Losing our Baby, James

On March 22nd 2018, we lost our baby son, James Anthony William Garrick at 23 weeks and 5 days gestation. We had to have, what is called a compassionate termination. James was terminally ill with a condition called Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia (CDH). He wouldn’t have survived, even if I had carried full term. 

For my Husband Mike and I, this was the hardest and worst day of our lives. But we chose the compassionate termination out of pure love for our baby boy. 

Over the last 6 months, I have made Youtube videos about losing James and the aftermath of grief.  They’re all on my channel at https://www.youtube.com/user/lilpinkduck but I wanted to post them on my blog too.

The first video below is directly after losing James, I wanted to share, why and how we lost James. 

The next video was how we planned and got through James funeral. I also wanted to give advice to other grieving parents on doing something so against life’s natural order.

The next two videos I made at the 3 month and 6 month loss points, my husband and I are trying to “get back to normal” and I wanted to share these particularly with newly grieving parents to show that, yes, it’s hard, there are still days where Mike and I don’t leave the house or feel like we can cope but there are days where we can see a light at the end of a very dark and sad tunnel. 

I’m fully aware that these are hard to watch whether you’ve lost children or not but I, and many others, want to talk about our children, whether they are with us or not. And we want baby loss to stop being a taboo or awkward situation and I hope these videos help those in pain, and those supporting their loved ones.

L x