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It's my endeavour to begin breaking down the rules in my own mind about what a grieving mother looks like. She doesn't have to look sad constantly, she doesn't have to reject intimacy or to light a candle every night. It's ok to live simultaneously with those things. It's not about giving Charlie up to live life. It's about loving him through living life

This moment. How to describe it. A sudden rush of grief that slams me out of nowhere. I know the feeling now. It's like slamming into a brick wall, knowing that you are going to make contact, knowing it'll floor you, that it's kind of inevitable and necessary that you will end up a crumpled mess at the base and that in the next few hours, days, however long it takes to pass, you will need to muster the energy to somehow pick yourself back up and continue on.

For almost six months, I fought to find her again, the old Lauren. I had in my mind that I needed to try and find her again. That I needed to get the old me back but I've realised that I can't because to do so would be to pretend that Charlie, his love, his grief, never happened and that would be to treat his life and death as if it was a little blip, a minor inconvenience.

Travelling as a family without Charlie, to me, is a reminder of what we could have had. I found myself the other day, six months postpartum, alone, slowly pulling out the nappy rash cream, the spare nappies, the little outfit from the nappy bag. It suddenly struck me that I should be packing his things into the bag, preparing to go away together as a family and here I was, the quiet around me achingly empty.

How has it been six months? Half a year! But then again, how has it only been six months!? How is there still a lifetime left to feel his absence?

What if....he was and is a part of nature, that came to highlight to us the absolute fragility and blessing of life? What if...he taught us not to take life for granted, in a way that people that have experienced significant loss feel? What if...I can hold him close to my heart, my whole life and love him infinitely?

Life sometimes feels monotonous, bigger than us and maybe it is. Maybe we are here to observe the beauty of it and to fully realise the miracles that we are. The fragility of life is a terrifying prospect but also a deeply beautiful one too. You're my inspiration, my little miracle boy.

Grief isn't just the loss of Charlie. I miss him every minute of every day, I do. It's the loss of the world that I lived in. I'm here, everything goes on as if nothing's changed. And yet, everything has changed because the way I see the world, others and myself has been overhauled. I grieve that. I miss Charlie but I miss the old me.

We shouldn't aim for a 'great birth.' We should aim for a birth, where we, as women, feel empowered. Whether that's through a caesarean, assisted or physiological birth.

It's when I slow down that I realise, again, that he really is gone. And that he's never coming back. And in reflection, I think I've...

Losing a baby and having to fight for the relationships around you was never going to be easy. We probably will never feel like the young, optimistic, carefree couple I remember us to be. But who knows? Maybe it will make us stronger. Only the future can tell.

So here we are, my first ‘blog’ post. To share or not to share? That is the question of this digital world. And yet, to share is to allow people to bear witness to the strength of Charlie’s love. It is to allow me to be lightened of the load of feeling as if I must hold this in, in a culture that is not overly accepting of displays of grief. It is to allow others, experiencing a similar journey to feel less alone in their own narrative. 

There aren't really any silver linings to losing a child at whatever stage. Sometimes I call them 'silver linings' but I know they don't exist. I suppose though what I've begun to realise is that losing someone can bring out the richness in a tapestry that otherwise may have been pretty yes, but beautiful?