A child is born

Finding out I was pregnant was one of the happiest days of my life. Giving birth to our beautiful baby boy was the happiest day of my life.  I didn’t have the easiest of pregnancies. I had morning sickness, bleeding and pelvic pain followed by an arduous 60 hours labour. But I was finally a mum. A mummy.  A mother to the most beautiful boy, Edward Louis Reid, who weighed an impressive 9lbs and it was all worth it.

Eddie was healthy, happy and getting bigger by the day. He suffered from silent reflux like lots of other babies his age but other than that, there was nothing else that was obviously wrong with him. As a first time mum, I was cautious and more nervous than experienced mums so off I took him to see our local GP along with visits to paediatricians as his reflux was worrying me. They all gave me assurance that he was healthy, he was growing and he was strong. He was prescribed medication but we were also told he would eventually grow out of it. Eddie was increasingly becoming restless and uncomfortable at night, often keeping us up between the hours of 1 and 6am. We complained like other new parents about lack of sleep but it was a small price to pay to be a doting parent.

We had always known about SIDS and cot death but like most things in life, you never think it will actually happen to you. Besides, we were so diligent with Eddie’s sleeping arrangements. He never slept with us, the temperature of the room was always 18-20 degrees, he wasn’t in a smoking environment and he never slept on his tummy – he always slept on his side as that was most comfortable for his reflux.  Yes, there were times at the beginning that I would worry and I remember spending hours getting him to sleep only to find myself back in his room moments later, waking him up accidentally, as I wanted to check he was breathing ok. As time went on, Eddie was getting older and stronger so it became less of a concern.

But on 14h April 2014, the unthinkable happened.  I still cant believe I have to write these words but we tragically lost our beautiful baby boy in the middle of the night to suspected SIDs and he was only 3 months old.

Words cannot express how devastatingly heartbroken we are.  We have lost our first born, our little man. I don’t want to recount the events of that fateful night but I want to use this blog to express how I am feeling. To document how I am surviving life. How I am surviving life without my precious Eddie.