The Comfort Zone

A place to share stories of child loss, discuss aspects surrounding living with grief and browse resources for help and support.

Comforting colouring pages

/ Kelly 🌻 / 1 Comment

Colouring is an effective meditative and calming activity. Sometimes, when you’re feeling particularly low there is simply nothing you can do. Your mind is fuzzy, you feel confused, deeply sad, and detached from those around you.

Keeping a colouring book handy is a good idea; however, for times when you need something ‘here and now’ I’ve created a set of colouring pages for you to download and print off. Some are simple, others a little more detailed, but nothing is too intricate as, let’s face it, it can be hard to see the lines though weary, tear-filled eyes.

Colour them anyway you like, and take some time to rest your mind. I will add to these pages so keep checking for more, and if there is something you have in mind, send me a message and I’ll see what I can do… Oh and don’t forget to share your finished pieces with me if you want to. Continue reading →

Being prepared for the winter of life

/ Kelly 🌻

This morning, I read this brilliant blog post by Cheltenham Maman about how anxiety over our children’s health and wellbeing can affect us. The post provides some sound advice for helping to manage parental anxiety so it’s certainly worth a read if you’re struggling with this. I also wrote this post last week about how I feel so consumed by the hypervigilant state that being a bereaved mother has put me in.

In Cheltenham Maman’s post, she wrote something that struck me.

Liken it to other things in life that are certain; winter will come each year but we don’t let it dampen how much we enjoy the summer.

We can be anxious – and therefore depressed about our anxiety – every day of our lives, worrying about something bad happening but, just like we ‘dread’ the cold, dark winter months, we also look forward to the summer and make the most of the warmer days when they do happen.

This is powerful stuff!

Yes, just like life and death, we need to make the most of the better days, the healthy days, the young days, the carefree days. It is inevitable that winter will come, death is something no one can escape from, so try not to waste precious time worrying about the cold while you’re bathing in sunlight.

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Yet there’s a caveat to this beautiful metaphor.

Because we know that winter is coming, we make plans about how we will cope with it. We get the boiler serviced, we insulate our homes, we buy in supplies that protect against the frost, we buy a new warm coat, we eat warming, hearty foods…

We prepare for winter and so winter, while still cold and dark, is more bearable and we can see hope in the spring and summer just around the corner.

So why not prepare for death? Prepare for the worst?

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Guest post: Born sleeping – 10 years of missing Amy

/ Kelly 🌻 / 3 Comments

I’m sharing this post on behalf of a lovely friend, Louise, who lost her first child, Amy, 10 years ago. Louise has offered me much emotional support since my own loss and I have been inspired by her strength. Please read and appreciate the years of love and loss in these words and images.

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Thursday, 17th March 2016, marks the 10th anniversary of the death and birth of our daughter, Amy. She was stillborn at 39 weeks, following a textbook pregnancy, and with no logical explanation.

Having happily carried her for nine months, to then endure labour and birth knowing there would be no positive outcome is certainly the hardest thing I have ever experienced and I truly hope never to surpass it. I know, my husband, Jason feels similarly about having to helplessly watch it happen.

It took me a long time to begin to face my grief, but even in my darkest days I started to write about it. This poem took me years to complete (and I am still editing it as I re-read it!) but I thought, a decade on, I might dare to share it.

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Losing Amy

“It’s not there, sweetie”.
Those words I’ll never forget.
The words of a consultant,
Searching for a heartbeat,
So strong for nine whole months,
That now had ceased to be.

Disbelief so whole,
And pain so numbing.
We held onto each other, as our world collapsed.
To leave that room was to accept it.
I couldn’t move.
I kept repeating, “NO!”

I had felt so joyful,
As I nurtured our first child within.
I had taken great care,
And yet our daughter, Amy,
Our little ‘Bean’,
Was born sleeping.

Although so cold,
Her skin was soft,
As it should have been.
We caressed her face, her perfect hands,
And took our birth day photographs
Of our precious girl.

I felt broken.
So sad and lost.
I gave birth to her
And yet I didn’t feel like a mother.
I treasured the memory of her kicks.
Poor Daddy had nothing to remember.

Three years passed and, despite two beautiful sons,
I was feeling desperate.
I had confined Amy’s photographs to a box
my grief alongside them.
But now the lid was about to blow.
I was losing control.

I reached out for help
And someone grabbed my hand.
Rachel. A bereavement counsellor.
A rock to cling to in the whirlpool of grief.
She helped me find my way out of the dark
And I am so thankful.

Ten years on and my grief persists.
Sometimes it washes over me like a wave.
Occasionally, it still bends me double with its force.
But I don’t attempt to control it now.
I accept it has a place in my life
And our darling Amy, a place in my heart.

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We sadly know we are not alone in our experience and were thankful for the support given by SANDS (the Stillbirth and Neonatal Death charity). Their work provides an essential resource to grieving parents, so if you would like to donate in Amy’s or any other baby’s memory they would welcome any support. Please click this link https://www.uk-sands.org/donate Thank you. x

A new way to mark the anniversary of our daughter’s death

/ Kelly 🌻 / 7 Comments

Another year has rolled around since Abi was last here… on 6th February we were forced to remember the day she collapsed. On 10th February, we thought of the moment we sat by her bedside as the doctor turned off her life support and said goodbye. But mostly, we were reminded of the time when she was ‘ripped’ from our lives.

Three years since we last saw her, heard her, held her, smelt her, laughed with her, kissed her…

Each anniversary has been quite different.

The first was maddening, filled with panic and desperation to cling onto every single moment of grieving her. But then the hope of a new baby was just weeks away to distract us from our misery. Our rainbow baby arrived just two weeks later.

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What on earth do I say to a bereaved mum? It’s simple, STALL

/ Kelly 🌻 / 26 Comments

It can seem like there’s plenty of advice about what not to do when it comes to grief. I’ve written a number of emotional posts about how some people get it ‘wrong’ when talking (or not!) to a beavered parent, such as this one and this one. While my rants are only one element of my complex grief emotion, I am, in the main, very accepting that people can’t be expected to ‘get it right’ all the time when dealing with such a sensitive issue (though I have heard some true howlers!).

But there are times when it’s worth knowing just what bereaved mums like me want from our friends and acquaintances particularly in the early days.

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The reality of performing CPR on my own child

/ Kelly 🌻 / 23 Comments

When Abi died, it was very peaceful and controlled. But when she collapsed at home, in our bedroom, we went from calm to extreme panic in a matter of minutes. I was reading to my other daughter, my son was lying in his bed drifting off. My husband was looking after Abi in our bedroom, as she’d been sick.

All of a sudden he appeared at my daughter’s bedroom door with a look of fear in his eyes, and told me she needed me, really needed me. I felt concerned but still at that point believed it was just a bug and a mummy cuddle would make it all better… but suddenly the peace of our home turned into screams and panic. My screams. My panic.

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Choosing a memorial stone for your child

/ Kelly 🌻 / 10 Comments

In my last post, I talked about the day we interred Abi’s ashes at our local cemetery, and how we had to wait some time for her memorial stone to be made. Choosing and buying a memorial stone is one of the last things you can do for your lost loved one. It’s a very personal decision and there are a number of things to consider so I have asked our stonemason to share some tips on how to make the process as smooth as possible…

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Dust to dust – interring Abi’s ashes

/ Kelly 🌻 / 6 Comments

Following on from My Great Loves guest post about turning back into dust, I wanted to share our experience of interring Abi’s ashes.

Choosing a burial or cremation is a decision I really wasn’t prepared for when Abi died. I knew she’d died and that we’d have to have a funeral, but I just didn’t consider the speed at which we needed to decide which method of burial we wanted. If we chose cremation then her body could be brought home from the hospital much faster than if we wanted her buried (paperwork!).

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