Baby Loss Awareness Week: The symbols of love and loss that bring comfort to the parents of stillborn baby Mabyl
Tiny casts of a newborn baby girl’s hands and feet and the delicate imprint of her face comfort Natalie Heather.
They are symbols of love and loss and lasting reminders of her first child, Mabyl, who was stillborn.
Natalie is sharing her story to highlight Baby Loss Awareness Week and the work of Sands, which supports bereaved families.
She will join other members of the East Herts branch to create a memorial at the Castle Park bandstand in Bishop’s Stortford.
Pink and blue ribbons will bear the names of babies who died during pregnancy and at or immediately after birth.
Natalie, a project manager for a games developer, and husband Scott, a graphic designer, longed to start a family.
They began trying for a baby in 2019, but because of the Covid-19 pandemic they had to wait until 2022 to start IVF.
They succeeded on their second attempt, and Natalie had what she described as an “easy” pregnancy.
Despite her difficulties conceiving, she was regarded as a low risk, and there were no scans after her routine appointment at 20 weeks.
As her due date in spring 2023 came and went, she faced the prospect of an induced birth at 41 weeks.
She said: “On April 17, I went for a normal appointment with my midwife, and actually, they were running really behind. So I was just sitting there and it occurred to me I hadn’t felt my baby move for a while.”
Once she was examined, the midwife hoped she had detected a slow heartbeat, but it was clear there was a problem.
There was a long wait for an ambulance, so Scott rushed his wife to Princess Alexandra Hospital (PAH) nearby. There was confusion when she arrived, but when Natalie was finally examined, there was no heartbeat.
She said: “I couldn’t believe it because we had got to the end – I just didn’t know that I could have a stillbirth then.”
The Harlow hospital has a bereavement suite, but because labour had to be induced and she needed an epidural, Natalie had to stay on the maternity ward at first.
She said: “I had all these grand ideas of a natural birth, and everything just changed.”
At 8.30pm on April 18, 2023, Mabyl, who weighed 9lb, was stillborn. “The doctors have never been able to say for sure what happened,” said Natalie.
With the support of her midwife, Chelmsford’s Little Olive Baby Castings came to the hospital to make priceless keepsakes of her little girl.
She said: “To still be able to see her face is very special. She was so beautiful and so perfect.”
The process is time sensitive, and Natalie hoped that sharing her story would make the service more widely known. She was the first mum to be helped at PAH.
As Natalie and Scott faced organising their daughter’s funeral, they got more support from the midwifery team at Harlow, but it was still an ordeal to say a final goodbye.
Natalie admitted: “I couldn’t believe that we were there. And then I really struggled for many months and didn’t want to leave the house.”
Her yearning for a child remained. “To be honest, I went back to IVF a bit too soon, but we’d been trying for a baby for five years. I felt very desperate. I really wanted to be pregnant again.”
In June 2023, a fresh round of IVF failed. Natalie said: “I just felt quite numb.” Nevertheless, she and Scott decided to try again. “It was very hard, but IVF gave me something to focus on.”
In the September, they succeeded, and their daughter Merryn is now 16 months old and a boisterous delight.
She arrived safely after a pregnancy complicated by gestational diabetes – high blood sugar (glucose) that usually disappears after giving birth.
It’s likely that Natalie’s first pregnancy was also affected. Although the doctors have never been able to confirm why Mabyl died, a post-mortem revealed that her placenta was relatively small and may have struggled to meet her firstborn’s needs.
Like many bereaved mums, Natalie has found special solace in talking to other women who have lost children.
Currently in the UK, 13 families a day suffer the heartbreak of losing their baby before, during or shortly after birth. And at least 15% of pregnancies end in miscarriage.
Natalie said: “East Herts Sands was a lifeline. I went to my first meeting not long after losing Mabyl. At that first meeting I just cried, but being with other women who completely understood what I felt like made me feel like I belonged there. I felt understood.
“It’s not a club any of us wish we were in – we wish we didn’t need to know each other – but they’ve helped my healing and recovery.
“Going to Sands [meetings] really helped me to say things that I couldn’t say to anyone else.”
One of the women who helped her was Bishop’s Stortford resident Katherine Kannegieter, who is co-ordinating the bandstand memorial and a ribbon run at parkrun in Castle Park on Saturday, October 11.
Katherine said: “During Baby Loss Awareness Week, I wanted to create a special display to remember all the babies lost, whether recently or long ago. I hope it starts conversations.
“I’m creating this for all the bereaved parents and their precious babies I’ve met and heard about since my firstborn son, Finley, was stillborn in 2013.
“Sadly, pregnancy and baby loss affects families across the UK every day, and they may feel they are alone in their grief. I hope the display raises awareness and breaks the silence surrounding pregnancy and baby loss, as it is impacting so many people in our local community.”
The bandstand will also be the town’s focus for the Global Wave of Light to end Baby Loss Awareness Week on Wednesday October 15 at 7pm. Katherine said that all were welcome to attend the event.
To find out more about Sands, see www.sands.org.uk.