First person: Thelma Williams on finally confronting the grief of losing her baby at birth
Iknow I'm not the first woman to have found something she would rather not have discovered in her husband's suit pocket. In my case, it was a notification of the burial of our son. I didn't even know he had been buried until that moment. I had been told when I was six months pregnant that he would die the moment he left my body and somehow I just accepted it when he was whisked away and never spoken of again. This was the 1960s. You didn't talk about such things.
At least, I think it was the 1960s. That's the thing. It could have been 1970. I couldn't tell you what day it was, what season, let alone which year - such was my determination to follow the advice and forget, a task only momentarily but acutely interrupted by the burial slip.
We had another baby later on. I did everything they told me, resting almost solidly for nine months. On 26 December 1971, in the afternoon, Emma was born, a beautiful little girl weighing 7lb 13oz. Home we went with joy in our hearts and everything ahead of us.
It was only when Emma had her own baby, Millie, that it hit me. They say time heals, but there has been nothing chronological about my journey of grief. Nor anything predictable. Out of nowhere it came, threatening to drive a wedge between me and my granddaughter, a granddaughter I had loved unconditionally from the moment I knew she was conceived. But love is different from bonding, I have learned. Bonding is something I could not do with Millie until I acknowledged the loss of my baby boy. And when I had done that - and at last found a place for him to rest in my consciousness - I discovered a bond closer than I could have imagined.
It was 2004, the year before I turned 70, that Emma became pregnant. It was such wonderful news and at first I accepted my niggles of fear as normal. Doesn't every mother of a pregnant daughter worry like mad that everything will be all right? But my anxiety kept growing. Emma knew the reason immediately. Once she reached adolescence, I told her about my stillbirth. She had wanted to know why she had no brothers and sisters. I had surprised myself with how "together" I sounded when I spoke of it. I could relay the facts - facts of which I had hardly mentioned in decades - without a tear in my eye and after I told Emma, I found I could tell others too. Provided I stuck to the facts - and didn't enter the realm of feelings - I sounded like a survivor.
Emma knows me very well and as the weeks of her pregnancy totted up, she spotted the cracks in my shield. She wanted to protect me, to reassure me that everything was OK, but understandably she was starting to feel anxious too. Could what had happened to me happen to her too?
We spoke to the midwife and the specialist. They assured us that all was well. The specialist knew about the condition that befell me when I was pregnant and was shocked to hear how I was treated. He used the word barbaric. He asked if I would like to see the scan of Emma's baby for myself, so I could feel comforted. I did see the scan but I didn't feel comforted.
Emma thought I might like to be present at the birth and of course I said yes. I was terrified, but was able to put my feelings aside. The last push was intoxicating and Millie, as she entered the world, was as healthy as a baby could be. She was beautiful. Home they all went with joy in their hearts and everything ahead of them.
I, on the other hand, continued to have irrational thoughts about Millie's survival. I found it difficult to babysit or even stay overnight in the same house as Millie, such was my anxiety about anything happening to her. Sometimes it was easier not to see her at all. Such protection, such love, but still no bond. You cannot help love - it exists beyond your control - but how could I afford to bond with someone whose very existence seemed so fragile?
It was time to talk. I chose a counsellor who seemed professional and caring, and took a deep breath.
For the first time in almost four decades I tried to recall not just the hard facts of my story, but the tears I had never shed.
It was my husband, David, who had found out first. I was about to enter my third trimester and yet the hospital told him, not me. He had been at work. In just a single sentence - "The baby will not be able to survive once it's born" - the hospital worker conveyed the news over the phone that would shatter all our hopes and dreams. Then they asked him whether he thought I was the kind of person who would like to hear this news before or after the birth. David said the former, but he couldn't face it himself, so he asked the hospital to tell me.
The pregnancy had been far from straightforward. At three months, I had been told bluntly by a junior doctor that he was unable to find a heartbeat and that the baby must be dead. Eventually, he found the heartbeat but other problems followed - backache, collapsing in the street, a very bad kidney infection, carpal tunnel syndrome and more. At five months, I was told I might be having twins. Then, finally, at six months the rollercoaster of emotions and conditions ground to an abrupt halt as I was told that the baby had something so wrong with it that it would not survive after birth. It was too late for an abortion, and they did not advise a caesarean. I would have to carry to full-term.
I still can't recall the last stage of my pregnancy. I do remember that the specialist advised me not to look at the baby when it was born. It would be too unpleasant for me and might discourage me from getting pregnant again, he said. The labour remains a blur, but I can clearly recall the sight of the midwife the following morning. She smiled. A little too much. She had delivered my baby, she said as she opened the curtains, and it was a little boy. I couldn't cry. I think she was relieved. On her advice, I combed my hair and put on some makeup. Also on her advice, I smiled as the doctor came in. "Look at you, looking so bright!" he said with praise.
I know David was devastated too, but we didn't talk about it. Nobody had told us how to and all the messages had been to move on - and that what you don't know, you don't miss. A few weeks later, I found the burial slip, but I still never said a word.
There was, not surprisingly, postnatal depression following Emma's birth. I came through it, though, and remember the early years of our daughter's life with huge joy. A decade later, sadness was to strike us again, when David died suddenly of an asthma attack when Emma was 10. Her contented world was shattered, as was mine, and our lives changed dramatically.
Inevitably, perhaps, we grew closer than ever as mother and daughter, and so when she became pregnant with Millie I felt such excitement, such happiness, and it felt like my news too. Although I have married again - a wonderful, supportive man - we are a small family and now we would be one more. So the fears, the lack of bonding and the guilt could not have been more unexpected or unwelcome.
The counselling has been invaluable, but there was another moment that proved to be a turning point. I decided to revisit the hospital where I had the baby - partly to help me find my buried feelings and partly to find out more about what had happened. By chance, a staff member who was about to have lunch listened to my story. She said how sad it was, how difficult it must have been for me to lose my little baby boy. I realised I had never used those words - baby boy. It sounds such a small thing, but it enabled me to cry. It had been a long time coming.
Later, I sent her a thank-you card. She thought she had been the bearer of bad news - telling me that they don't keep records for more than 30 years - but the conversation with her was far more healing than a bunch of papers could ever have been. The counselling had helped me reach for the handle of the door leading to my grief; this hospital visit pushed that door wide open.
Something else happened too. Emma had a little boy of her own, Joe, who is now almost two. I found, to my surprise, that I was far stronger during this pregnancy and I've bonded with him without any difficulty.
I have no idea in what measure each of these factors has influenced me. Nor can I say there was any one week or month when I started to feel different. What I do know is that in starting to face my true feelings about my little baby boy - that raw, anguished and incomparable sensation that is called grief - I have been able to recognise the person I really am and accept that it's OK to sometimes feel sad, angry and mystified about what happened. I am 73 and finally no longer feel as though I have to appear the survivor. Ironically, I know I'm stronger because of it.
Most significantly of all, Millie - who is now three - is not someone I feel frightened for any more. My relationship with her has been an uphill struggle, but I am richer for it and I know that our relationship is too. I adore spending time with her and with Joe, playing their games, watching their smiles, wiping their tears, feeling their arms around my neck, tucking them up in their beds, helping them grow. Few other things fill me with such delight.
It took me decades to talk about my little boy. I have now progressed to being able to call him my son. Recently, I decided to give my son a name. I have chosen James. Perhaps one day when Millie is old enough, I'll tell her about James. I will tell her that despite all the sadness connected with James's short life, it is he who - completely unexpectedly - helped bring me so close to her.