Rainbow after a storm: Baby Loss

When you lose a parent, you’re an orphan; when you lose a spouse, you’re a widow, but what are you when you lose a child? This really hit home. It amplifies the fact that child loss isn’t something we talk about enough. Of course nobody wants to think about the fact that children die, but in reality, they do.

What no one talks about when you lose a child

In society we’re becoming better when it comes to mental health, however when losing a child it still seems to be a taboo topic. When I lost my son at almost six weeks old, I also lost friends, lost family members as well as losing a part of myself. I remember when he passed, several family members said “InshaAllah you’ll have another baby”, “InshaAllah” means “In God’s will”, and I remember thinking having another baby will never replace my son. Being a parent is the most rewarding thing we can go through, but it can also be the most heartbreaking thing, too.

Why therapy was essential to my healing

When I lost my son, I was fortunate enough to be able to pay for private therapy for myself and my husband. Not a lot of people have this luxury. There are some great charities out there such as SANDS, The Lullaby Trust, Cruse bereavement support, and many more amazing charities.

During my therapy, my therapist invited me to write a goodbye letter to my son. How could I say goodbye? How could I say goodbye to the boy who made me a mum, the boy I breastfed, the boy I shared sleepless nights with, the boy I held as he took his final breaths. How could I do this? I know it’s never going to be goodbye, it’s more of ‘I’ll see you later’. In this letter I was able to say what I miss about him, what I love about him, what I’m sorry for and what I promise him. I felt I was able to breathe, after holding my breath for so long.

What I’ve learned as a bereavement therapist

As a person and as a therapist, I am very aware of my emotions, but when I went through my loss I really struggled. I still understood my emotions, but I knew I needed a space that was just for me. 

When I attended my bereavement counselling, it felt strange. I was reliving the trauma of what happened, the feeling of my son taking his last breaths, but we also then spoke about the aftermath of my grief. We explored how my grief has affected my relationships with family members, friends, colleagues and the people around me. We explored my anger, sadness, frustration, emptiness and all of the emotions I could possibly feel.

That's the thing about grieving, there's no right or wrong way of doing it. I found my way of doing it and even now, almost three years later, I am still going through it. My therapist taught me that it's okay to feel all of these intense emotions and not feel 'normal' because what I experienced wasn't 'normal'. Therapy allowed me to be vulnerable, without having to think about everyone else's feelings. In the therapy room I didn't need to be a wife, a daughter, a sister or a friend, I could just be me and explore who this new version of myself is. 

My son was born at 3:45am, and his little sister was born at 3:45am less than two years later. Was this a sign? I believe it was. A sign that maybe I have space to love again, a sign that I’m not alone, a sign that maybe my whole world isn’t over. Having my daughter has allowed me to love again. Her first birthday was full of happiness, fun, laughter, but there was also sadness, anger, heartbreak, because my son didn’t have his first birthday.

How therapy helps you rediscover yourself after loss

In society, we have a lot of expectations. We have expectations of what a successful job looks like, how much money we should earn, where we should travel and so on. But why do we have expectations on how we should grieve? Grief is love that has nowhere to go. But we can find a place for that love to go. When I lost my son, I trained in Counselling for Grief and Bereavement. This helped me with my own grief, and has allowed me to hold a space for my clients to grieve.

The best way I can describe the feeling of grief is having a lot of love but nowhere for it to go. This is where therapy can help. Grief and bereavement therapy can be a space to help you understand your feelings, a space where you can explore your loss, explore the emotions you are experiencing, but it is also a space to explore the person you now are after losing a loved one.

There can be a lot of powerful techniques used in the session, such as writing a goodbye letter, using the empty chair technique, and many more. Therapy is a form of self-care, where it is just about you and your world. When you go through a loss, your whole world can stop, whilst the rest of the world carries on, therapy can be a space for you to understand your new world. 

My daughter is truly my rainbow. She lights up each room she enters, her smile is infectious, and I can’t wait to see how far she will shine. I have my rainbow, but I will always have the grey clouds above me after the almighty storm.