Four months after her mother died from breast cancer, Rachel Clarke found out she was expecting her first baby. In this moving piece, Rachel describes how it feels to enter motherhood without your own mother there to guide you…
grief
Family
“As a same-sex couple, we knew we would explore treatment to get pregnant – we just never knew it would take so long, or result in such pain and loss.” Jessica Clasby-Monk on IVF, miscarriage, the devastating loss of her stillborn son Leo – and the birth of 11-week-old Eli…
Family
Over the past five weeks, Michelle Tolfrey has shared her incredibly challenging journey; navigating life after losing her baby daughter, Orla. She is now pregnant again and discusses the complexities of pregnancy after loss…
Family
In the penultimate article from Michelle Tolfrey, who writes so honestly and movingly about the devastating loss of her baby girl Orla – who was born sleeping, she asks us to be gentle with the heart of a bereaved mother…
Family
While grieving for her baby daughter Orla, who she lost when 37 weeks pregnant, Michelle Tolfrey discovered that someone she knew had named her baby girl Orla. Here, she talks about names, identity and how it feels to hear the name Orla assigned to someone else’s child…
Family
For around two thirds of babies that are stillborn – that equates to almost 2500 babies every single year – there is no answer as to why it happened. So “2500 parents will never know why their baby died,” says Michelle Tolfrey, who lost her baby daughter Orla…
Family
Last Monday we heard from clinical psychologist Michelle Tolfrey, whose baby daughter Orla was sadly stillborn, about the birth story. This week, she discusses our need to label everything and how this affects life after loss…
Family
At 37 weeks pregnant, Michelle Tolfrey tragically lost her baby daughter Orla. As a psychologist, she felt it was important to be open about her feelings so she started a blog: Dear Orla. It aims to raise awareness of stillbirth. Here, she shares Orla’s birth story…
Mornings
In a devastatingly sad piece, Aimee Foster explains what it was like to experience the death of her one-day-old baby daughter, Grace. She describes the 24 hours they had together and returning home the following day…
Family
Two years ago, on a family holiday in Jamaica, Guardian journalist Decca Aitkenhead’s husband Tony drowned while saving their four-year-old son. A year later, she was diagnosed with cancer. She discusses survivor’s guilt, desperately grieving and not living every day like it’s her last…