteered to write an article about Morgan, I thought it would be reasonably straightforward. The circumstances around his short life and the memories of that time are still very clear and there are so many happy memories. However, my short story started to become an epic, with a detailed account of the time from Christmas Day 2007 to January 2008. So I have started again and hope that the outcome might have some benefit to other Sands members, but no promises…

We all have our unique experiences around losing a child. In the past three years, I have watched two close friends lose children. One lost twins prematurely due to thrombophilia at 22 weeks and another had to terminate her pregnancy at 23 weeks. For us, Morgan was full-term and we had a perfectly healthy pregnancy, but his heart rate crashed whilst I was in labour and despite the doctors' and nurses' best efforts, the loss of oxygen to his brain meant that he was born with irreversible brain damage and could not survive. 

We got four days with Morgan, one of which was totally unexpected as he managed to spend a day with us off his ventilator, with no tubes or chaos, just Morgan and his mum and dad, saying hello and goodbye (the doctors thought we would get 20 minutes). This was - and will always be - the day he gave us. 

For all three of us, I think that we have handled our loss in very different ways. However, we all have shared a common decision to remain positive, which I believe has been key in allowing us to come to terms with our experiences. 

I have learned that there is no right or wrong way to behave or grieve, and that it is not wrong to be happy. I like to focus on the positive and think about what we gained from our short time with Morgan, rather than be overshadowed by the sense of loss. For me, I would feel I had let Morgan down if I remembered him only with sadness. Of course, I get upset that I won't have the opportunity to hold him again or see him grow up and that I miss him every day. But I am also so proud of him and know that he is with us always, watching over and guiding us forward. 

However strange it sounds, on the day of his funeral, on a cold January day, the sun came out and the temperature rose just before we set off to the church and it remained warm and sunny for the rest of the day. I know he was with us. 

I thank Morgan for allowing us to understand how much my husband Andy and I both want to be parents. Andy will admit that until Morgan was born, he didn't really "get" what it meant to be a father, but now he can't wait. Our relationship with one another has deepened more than I could ever have anticipated, by learning that we must communicate with each other during the good and bad times. Bad days cannot be planned or pre-empted, but there is always support there when we need it.

We have been fortunate in so many ways, but we realise that not everyone gets the comfort or support they require, which is why we decided early after Morgan's death that there must be something we could do to help others, whatever their circumstances. My husband is going to train to become a befriender and I hope to do the same in the future. For the moment, though, I am focusing on remaining positive.