I lost my first born little boy Reuben aged 2 days old after he was born at almost 30 weeks following a quick spontaneous labour. In a flash my world suddenly changed. I know now that before I was naive to the world of baby loss and was very lucky that very few friends or family had lost or even had trouble conceiving. How different the world looks today. I have been blessed by a rainbow and am due with my third baby just before our group launches.



I was lucky in many way that because we were transferred to a bigger hospital we got some initial bereavement care. But after the funeral this disappeared. I felt lost. Living in a small city I questioned “surely I’m not alone?” And wondered why there was such little bereavement support and aftercare. I reached out via social media and was lucky enough to find some other bereaved mums and our support group Unexpected Parenthood began.



I didn’t want to feel alone, I wanted to improve bereavement care and support and most importantly I wanted to find meaning in losing Reuben, a purpose behind my heart ache.



It felt ‘good’ to be involved with hospital charitable causes and to raise awareness but we knew there was only so much impact we as a small group could have - having said this we have achieved a lot and helped many. We knew we needed to make our transition to a Sands support group, to get others involved and raise our profile.



I hope by doing so we can help support families, provide guidance and I can continue to find purpose in my loss. I am not someone who does well from talking about my feelings but from doing and working through how I feel; since the very first time I met other bereaved families on what would have been Reuben’s due date I knew that there was more to come. so far our journey has led to a small group of women establishing a Sands group but I know there is much much more that we will achieve and much more care support and guidance to give.