Dear Aoibh
On Thursday we were given a date to go back to Dublin and meet with the team who looked after you and talk through everything that happened between your birth and death and hopefully fill in the gaps that we currently have.
I had been eagerly awaiting news of this date. I suppose I feel that life is almost on pause until this meeting takes place. I feel that I know and understand 80% of what happened but without that last 20% I can’t confidently tell people your whole story and I owe it to you to be able to do that.
I thought I would feel relieved when I was given the date, but when I was told I felt my body fill with a level of anxiety I haven’t experienced before and I felt as though I was suddenly going backwards. I am worried about what will be said, I’m worried that we will be told that something could have been done to change the course of your story, I’m worried that I am going to be told that I didn’t look after you well enough when I was pregnant. I am worried that I won’t be strong enough to cope with the information, whatever that will be.
Since being given the date I have found myself wondering what it will be like to go back to that hospital and meet all those professionals who cared for you. Will it bring us comfort to be in the only place you knew or pain that it was the only place you ever knew.
I can’t help but think of my final moments in that hospital when I walked through the corridors with you in my arms, on the start of our journey home. I remember thinking that everyone we passed probably assumed that I was an upset mummy carrying her sick baby in her arms. Strange as it sounds but I feel happy when I think of that long walk. For a brief moment I was just a proud mum holding and comforting her new born baby and the world was unaware that our world had just fallen apart, and in that moment I could pretend too.
I suppose regardless of the outcome of the meeting we are still in the same situation, nothing that will be said will change our painful reality now. But with everything the only direction I have is forward, and I will continue on that journey in the knowledge that you will always be by my side.
Forever yours
Mum xx
Dear Aoibh 