As a family John, Sam and I were looking forward to Emilie’s birth so much. I had prepared myself for another early arrival just in case and had my hospital bag ready packed. I think I’d done it to avoid the sense of denial I felt when Samuel was born prematurely. We had waited 2 years to try for another baby as we were so fearful about what might happen. We not only had trouble conceiving Emilie but that it had been a far from easy pregnancy. In-spite of all this and even though we were worried about how things were going to pan out, when I did find out I was pregnant we were over the moon and have spent the last 7 months preparing our lives and home for Emilie’s arrival. Sam has known that he was going to get a baby sister and had been very much looking forward to meeting her. I think that you can get to know a baby when you are carrying them and Emilie had a personality of her own – she was very different to Sam. She seemed to have a sheer defiance and despite hundreds of position changes from me she would stay wedged under my ribs. I remember going for a meal to John and Kirsten’s house a few weeks ago and being unable to finish my desert because she had wedged herself firmly between my stomach and ribs and refused any coaxing to move. The midwife told me she was probably just comfortable there. A few weeks later she curled into a tiny ball at the base of my stomach and again wouldn’t accept any coaxing to move. I think we would have had quite a character on our hands. Finding out that Emilie’s heart had stopped was the hardest thing that John and I have ever experienced. There are no words to describe the feelings that came crashing down on us. I am so glad that we have the Women’s hospital on our doorstep as I genuinely don’t know what we’d have done without the staff whilst we were in hospital. I desperately wanted a caesarean to avoid what I thought would be the terror or giving birth to stillborn baby but I was encouraged to have a normal delivery and I am so grateful that the midwives and our consultant didn’t give up on me. I think that giving birth to Emilie made the whole situation more real to us and enabled HER to become more real. I was terrified about what she would look like and had asked the midwife to prepare me thinking that she would be preparing me to meet something horrific. We prayed and friends prayed with us that I wouldn’t have to endure a long, drawn out labour to add to the horrors we had already experienced. Emilie was born after only a 3 hour labour, was handed to us in the same way that any other baby would be handed to their parents and we spent hours just holding, kissing and cuddling her. I needn’t have worried about how she would look - she was perfectly formed and beautiful and would have grown up into a beautiful little girl. I don’t think we’re ever going to know why Emilie was taken from us and I don’t think it would make any difference even if we did know. I know that she won’t be in any pain anymore and that we will see her again. I even believe that we’ll know who she is when we meet her – that she’ll be waiting for us. The one thing we’ve experienced in abundance since Emilie’s death is amazing love, support and compassion from the people around us. The pain has been unbearable but everybody has made it just a bit easier for us by caring for us and showing us we are loved. We have the most amazing support network around us and without that, and the knowledge that God will never leave us, I don’t know how we’d have got through the past weeks or be able to face the coming months. Emilie will always be a part of our lives and we will never forget her nor would we want to.