The feeling of maybe never having grandchildren is hard to accept.

Our grandchildren

Over the past 5 years, my daughter and son-in-law, Claire and Darren, have had 3 miscarriages, with no known reason why. Losing one baby is heartbreaking, but to lose 3 is devastating. It’s hard for all involved, but words cannot express how emotionally challenging it is for the parents. They have to somehow find the strength to carry on.

After each loss, we were left feeling grief stricken and totally helpless. It feels as though all hope is gone. The feeling of maybe never having grandchildren is hard to accept, and it’s hard wanting more than anything to make things right but knowing that there is absolutely nothing we can do to help.  

Keeping their memory alive

We bought our daughter and son-in-law a rose called Golden Angel which they have planted in a pot as a shrine to the babies. We’ve identified butterflies as a symbol of the lost children. Butterflies feature heavily in our lives, we even have butterfly wind chimes in the garden.  

My advice to other grandparents going through baby loss is: talk about it to as many people you can. Don’t bottle it up even though you feel you want to. Crying is a great outlet too!

I think attitudes are changing very slowly. Baby loss still seems to me to be a taboo subject. Nobody talks about it. It’s only when I’ve mentioned what has happened to us as a family that people have said that they’ve lost a baby or know someone who has.    

Walk for Hope

This October, we’re taking part in Tommy’s Walk for Hope as a way to help families in the same situation as ours.

Our team ‘Team Page’ consists of me and my husband Mike, our daughter and son in law, Claire and Darren Page and our friends Adrian, Karen, Fiona and Wendy. A 9th team member  s our son Chris, who is our support member, remaining at home to look after our dog in order to allow us to be able to do the walk! Each of the people walking in our team have all been such tremendous support to us and they all jumped at the chance to help us do something positive to support Tommy’s.