UK Helpline: 0345 123 2304 | tcf.org.uk probability of their survival was minimal, or we may have been informed something was the matter after birth. Perhaps we had barely any time to welcome our child into the world before we had to confront the inevitability of their death. Despite knowing this, we clung on to hope. We may have spent agonising days in intensive care as our child struggled to live and breathe. Sometimes their treatment meant that we could not hold them in our arms as we naturally wanted to do. The medical equipment keeping them alive became a barrier to our physical relationship. Sometimes it might have felt as though we were onlookers rather than parents. We lurched from hope to despair as we watched their struggle, feeling helpless. If we have other children to consider, we felt torn, worrying about them and wanting to be with them, but also knowing the time with our baby was limited and precious. If our baby was diagnosed with a life-limiting illness, we would have been informed that our time together would be short. We knew that our baby would die but not now, not yet! We may have watched as they became weaker and frailer, yet the death was still a terrible shock, an unacceptable fact that we could not change; we clung on to hopes of a miraculous cure. Our minds may have absorbed the facts, but that does not mean our hearts comprehended, let alone accepted, the reality. Some of us had a multiple birth, perhaps after lengthy IVF treatment. Our feelings will be in a tumult if one baby survives and their sibling does not. How can we celebrate bringing home our new baby safely whilst simultaneously mourning their sibling? We may find that some people almost ignore our loss due to the fact that we have come home with one baby. They may think – or even say – that we should be thankful we have at least one. Perhaps our baby died at home, in what used to be called “cot death” but is now referred to as “sudden infant death syndrome” (SIDS). The shock is devastating. There may be no obvious reason why our baby died, yet as parents we feel somehow responsible, shouldering guilt because of the death and our inability to prevent it. We may torture ourselves, going over and over the last hours and
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