In the months after Clay died I spent a lot of time searching for different Instagram accounts, blogs, podcasts, books and charities that could give me what I felt like I needed, especially in those early days;
Validation. Connection. Understanding.
I needed to know I wasn’t alone, that the thoughts and feelings I was having (and continue to have) are just a ‘normal’ part of grieving, especially grieving the death of your child.
I was very lucky that I did find these things, I found pages, books, podcasts, friends through loss. All of these things helped ten fold and I am forever grateful for all the resources I have stumbled across so far on this unwanted path.
So when I sat thinking about how I wanted to give back, to somehow help future people that will heartbreakingly embark on this path I kept coming back to one thought, one idea. How to make it easier for people in those early days, to access the three points (amongst others) I mentioned above. That's when I started thinking about The Baby Loss Hub.
To start with I had so many big, bold ideas of what to do and how to do it, I envisaged an app, with a community function (think peanut app but for baby loss parents). I could see it being this hub of information where you put in the type of loss(s) you have experienced and it would bring up all the information you needed, and not just charities (they are 100% useful) but this would be a place you could find; blogs, podcasts, books, websites, shops, Instagram pages, useful information on HSIB, Coroners Inquests, the list goes on. Maybe one day this will evolve into that but after I did some more research into an app and found out how expensive it would be I put that idea to one side (for now), my next thought was a website.
I'm going to be completely honest with you, one of the funny things with grief is you have what you want to do, and then what your grief allows you to do. These two things can be incredibly different. With a lot of things in life (exercise or healthy eating for example) a lot of the time it is mind over matter, its having the will, want and motivation to do these things. With grief I've come to realise its a different type of mentality, you can have all the will in the world but unfortunately your grief comes along, sticks two fingers up at you and resides you to doing whatever you can physically manage that day. I also find I only have a certain capacity for social interaction before I feel drained, both mentally and physically.
I've sat and thought about what I am wanting to do, and whilst I have all these great ideas I'm really worried I'd start down this road and become overwhelmed, that my grief would take over and I would be left feeling defeated and annoyed at myself for over promising and under achieving. Its not that I don't want to do this, I do. But I'm really trying to be honest with my own expectations of what I can actually do to the best of my abilities right now. My grief is still incredibly raw, 12 months (as much as people think is a long time) is really not that long at all in the world of grief when the timeline is the rest of your life. On top of day to day grief we still have Clay's inquest to deal with, trying to conceive and juggling living life as much as we can to the best of our abilities.
So I've decided, for the time being anyway, the best course of action for The Baby Loss Hub is to incorporate it into this blog. I plan to write about all the things that have helped me and add links to everything. What I need help with though is other peoples experiences, so please if you are reading this and have experienced any kind of baby loss and would feel able to write a blog with things that have helped you, please send me a message. I can't and don't want to pretend I know all about the baby loss world, but I do know there's strength in numbers. The more blog posts from people who have experienced different losses to me the more people we can help feel less alone. I want this to be a place people can come and let out a deep breath with the knowledge they have hopefully found part of what they are searching for, which for many of us I truly think is; Validation. Connection. Understanding.
My next blog will be up shortly which will be the first part of what I have found helpful this past year and it will cover blogs, podcasts and books with part 2 covering Instagram pages and shops.
Please get in touch if you feel like you can write a blog and share information that you have found useful on your own baby loss journey.
