Hello I’m Catherine…
Me with my husband Sam
I wanted to set up a group in person because when my twin boys Oscar and Max were born too early to survive in July 2022, I found that most groups / support was online or, miles away from my home here in Newbury. I really just wanted to talk to someone in person…
Since 2022 I’ve had incredible support through the Twins Trust Bereavement Support Group, a variety of therapy through both private counsellors and the Birth Trauma Team at RBH. However, I still felt like Newbury was really lacking in somewhere to come together face to face and talk about your experience.
I felt so alone and terrified of life after my sons died. Despite having fantastic familial support and those of my friends, I truly didn’t feel like most people I entered into a conversation with about it, knew the depth of the pain I was feeling. I had major anxiety and was experiencing PTSD symptoms after going into premature labour with no warning.
I feel very lucky to have gone on to have my beautiful rainbow baby, Ripley, who was born just shy of a year after Oscar and Max were. Her pregnancy was riddled with anxiety and I felt constant fear that history would repeat itself. I felt huge guilt and shame about having another baby “so quickly”, with the main fear that people might think I wouldn’t need to speak about my sons anymore…
Quite the opposite actually. I am so aware of how lucky I am to have her in my life, but the pain of not having my sons will forever be with me. I wanted to hold space for anyone and everyone who has experienced pain like this. No one should have to walk this path alone or keep their feelings bottled up.
I read a quote recently and I’m paraphrasing (because obviously I’ve never found it again!) but it went something like this:
To not talk about my grief made me feel like so much of me was missing, like I was half a person. When I talk about it, I feel more whole.
Over the last 3 years, I’ve worked really hard to encourage myself and empower others to open up about their experiences, their feelings, their children. Know that I will always endeavour to create a safe, respectful and nonjudgemental place for you. I have spoken to parents who have lost both twins, one twin, triplets. People who have had to have a TFMR (Termination For Medical Reasons), ectopic pregnancies, molar pregnancies, early miscarriages, late miscarriages/second trimester miscarriages, missed miscarriages, recurrent miscarriages, people with (and I hate most words in Women’s Health but) incompetent cervixes, stillbirths… I hate that this is happening to families every day. Worse still, I hate that people are sometimes blaming themselves for it.