Baby Loss Awareness Week - 9th to 15th October
By Kate Stanton, Tutor on the Certificate in Counselling
I am writing this on the eve of my eldest son, Louis’s 20th birthday. A time of celebration, but not as I had expected. As I take time to reflect on his life, and what he has given me, it is extraordinary to think of the impact he has had on me, and I hope through me, on others, because Louis died at 20 hours old, after a very difficult delivery. My hopes and dreams of life as his mum were gone. Instead, James and I became bereaved parents, with little tangible evidence that Louis had existed.
20 years ago, I could not have imagined that I would become a counsellor with a particular interest and passion for working with families affected by pregnancy and baby loss. So, I wanted to write this as part of Baby Loss Awareness Week (BLAW) https://babyloss-awareness.org/, when many thousands of parents across the world will come together in different ways to remember the pregnancy’s which never happened, the pregnancy’s which ended too soon, and the babies who died. I wanted to raise awareness of these often invisible losses, and highlight the need for more compassionate, empathetic, and skilled psychological support which is so highly valued but isn't currently widely available.
Over the years, I moved from bereaved parent, to begin to use the experience to connect with others. As a volunteer befriender for Sands, I got more involved in this world, embracing my loss, and finding ways to use what I had discovered. In my nursing, I worked with colleagues to develop better care for families experiencing pregnancy loss and the death of their child, and eventually became a trainer for Sands, working with health professionals across the UK, to improve the care of bereaved families. Now as an integrative counsellor, I take that knowledge into my counselling work, and my work as a tutor on the Certificate in Counselling Course.
In my counselling work, I support parents who have been through similar loss and their identity is something we often explore. Who am I? What is my purpose now? How do I navigate day to day life? How do I return to work when I should be at home with my baby? Or should have dropped them at nursery on my way in?
We share the array of memories the parents may have, the photographs they may not feel able to share more widely, the altered relationships in families and among friends. We remember the care they did (or didn’t) receive and share the emotions of grief, once so unfamiliar, but now regular guests. For some, it may signal the end of the journey to parenthood, for others we continue to work through another pregnancy, where anxiety can run riot.
So just as I sit with mums and dads as they ask that question, “who am I?”, I too had to ask that question. How did Louis’s life shape me? Twenty years on, I continue to evolve as Louis’s mum. The grief changes shape, and I have grown around it. Just as I am a parent to my two other fabulous children, so I am to Louis. So today…. Happy Birthday my love and thank you for all you have given me.
https://babyloss-awareness.org/
Kate Stanton
Tutor on the Certificate in Counselling
Written October 2024
