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The things that tend to get me hot under the collar are the demands made on grieving parents - to grieve in a certain way, to behave in a certain way (whether that is more or less sad), to make it easier for others.

I'm not 100% sure what I believe about the afterlife, except that I believe there is some form of it. I feel Gabriel near me sometimes. My husband does too. For crying out loud, I've had two friends both sheepishly and nervously tell me that they thought they felt his presence, as if I would be upset or angry. Instead I was enormously pleased - it's a sort of confirmation of how I've felt from totally separate and uninterested parties (well, not invested as my DH and I are). And if Gabe is light and spirit, why couldn't he go visit?

In the early days of shock and tears, my husband reached his last straw in trying to comfort me: she loves us—she would want us to be happy. I couldn’t believe him. It sounded so strange and wrong. She was dead, and a baby. How could she want anything for her parents? But he believed it. He felt her with him.

i continue to be jealous of those who come from a background that offers ritual. i have wished i were hindu or catholic, burmese or chicana... but i am 3/4 white protestant and 1/4 cultural jew and not practicing either religion - so i'm floating out here in the secular world. before this loss i had a lot of my own rituals for grounding and meditation and selfcare and prayer. but tjheir flimsiness was revealed pretty quickly when the sh*t went down, and i haven't gone back to them.

I had very strong, religious convictions before Emma died ... I have spent three and a half years wandering around in an agnostic, sad haze wondering just what my daughter is now and where she is. I am rediscovering my faith, gradually and differently and my response to that picture is different now to how it might have been just a few months ago. I feel privilege ... privilege that in the immensity of the universe, in the huge vastness .. she was not an accident.

Emma was going to be a boy. We didn't find out at the 20 week scan but I was sure we were expecting a boy. His name was going to be George (after my grandfather) Nathaniel (Gift of God) or Joseph (My father's name). We barely talked about girl's name but we decided on Felicity, in the unlikely event we had a girl, which means "lucky" or "blessed". It was while I was in labour that Dave suggested Emma. He knew I loved Jane Austen and he liked "classic" names.

[We named our baby] Theodore - gift of god. Considering what has happened to my faith since his death this seems almost a misnomer, but I keep hoping that, in the long run, perhaps it's not. It's such a big name, I thought (and still think) for such a little guy. He made it his, somehow, but I wish I'd been able to watch him grow from our little Teddy into that big name. His middle name, Isaac, means laughter, and I chose it because I was so astounded and surprised to be pregnant, and surprised to be so happy about being pregnant, and because I wanted all kinds of laughter for him.

It was 4 years ago, and we were living in a house we were renting from my Aunt. We waited forever to set up Jade's nursery. Two of my friends made the most beautiful curtains for the room to cover the three huge windows. The curtains even had black out lining and weigh a ton. I sat in that room every day, read to her and sang songs to her as she grew in my belly. I laughed and told her all about the wonderful things that would surround her when she arrived. I told her about each person who had so thoughtfully made or bought each and every item.

This morning I kneeled by my bed. One month to the day that he was born. I was waiting. I started to talk to God but all I could say was 'I am not sure if you are really there but I want to so much to believe that you are because then I would know he is with you'. I talked to Cullen, whispered to him and most of all I just prayed for the feeling of him. To know that I was in his presence. Before I got up I put my arms into a cradle hold and rocked.