I was 16 when I gave birth to Diamond. She was 26 weeks gestation, and weighed 1lb 13oz. Femininity, prettiness, and charisma were concentrated in her to an enchanting exquisiteness. She was active and promising… Until she had a hopelessly severe brain haemorrhage.

We held a Christening ceremony next to her incubator before a consultant told me to kiss her goodbye… I turned my head away, choking, denying, but he lifted her leg and urged me again, to kiss. I pressed my wobbling lips against her soft skin, touching her tiny calf, ankle, and instep all at once. Her ventilator was turned off less than 16 hours after she was born.

We asked the hospital baby photographer to take some pictures of our dead baby. After an initial shocked refusal, she agreed.

My bed was moved to a partition-walled room within the maternity ward where the noise of crying babies became too much and I began sobbing. A nurse told me I was upsetting the new mothers. I swallowed back my tears and shut up till the morning when I begged to be allowed home.

The hospital offered to dispose of Diamond's body for us, in the way of all organic waste. We were told how distressing a baby's funeral is for everyone, with the little coffin, and agreed.

Hadn't I upset enough people by now, I thought?

Weeks later, I sat in a room trying to puzzle out what was missing. As soon as I realised what it was, golden ochre vibrated from the wooden table, blue shone from the piece of sky at the window: colour had been missing, and returned as soon as I looked for it. I tried to remember exactly how little colour I'd been seeing since Diamond's death, but already couldn't picture it. I was still left with a sense that the world was as fragile as paper and could be crushed in my hand. I also had a heaviness that would not shift, a deep emotional squashed-ness.

I took up with a different partner and went on the pill, but soon got pregnant again. It was ended in hospital for medical reasons. I had a coil fitted, and got pregnant with it in place, with twins. That ended at more than 20 weeks with a spontaneous miscarriage. Back on the pill, I got pregnant again. It ended in miscarriage within the first trimester.

Still only 19, I took up head over heels with a new man called Dick. Just before my 21st birthday, I gave birth to our son: Danie, born at 32 weeks gestation after a placental abruption when a young girl playfully jumped with shoe-clad feet onto my abdomen. Dick and I broke up while Danie was an infant. Danie's now 17.

More than a decade later I began dating the friend who is now my husband and Danie's loving Step-dad: Phil.

When celebrating our engagement, we decided for the first time ever for Phil, and the first time consciously for me, to allow conception a chance. Conception took it and we began house hunting.

I was terrified for the baby's safety in my womb. Could the past have affected my body in ways that meant I wouldn't be able to carry it through to viable life? The babies lost, the dreadful experiences, the knowledge of how suddenly, 'easily', and terribly a pregnancy can end, all affected my mental state. I was tormented by nightmares of premature births, miscarriages, babies in incubators, hospitals, and baby deaths. I felt vulnerable. I hurt.

But I didn't tell anybody quite how bad I was feeling. One by one I counted off each day of the pregnancy…

We found a house and moved in.

In a silver frame I had a small black and white photo of Diamond taken by the reluctant photographer years before, to bring with me. I'd kept it on the mantelpiece till now, but wasn't sure if that was the place for it in my new life. So I put it away in the shed, wanting to separate the past from the present.

My waters broke at an amazing 37 and a half weeks. Huge contractions followed, but my cervix would not dilate.

In hospital, hours later, I met a gentle midwife who immediately saw how my past was affecting my present, how scared I was, understood why I was unable to part with my baby in birth, and responsively, and sensitively, coaxed me to the point where I could let go… Still scared, and shouting, 'NO!' just before the head crowned: I did it.

"Don't take my baby away!" I heard myself whine.

Our daughter, Beatrix, 6lbs 7oz, was the only 'product' of six pregnancies that had not been taken from me immediately. She was put straight into my arms and suckled at the breast within minutes. I took her home within 6 hours, but had to bring her back the next day, with jaundice. I fully believed she would not survive. I hardly took my eyes off her except for a moment while she slept, when I dared close my eyes.

All at once powerful thoughts and sensations flashed through me:

Diamond's photo was in the shed, Beatrix wasn't Diamond, Beatrix was alive, Diamond was dead, Diamond's photo shouldn't be in the shed, there was a weight on my chest, it was lifting, tearing away, painfully…

"Oh!" I cried.

It was a weight I'd been carrying ever since Diamond.

There and then I finished off that first weep for her I'd swallowed back all that time ago. I did it quietly this time so as to not to disturb anybody beyond my room, easier within brick walls, and with a darling, other baby daughter, safely healing close by. And when I'd cried myself out I vowed to put Diamond's photo back on display as soon as I got home with Beatrix.

And so I did.

And Beatrix will be five this year.

It appeared my obstetric problems were behind me. But during the next pregnancy in 1999 I became violently ill with gastric flu, which led to the birth of Lilly at a day under 23 weeks, weighing 1lb. She died in our arms within an hour, wrapped in a blanket, with us singing to her.

"This must all seem horribly familiar to you, having the hand and footprints done…" sympathised one of the midwives. On the contrary: When Diamond died, in 1981, not only was there no memory card for prints, and details of the birth, but we weren't even offered her name label to keep. There was also no Moses basket, nothing to dress her in, no chance to hold her. Hardly a compassionate word was spoken. We weren't offered a snippet of her hair. There was no quiet room away from the main ward for our use, and no ready information issued in several leaflets. But by 1999, all those former lacks had become routine procedure. Most if not all of these improvements (and many more,) have been made and maintained by Sands: thank heavens for Sands.

I was able to wrap Lilly in a white, brushed-cotton sheet we'd bought for her and place her in her little coffin. Then I positioned the coffin-lid, with her name on a plaque, on top, watching as the mortician tapped in two shiny coffin nails, one each end, with an elegant hammer.

I needed to do and see and know those things for Lilly. It didn't exactly help me, but I knew from experience that my burden of grief would've otherwise been greater. It accentuated the pain at the time, but I knew the regret of not taking those chances would be worse. For years I'd wished I'd done much more for Diamond than kiss her, once, goodbye.

Eventually, in 2001, Phil and I dared try for another baby. Never again, I vowed once pregnant. Every rumble of wind, every turn of the baby, every movement in the bowels panicked me: was this the beginning of the end? I finally gave birth to Ted at 27 weeks gestation, weighing 2lbs 6oz. He had to spend 8 weeks in hospital before he could come home. He's now 1 and a bit.

And I'm 38. Despite everything, each ovum I release still causes a twinkle in my eye. But I'm coming to terms with the knowledge that my reproductive days have to be over.

These poems are about Lilly, but between the lines, all my babies that didn't survive are included. For example, it's only by living with Diamond's loss for over 22 years so far that I know it lasts a lifetime, if not longer. Diamond's 21st birthday last year was the most painful yet. This year I'm creating a memorial for her.

I'm a mother of 3. And if you notice me, I'm probably playing with one of my adorable little children, or bantering with my fine eldest, with a radiant expression on my face. But occasionally you might spot that I've got no colour in my cheeks and my smiles come slower. Maybe it's my wistful ovulation time. Or my mournful menstruation time. Maybe an anniversary of a death or a due date is approaching. Maybe I've just sighted an enormous pregnant tum… Or maybe I just stayed up late the night before, having fun.

Elaine

© Southampton Sands