2 months since he was born, nearly 2 months since he died. It's like i've only just noticed what has happened. Like i've just spotted that those 11 days were the good bit and now the rest of my whole life is the tricky part. "It must have been so awful" people say and i'm thinking "ummm... i suppose... but that was the bit he was alive for...." - now he isn't. He just isn't. And i've got no idea at all what to do :(

I keep thinking that it will be better when we've had a holiday, when i go back to work, when so many weeks has passed. But it isn't better. It's worse. I feel so ungrateful for what i have but i wanted him and no amount of being pleased about my other children makes up for that :(

I just don't know what to do - the kids and my husband have all moved on quickly enough to be alive again - i feel like they'd be better off without me around to remind them that we don't have Freddie :(

Merry, everything you are feeling is totally normal. I often wish I was back last summer holding even Florence's dead body.it's a fucked up world.
All I can say to you is that only 2 months out all I could do was focus on the moment, and just "be"...if that meant sitting and crying all day then that was it, and I still have days like that.
I wish I could take this pain away from you, and I hope someone comes along soon to offer you more than my insubstatial words.
You know, you might be thinking the girls and your dh have moved on more than you have, and yes their grieving is different to yours,but just because they are getting on doesn't mean that they expect you to.
I remember Sid sitting on my knee and telling me "Mummy you are sad all of the time", it broke my heart, but they understand...I know you know this.
They do need you Merry, and however grateful you are for them doesn't take the pain away from Freddie being gone. All of our children are precious, and just because we are lucky enough to have living children does not mean we miss our dead children any less.
Merry, I'm sat here and holding you close in my thoughts.x

Merry, I know those feeling so well, and they are terrible, like demons -- and I remember thinking that it will never end or feel differently. You are in a very difficult stage of the grieving process, its impossible to have moved on -- in my case I didnt even fully grasp what had happened to our family until 3 months had passed, I was in total shock. And like Jeanette says,your family reacts differently because they were attached to him in a different way, but I guarantee you they havent moved on, that they still miss him, and that they dont expect you to "get happy" anytime soon.
Sending you love and hope, and please know that someday soon there will be hope again, I swear it.
My love,
Mindy

Oh, sweetheart.

I remember feeling at that point as if the world had moved and that I ought to have as well, but it is still so very soon since you lost your little boy. It is perfectly natural and normal and ok for you to be sad and grieving and missing him. He's only been gone for less than a quarter of the time he was with you, sweetheart.

I remember hearing that it took a full year to really integrate the death of a child into your life and thinking that couldn't be right. Approaching ten months out, I'm beginning to believe that may have been a conservative estimate.

There are still days and times when I intensely wish to be back in that weekend before disaster struck when we believed for the first time that things were going to be ok. And days and times I wish to be back holding him again, so I could better imprint every little details of him on my brain.

You aren't alone, dear one, even if it feels that way right now. I'm grieving with you that your Freddie isn't in your arms.

I hate to tell you, eliza, but I read that most mothers take four years to integrate the loss. Four years sounds like ten lifetimes right now.

But Merry, the pain will not always be so raw and immediate and overwhelming. I know because I am four and a half months out, and it is not that way for me every day. Some days, some hours, some minutes, are just as bad as those first months, but the load has already lightened. Two to three months was the worst for me thus far, worse than the immediate aftermath when I had shock and denial to cushion the pain.

I am so very sorry that you do not have your son with you.

Merry, I am so sorry that you are in so much pain right now. Two months is so hard. The shock has worn off and the fact that you have miles to go on this horrible journey becomes so apparent. As others have said, however, it will get easier.

I know that having living children has its own complications. I have two children and have moments where I beat myself up, saying to myself: "You have two living kids...what is your problem!" But, no matter how many children one may have, it doesn't diminish the fact that one of your children is gone. I also understand that is very difficult to grieve when you have children that depend on you. Sometimes the emotional resources just aren't there... and that creates another kind of guilt.

No matter what, remember that, even if your family is grieving in a different way, it is still a terrible loss for them, too. And they need you. That doesn't mean that you don't have to take time for yourself to heal... but I just don't want you to ever think that they would be "better off" without you around. That would never, ever be the case.

Be good to yourself and hang in there. It will get better, I promise.

Thank you all so much. You all talk a lot of sense. I'm crawling back up the other side of the pit this last 24 hours. I think what is so difficult is that, like the 11 days in SCBU, i know that every time things look better, that just means another low is coming. It has a lot of parallels with that for me.

I've sort of done lost baby grief before. Not the same, but sort of. I know it will get better eventually. I hate seeing my husband and daughters embroiled in it this time, when before it was only me. I don't begrudge them their resilience. I just don't know if i can bear to do this all again - i did it once, when i had no right to ask for compassion. Now, and the irony feels pretty unrelenting, i have to do it again. And this time a real live, living breathing baby has lost his life. And i don't know why :(

But thank you - i've read these comments over and over - and it does help.

Merry, I'm sending lots of hugs and thinking of you a lot.
I wish Freddie was there with you.
xx