We truly believe if he made it to full term, things could have been different.
Starting a family
My husband Michael and I have been together for 11 years, and got married in 2022. We’re childhood sweethearts and have been together since we were 15. We love doing life together!
We’ve always wanted children, but could never agree on how many. Michael always saw us with one child, whereas I always pictured 2. None of that matters for us now. We just want to bring a baby home.
Getting pregnant
We started trying for a baby, but I’d convinced myself I wasn’t able to have children, as I always struggled with my cycles and never got a positive ovulation test. We decided to stop trying for a little while but a few weeks later I started feeling odd, so I took a test, and it straight away came up positive.
I just couldn’t believe it. We were actually pregnant! I remember Michael saying ‘we did it Mad, we did it’ and I’ll never forget that moment.
Breaking our pregnancy bubble
It was all progressing well, until our 20-week scan. This is where our son Teddy was diagnosed with a Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia (CDH). In simplest terms, this meant his lungs were unable to develop properly.
We were promptly sent to Kings College Hospital in London, who confirmed that his condition was severe, and chances of survival were extremely low. We didn’t understand what was happening. Our pregnancy bubble had completely broken.
We were told there was a procedure to increase his chances of survival. Michael and I wanted to give Teddy the best possible chance of life, so we were going to do all we could to help him.
Our beautiful boy
At 26 weeks, we had the procedure, and all went well. Within 3 weeks, his lungs had doubled in size. Everything was looking up, and we really started to think this could work.
But, at 29+6 weeks, our world came crashing down. We’d just had Teddy’s baby shower, when a few hours later I went into labour. I found out I also had an infection, as my waters had broken days before without me realising.
Teddy was born via emergency c-section at 9:14am on Monday 18 September 2023. He fought bravely for 24 minutes before slipping into his forever sleep, and the first moment we saw and held our beautiful boy he had passed away.
We were able to spend 5 days soaking up each moment possible with our beautiful boy.
Our hearts are completely broken, we sit and wonder what coloured eyes he would have had, and what we would be doing together now if he was here.”
Coping with our loss
I have no idea how we got through. I’ve lost grandparents which is hard enough, but losing a child is just something nobody could ever prepare you for. It goes against nature entirely.
It’s not just Teddy I grieve for either, it’s my pregnancy journey and how I’ll never have another innocent pregnancy again.”
But Teddy gets us through the grief. We know he wouldn’t want us to stop living. We want to live for him and experience as much as possible for him so one day when we’re together again we have so many stories to tell him.
I know as well without Tommy's, the support from our local hospital Bereavement Team would not be possible. Just seeing the stories from other families makes me realise how I'm not alone in this.
It's heartbreaking knowing other families have experienced losing their babies, but it brings some comfort knowing Teddy has friends to play with until we meet him again.”
Honouring Teddy
Teddy will always be a part of us. He’s our child and will always be our baby boy. We’re thankful most people around us let us speak freely about him and keep his memory alive.
I think it helps that since finding out Teddy had CDH, we were always very open about the journey he was on. It was never something we decided to keep between ourselves. For us this worked wonders as it made conversations that little bit easier.
Teddy will always be included in our little family. even the small things when giving birthday cards or Christmas presents, Teddy’s name will always be there.
One of our favourite ways of honouring Teddy though, is through his little ducky we called Franklin. Franklin was with Teddy after he was born, and kept him safe until we said goodbye, but now he keeps me and his daddy company and is our comfort.
Franklin comes with us on all our adventures, like trips away. It makes us feel Teddy is with us every step of the way. We make sure to take lots of photos of where Franklin has been and call them Franklin’s Adventures. We know Teddy would have loved exploring new places like his Mummy and Daddy, so this is one thing that brings us that little bit of comfort.
My message to others
My advice for others would be: don’t be afraid to share what you’re going through.
Ever since we found out about Teddy’s diagnosis, we found it easier to share his story as it was happening. It made conversations easier so we could avoid the excited questions from friends and family.
Reach out to the support groups available, or charities. we spoke a lot with the CDH UK charity, just to help guide us through the process. We had no idea how things would work out for Teddy, and our pregnancy journey was a complete rollercoaster. How could we get excited when we knew what may happen?
But we made sure to celebrate Teddy every moment we could. We knew he was a fighter - he showed us that from all the kicking he did moments after being told his survival chances.
We truly believe if he made it to full term, things could have been different.”
Our hopes for the future
We hope one day to bring home our rainbow. We want Teddy to have a younger sibling and we believe when the time is right he’ll send one to us.
For now though, we're just going to enjoy life together as much as we can. Some days are so hard that we can’t function, but we try to make the most of our good days.
Teddy’s taught us so much, but one thing that will always stick with us is that life really is too short so we want to make sure we can experience all life has to offer.