Almost 12 years ago I gave birth to my first baby, a daughter called Elodie. Although my partner Mickael and I held her and took photos with her, there is no official record of her birth.
The only document I have is the receipt of his ashes from the crematorium where we held his funeral. To the world, Elodie never existed; She wasn’t a person. This is because she was stillborn at 23 weeks and six days of gestation, just below the UK’s legal age of viability.
For thousands of women who, like me, have suffered a stillbirth or late-term miscarriage before 24 weeks, realizing that there will never be an official record of our baby’s existence makes an already traumatic experience even more difficult. even more painful.
But last month, after years of campaigning by charities, the Government finally took notice. Bereaved parents in England will now be able to apply for a baby loss certificate, an official, although not legal, document that acknowledges our loss and acknowledges that our babies existed, rather than classifying them as mere unfortunate clinical events in our NHS records. .
Being able to apply for this certificate would have made all the difference in the world to me on September 27, 2012, when I left the maternity unit at University College Hospital, London with empty arms. I was still sore and weak from blood loss, having given birth late the night before, and my belly was still swollen.
Hilary Freeman welcomes new reforms which will see bereaved parents in England now able to apply for a baby loss certificate
If I hadn’t taken a pill to dry up my milk supply, my breasts would have also become swollen and ready to feed her. My body ached for my lost baby.
But Elodie now lay in the hospital morgue.
Mickael and I returned to my quiet apartment to start preparing for Elodie’s funeral, which took place the following week at Golders Green Crematorium.
Six weeks later, we scattered his ashes at sea in our favorite secluded cove near Nice, France, close to where he was then living and she had been conceived. We spelled his name with stones in the sand.
People were kind and sent us cards, flowers and their sympathy, but we were alone with our grief. No one except Mickael and I, and the two midwives who delivered her, saw Elodie or hugged her. Usually, when someone dies, they live on in the memories of those who knew them.
There are no memories of Elodie, no anecdotes; She never took her first breath, much less took her first steps. Although I keep copies of her handprints and footprints, tangible evidence of her existence, in a box at the back of my closet, she never left a single footprint on Earth.
And so, after his funeral, we were left to get on with our lives as if the previous six months – all the scans, the kicks, all our dreams and plans – had never happened.
My pain was amplified when I learned that Elodie had been stillborn because I had made the decision to end her life to prevent her suffering. She had a rare chromosomal disorder which meant that she was unlikely to survive her birth or that she would almost certainly die in pain soon after.
On the advice of doctors, and after many discussions, I had decided to terminate my pregnancy.
Unfortunately, her condition, trisomy 2 mosaicism, was not discovered until I was over 22 weeks pregnant. After that, it felt like time was ticking. The doctors told me to take my time making a decision, but it was clear that they were keen for me to go ahead with the termination as soon as possible, preferably before I was 24 weeks.
Of course, this was partly for the sake of my baby, who continued to grow and develop. But I also felt the pressure of the consultant’s schedule and the need to avoid pushing my dismissal into a post-24-week legal category, which would no doubt bring with it more paperwork for doctors and hospital administrators.
Although these pieces of paper will not bring our children back to life, they will at least allow us to recognize that they once existed, writes Hilary.
After that point, at which ordinary abortion is no longer permitted, they would have had to seek approval for a termination under ground E of the Abortion Law (which allows abortions for 24 weeks in cases of serious fetal anomaly).
Elodie’s heart was stopped in a procedure called feticide, two days before my labor was induced. She was painfully aware that if she had lived just three more days, she would have become an official person.
Like most people, I hate bureaucracy and filling out forms, considering them a necessary evil. But in that terrible moment, I longed for the opportunity to fill out an official document with Elodie’s details, write down what would have been her full name, Elodie Freeman-Lorinquer, and write my name and signature next to it.
Even if you’ve given birth, if your baby doesn’t officially exist, then you’re not officially a mother either. Not being able to record Elodie’s existence made me decide to commemorate her in some other way.
Shortly after her stillbirth, I had a necklace made with her name, date of birth, and footprints printed on it.
Over the past 12 years, I have written about her several times, including in an essay in a new book, Nobody Talks About These Things, which will be published next month. I know that talking about her has helped other women who have gone through similar experiences or faced similar decisions.
It is a great comfort to me to know that, although she did not live, Elodie has made a positive difference in the world.
The new baby loss certificates will be available to women (and men) who have lost babies at any stage of pregnancy. I know this will be a comfort to many people, particularly those who were never lucky enough to carry a baby to term and therefore have not had children.
There is still not enough talk about miscarriage and this will help break the taboo. After Elodie, I suffered two more losses, at six and nine weeks. For some reason, I imagine these babies would have been boys.
But although the miscarriages were physically traumatic, the pregnancies ended so quickly that I never felt the need to commemorate or document them.
Finally, in 2015, Mickael and I had a healthy daughter, whom we named Sidonie. She is now eight years old and talks often about her older sister, who he would love to play with.
In September 2020, my family moved to a houseboat in East London. We named our new home Elodie and boldly painted her name in gold leaf on the stern.
When I heard the news of the introduction of the new baby loss certificates, on the day they were launched, I was very happy. I went straight to the gov.uk site, hoping to finally be able to fill in Elodie’s details.
But, for me, the development turned out to be bittersweet. For now, at least, only parents of babies born after September 1, 2018 will be able to apply for the certificates.
This means I won’t be able to get one for Elodie. According to the Department of Health, “we will look to expand eligibility for certificates prior to September 2018 as soon as we can.”
Many families in Britain have ghost babies, children who have only lived in our wombs and in our minds, hearts and dreams. The new baby loss certificates recognize that losing a desired child is no less painful if it occurs at 23 weeks, 20 weeks or 15, than at 24 weeks or more.
Although these pieces of paper will not bring our children back to life, they will at least allow us to recognize that they once existed.
Nobody Talks About These Things, edited by Kat Brown (Unbound), is out March 21.