I’m so aware that there are people in this community who desperately want to be in my position but I also feel I owe it to those who have been PAL, are currently, or may be PAL in the future to be honest about this. In the past 18 months I’ve left two babies in a hospital mortuary, held two funerals, attended two post mortems, spoken at one funeral and contributed to an investigation. I’ve set up and run a…
The last Ethel update was back in October 2022. Wow, we have done a lot since: many more Ethel’s, we are up to 46/95, 48% complete. For those who don’t know the Ethel’s are 95 prominent peaks in the Peak District. We have also cycled the length of New Zealand, and are currently making a short documentary adventure film on baby loss, which is being edited as I type. We have gained charity status for Lenny’s Legacy, and have been…
We cycled from Auckland to Queenstown over two months, 2250Km via some amazing, beautiful locations, we made the route up as we went along based on recommendations from locals. We averaged 55km a day and elevation gain of 660m/day which overall means we Everested more than 3 times, this means cycling up Everest 3 times in total over the whole trip, total elevation gain- 27000m. For reference, our plane on the journey home was travelling at 12,000m altitude so we…
Content warning: foul language (sorry Julie) I used to do a lot of climbing and have always felt that being strong is such a positive attribute. Since Lenny died, I have started weight training with Mim, this has made me strong…. which is positive – side note – this is not a positive thing to come out of Lenny dying, NOTHING POSITIVE CAME OUT OF THE DEATH OF MY CHILD!!! Being physically strong has made a positive impact on my…
Over the last few months Ethel Walking has become an integral part of our lives. New walks often include an Ethel or two. We sometimes walk with friends, but always with our Lenny and Bhai. If we’ve not seen someone in a while, a meet up and Ethel walk is always a good thing to do. We have done quite a few recently and have almost ticked a third 29/95. But we are taking it steady and enjoying them as…
If there is one piece of advice I could give to those supporting bereaved parents it would be this – say their baby’s name. We know that when Lenny died, people were unsure if it was ok to say his name, so we made it pretty clear to those around us it wasn’t just ok but that we wanted people to say his name. We now understand this to be very common amongst other bereaved parents. Parents spend hours and…
DECEMBER… we are dreading it! The 18th December is Lenny’s first birthday. Bhai’s due date is in December. We are facing another Christmas without Lenny. We are facing our second Christmas in a row where we are supposed to be bringing a newborn baby home with us and we aren’t. All of this amongst festive cheer – and all we feel is distinctly un-festive doom! Christmas is a hard time for all grieving people but for us this is going…
If I had a pound for every time someone asked if I was back at work since Lenny died I’d never have to work again… the irony. I don’t know whether it is seen as a sign of being ok, a benchmark of sanity that being back working means all is good, no need to worry about the crazy person any more or its just a topic of conversation. Either way no one enjoys work chat! But I haven’t been…
It’s taken me a few weeks to write this because grief is heavy, but here we go. We went to Scotland for a week at the end of August, this was partly to just get away and give us some time to grieve but also to acknowledge our 10 year wedding anniversary. Before Lenny had died we thought that we’d throw a big party, but obviously everything has changed now. Still, to ignore the fact that we have been married…