"You forget how small they are"

This is a text I sent to a friend on April 1.

'Hiya - sorry to bother you but got to tell someone!
this is still so so tough. Really thought I was making good progress but now I wonder:
I was chatting happily to a mother today with her sweet little newborn (2 weeks).
Another mum comes out with the pat cliché –
"oh you forget how small they are, don't you!?".
A so normal - if boring - thing to say, but as I walked away I realised I would, could, never ever forget 'how small they are'. That's etched in my mind - the cliché had no meaning. Cried and cried.


You forget how small they are don't you? Well no, when you have had a stillborn baby, its something you can never forget.

It stays hardwired in your mind because you do not have the wondrous effect of daily development to overwrite the last memory.

I can remember Pineapple's eyelashes growing almost as I watched, when she was 3 weeks old. Everyday is something new and wonderful. That is life. Death stops everything, seals the moment.

When it’s a baby who has died, one thing you always will remember is how small they are, as that is all you have.

I am amazed that I could calmly and honestly admire the baby, but that this inconsequential comment - because of its wider context - was so very hard to bear.