I often find myself scrolling through my pictures at night when I can’t sleep. I gaze longingly at pictures of Theodore wondering what he would look like now at 5 months old. I watch videos of my bump wriggling about and still question how on earth I didn’t realise that he had died. I hope one day it will be less entwined with pain and will bring some comfort.

I looked back at pictures of Christmas Day that I took with my nieces just 16 days after Theodore had died and wonder how I was even able to force out a smile. The comparison between the girl in those photos to the ones just a few weeks earlier is astonishing. I’ve taken photos since with friends and sometimes I can catch a glimpse of that old me, to others I may still look the same. Yet I see the sadness in my eyes. The brightness within me has gone.

This photo popped up on my phone as a memory from a year ago. My mum had sent it to me not long after I had told her I was pregnant. She’d wanted to show me what my original hair colour was as we pondered at great length about what colour hair my little baby would have. (We were convinced Theodore would be ginger but he actually had quite long dark curly hair!) When I saw this photo earlier my chest physically ached as I cried for my old self, so unaware of the trauma she was yet to face.

Looking at that young, smiling, happy, innocent girl broke my heart. Firstly, because I never will be able to compare whether my Son ever did grow up to have any of my features. I will never know what colour his eyes were, or if he would smile like me. I’ll never have that nursery picture to look back on. Secondly I just feel like I have failed her. I let her down time and time again in so many aspects of my life and especially with Theodore. Since he has died my insecurities and lack of self worth have become even more prominent in my mind. I don’t know whether this is a natural response to trauma or not. I just feel like I am nothing, I don’t have any purpose. I’d found my purpose and he was taken away from me and now I’m left broken with no way of putting the pieces together again.

I want to tell her so many things, I want to apologise that I failed. I want to tell her to be strong and that she will find her way but I’d be lying. As I sat crying to Simon earlier today I asked him over and over “what am I meant to do now?” I didn’t expect an answer because I know he couldn’t give me one and he didn’t. He doesn’t even ask what’s wrong anymore he just hugs me and listens to me cry as he knows there is no way to fix it.

So here we are at 5 months and life goes on. God knows how, but it does. We still have no headstone or post mortem results. No ‘closure’. People ask when I’ll be back at work and all I wonder is how they think I could even possibly go to work when my main focus of every day is to try not to spend it all crying. There’s moments of happiness absolutely, something I didn’t think would ever be possible 5 months ago. Yet in every bit of happiness there will forever be sadness.

The only way I can describe my life is like I’m watching someone else live it. It’s not my own anymore. Which I’m sure many people suffering with depression or ongoing grief can relate to. You have to completely reinvent yourself and almost not allow yourself to miss who you used to be, because that person doesn’t exist anymore. I can feel myself slipping into the darkness again but I will fight my way out. I have to for Theodore. I will take my tablets, put my game face on and try my hardest. It’s all I can do.