Hugo's Legacy

  • Listening to Bereaved Parents: Launch of New Feedback Guidance

    For too long, the voices of bereaved parents have been hidden, not sought, excluded. That changed on Thursday 22 June 2017, with the launch of new NHS guidelines for Gathering Feedback from Parents Following the Death of their Baby. It is no exaggeration to say that the launch was an historic event: bereaved parents are routinely […] Read more…

  • Crossing the Monkey Bars

    Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing the monkey bars. You have to let go at some point in order to move forward. C.S. Lewis When I first read this quote after Hugo’s death I imagined that letting go of the monkey bars would entail violent means. The bar I was clinging on to, […] Read more…

Maternity Experience (#MatExp)

Perinatal Mental Health

  • EMDR Therapy, Survived

    The cupboard door was opened. All of the contents, stuffed in the cupboard haphazardly and the door forced shut, tumbled on top of me. I felt suffocated, paralysed. But I emerged. I survived EMDR therapy. I survived EMDR therapy when at one point I thought it was making my symptoms worse, and that it was […] Read more…

  • What EMDR Therapy Feels Like

    After my serious illness and the death of Hugo I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTSD happens as the result of trauma. Part of PTSD means that parts of the brain that deal with threats, memory, and decision-making (as well as the links between them) are damaged, meaning it is difficult to distinguish […] Read more…

Living with Grief

  • Listening to Bereaved Parents: Launch of New Feedback Guidance

    For too long, the voices of bereaved parents have been hidden, not sought, excluded. That changed on Thursday 22 June 2017, with the launch of new NHS guidelines for Gathering Feedback from Parents Following the Death of their Baby. It is no exaggeration to say that the launch was an historic event: bereaved parents are routinely […] Read more…

  • Please Don’t Call Me Brave

    Please don’t call me brave. I appreciate the gesture, I really do. I think you are really kind to observe what I do, and to express admiration. It’s not false modesty, not bashfulness. There are no blushes. But being called brave does make me feel uncomfortable, and it isn’t all to do with being in […] Read more…

Neonatal

  • Two Years of Hugo’s Legacy

    Today marks two years of Hugo’s Legacy. I was reminded of this by a Facebook memory this morning, which prompted me to think about everything that has happened since I hit ‘publish’ on that first post. In April 2014 I was in that stage of raw, visceral early grief. I was confused, angry, frightened. Full […] Read more…

  • Don’t Stop, Continue: Bereaved Parents’ Voices Matter

    Every so often I get a song lyric going round and round in my head, burrowing in my brain. The most recent one is Don’t stop, continue It’s from Give It Away, one of my favourite songs by Red Hot Chili Peppers. Events this week have intensified my passion for making sure the voices of […] Read more…

Fitness

  • The Awesomeness Challenge: Smashed!

    My Awesomeness Challenge for Hugo’s third birthday, and to celebrate the third anniversary of me being not dead went ahead as planned on Monday 20 February 2017…and I smashed it! Not only did I smash the fitness challenge itself – check out the video below for highlights of the 12 exercises – but my fundraising […] Read more…

  • Why The Awesomeness Challenge Is So Important To Me

    On Monday February 20 2017 I am doing a fitness challenge. I am doing this challenge to celebrate life: my own, and that of my son, because those lives might both have ended that day. I am doing a fitness challenge because there was a time, three years ago, when for nearly a week my […] Read more…

Just For Fun

  • On Learning To Not Be A Book Snob

    I am a book snob. But I am trying to not be. I love books, always have done, since I was a little girl. And I haven’t always been a book snob: growing up, I wasn’t too fussy about what I read. Enid Blyton books were a firm favourite, and I devoured the Famous Five […] Read more…

  • 40 Thoughts for My 40th Year

    Tomorrow is my birthday, and I shall be 39. The last year of my 30s! I know, I can’t believe it either… The thought of being 40 next year is nowhere near as scary as when I was 29, and looking ahead to my 30s. Age doesn’t really matter that much, and the events of the […] Read more…