I treasured each moment of each day 

"Maisy was born on February 12, 2000. Her first sound was a gentle whimper and she was put into my arms wrapped in white and I loved her. She was tiny and her skin hung from her body waiting to be filled with hours of feeding. She asked for food immediately and fed as though she had known what to do for centuries. I loved Maisy so much that my heart hurt.

Martin and I had been married for two years before we decided that we wanted a baby. I became pregnant quickly and announced it to Martin on top of the Eiffel Tower with a little box on his birthday. Inside the box was a tiny pair of red shoes and a card saying "Happy Birthday Daddy".


She was perfect

Now she had been born - and she was perfect. Because of the Caesarean I had to stay in hospital for four days. There were three other new mothers with me and, while their babies howled through the night, Maisy slept. I would lie in bed with Maisy beside me in her cot and long for her to wake. I would watch every movement of her face. Every sigh she made sent a shiver of glee through me. She seemed to dream. Her eyes and mouth would flutter and I would wonder at the workings in that tiny head. She would sometimes smack her lips together so hard and so loudly asking for milk that I would feed her while she slept.

Even in those early days I would whisper to her and tell her how very proud I was of her, and what a huge privilege it was to be her mummy. What happened to me in those weeks after Maisy's birth I will never understand. Maisy was my life and my life was Maisy - and anything that happened, happened to us.

My Caesarean wound healed fast. Or rather, it wasn't painless, but the pain I felt was immaterial for the love I had for life. Every second of every day was crammed with unadulterated pleasure. It is not just in hindsight that I look back at those days with inexplicable wonder. Maisy brought to me a delight that I hope I never forget - a feeling so intangible and yet very real.

My grandmother, who had known that Maisy was going to arrive on February 12, is 91. She has been close to dying for many years. She is a little person with a little voice and a huge heart. I needed Grandmum to see Maisy. I wanted Grandmum to cuddle her, and so Maisy and I travelled to Petersfield on the train. I felt as free and exhilarated as a baby bird that has just learnt to fly. Thank goodness that Grandmum met her and loved her as I hoped she would. While we had lunch Maisy slept on Grandmum's bed. Maisy was only two weeks old, but I know she loved it.


I treasured each moment of each day

I had said many times that I didn't mind whether she was beautiful or ugly, clever or thick - the thing I wanted her to be was kind. And she was. Martin's and my pattern in the morning has always been that I get up early, bursting with energy for the day, while Martin likes to snooze in bed, squeezing every last minute out of the night. Maisy would wake up with me and I would have one of those heavenly times with her when she was warm and floppy from a night's sleep. She would feed fast, dribbling milk down her chin and making the tiny grunts of joy that baby lambs make. I loved feeding her until she was drunk on milk - so full of deliciousness that she could barely organise her limbs. After her morning feed I would put her into bed with Martin and they would both sleep together.

During Maisy's last weekend, a girl I barely knew looked at Maisy and said that she could tell from her face that she was a kind person. That meant so much to me. It was all I ever wanted her to be. Six o'clock was Maisy's bath time. I tried very hard to get her in the bath each evening before she had decided that it was time for her milk. I didn't always succeed. The times that I failed meant that I would undress her while she howled. I never let her crying upset me - even at the times when she sounded desperate I always managed to caress her out of her sadness. The instant that she was immersed in the water the crying stopped. She adored her baths. It was one of the best parts of her day. She would lie there with her eyes wide open, staring up at me as I washed her. I know she would have grown up to be one of those people who wasn't afraid of eye contact. Thank God I treasured each moment of each day. Thank God I never once felt frustrated or exasperated with my little girl. Thank God I have no regrets.


I can't let myself contemplate any "if onlys"

We had gone out to dinner with friends. Maisy had come too and had been enchanting all night. She'd had her milk and shown off her angelic smile, and she had slept while we ate. We arrived home late. I fed Maisy downstairs. That is the last thing I remember. I have to believe that God wanted me to be with her when she died. I had never fallen asleep with her. It was so out of character for me to put her down beside me on the sofa after her milk. I can't let myself contemplate any "if onlys" - "if onlys" could kill me. I woke. There she was by my side. Her beautiful lips were pursed, and her little arm sticking straight up in the air. I loved it when she slept like that - but she wasn't sleeping this time. I knew immediately, and yet somehow you let yourself refuse to believe.

I ran upstairs with her screaming for Martin. I can remember Martin putting her on our bed while the man on the end of the phone shouted out resuscitation instructions and I heard myself shouting them back to Martin. I was on the floor. My head was bursting. I was screaming. My little baby girl, my little tiny baby girl. I couldn't hear the man on the phone - I couldn't hear anything. I couldn't feed the instructions to Martin any more. I couldn't breathe.

I don't know how the ambulance men got into the house but suddenly they were there. I must have been on the floor again because I just remember the greenness of their trousers. I remember them asking me to put shoes on and get house keys and suddenly we were in the ambulance. I buried my head under a coat. I couldn't look. I couldn't look at anything. I could hear the siren. This must be a dream. Please let me wake up. And then I was in this room. A hospital room with a nurse who was saying nothing - she was just looking at me. Where was Maisy? Where was Martin? I'm going to be sick. Where can I be sick? Please let me wake up. And then a doctor came in and I looked at her and said: "She's dead isn't she - she's dead". And the doctor nodded her head. Maisy was ten weeks old.

The house was so full of people ... and yet I had never felt so lonely

We were in a taxi on the way back from the hospital. The taxi driver was asking Martin whether The Crown Hotel on Clapham Common was still functioning. The drive was taking hours. It was 7.30am and the taxi driver waived the fee. The hospital must have told him what had happened. We walked past Martin's car. A traffic warden was sticking a parking ticket on to its windscreen. We were in the flat and the flat was empty. Maisy's clothes were hanging on the dryer. She'd watched me hang those up yesterday. There was silence. We couldn't sit. We couldn't stand still. We walked round and round the flat in silence.

That day and the other days that passed all merge into one endless time in my memory. The house was full of people. There was family and there were friends. There were police and there were health visitors. The chaplain came. We prayed. The telephones rang. The office phones, the home phones, our mobile phones and everyone else's mobile phones. The fridge was full of food and the house full of flowers. Photographs of Maisy were all over the floor in the sitting room. The house had never been so full of people and of noise and yet, I had never felt so lonely. Sometimes I would sit quietly. Sometimes I would bellow. Mummy said I sounded like a cow who'd lost her calf.

The coroner called. They'd done a post-mortem examination. Maisy had died of sudden infant death syndrome. The police came again. They brought with them the clothes that Maisy had been wearing. They had been cut off her. She'd been wearing her little red and white striped baby-grow - the one I had bought several months before she was born and laid on our bed for Martin to find.

You don't imagine having to bury your own child

You don't imagine having to bury your child, and so to find ourselves confronted with decisions like what she was going to wear and what sort of coffin we wanted was as surprising as it was distressing. We washed, ironed and folded the pink flowery dress that Granny had given her, her little tights and pink hat and jacket. We'd decided that we couldn't face dressing her ourselves and asked the chaplain to do it. I asked her to talk to Maisy while she did it - telling her how much we loved her and what a beautiful girl she was. I wanted her to be dressed with love.

Peter Murphy, the vicar who had married Martin and me, came to see us every day. He knew how we were feeling and he knew what to say. We learnt that he had lost twins - the first one was still-born and the second one died at six weeks. We couldn't have faced those days without him. He came with us to see Maisy at The Funeral Director’s house. I didn't want to go, but I couldn't face the regret if, in the days and weeks to come, I wished I had. The bodies were kept in a sort of warehouse at the back of their house. I had with me a bear that I'd had since I was a baby, some tiny shells from Tiree, a minuscule bean from Ceylon filled with ten little heffalumps, a four-leafed clover and a musical box with a dancing squirrel that played My Favourite Things. Maisy had always gone to sleep to that. They all seemed so beautiful and so sweet and yet so insignificant and pointless. Was I putting them to bed with her for my sake or for hers?

Her lips were dark red. I've heard people say that dead people look peaceful. She didn't look peaceful. She just looked absent. She'd been such a pink baby - such a shiny, bright-eyed, healthy baby. My little girl had gone. I kissed her. She was cold.

As we left, we walked through the place where the funeral flowers are kept. I glanced up at a hand-written sign that said "Maisy". Beside her name in brackets it said "baby". The Funeral Director’s Wife looked at me and said: "She was a right little rose bud."

I can't find the words to describe my pain

Saturday came - the day of Maisy's funeral. I sat in bed with Steph, one of Maisy's godmothers, drinking hot Marmite and sherry. Outside it was raining. The rain turned to thunder and then to lightning. The rain batted on the windows like bullets. The lawn was sodden. Everyone's shoes were going to sink into the garden and we were going to get soaked as we stood by the grave. Not that it mattered. Nothing mattered to me anymore. Extraordinarily, the rain stopped - and not only did the rain stop but the sun shone. And the sun shone so brightly and warmly that the sodden lawn dried up, our summer dresses were put on, and the caterers put up trestle tables on the lawn.

I am told her funeral was beautiful. All I remember was the smallness of the coffin. The sun shone on us as we buried her. Time is moving slowly. I miss her. Sometimes I feel that I would prefer to die. I can't find the words to describe my pain. It is too acute, too pure. I ache from the very depth of my being. The waves of longing come and go and, at their mildest, they are just a deep, deep sadness. I would have done anything for my baby. I loved and adored her. I wanted to protect her from the world, and the thought of her being alone tortures me. Our life as a family has been shattered. Our dreams have gone. The agony is soul-breaking.

How we looked ahead. How I was looking forward to her ballet classes, to her sitting with me at my dressing table and loving the smell of my perfume. How she was going to wear my jewellery and try on my shoes. How I was going to teach her to play the piano, and how we were going to sing together. How we were going to laugh together. The poor little girl died before she had the chance to laugh."

Emma has since gone on to have more children with the help of our Care of the Next Infant scheme.