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…
loss
Family
“Never had I contemplated the complete void that you fall into when you hear those words: “I’m sorry guys, there’s no heartbeat”. Writer Sarah Matthews writes about the deep pain of miscarriage…
Family
How should we speak to our children about death? We ask bereavement counsellor Julia Davies about what to say, creative activities to try and when to turn to the professionals…
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…
Wellbeing
One minute, she was happily married with two sons – aged 12 and nine – the next, her husband had died. We speak to Jemima Thomas about the unpredictable nature of grief, losing friends who thought she should move on and how it feels to be a widow, five years on…
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…