Richard Gardner’s Story
My journey with baby loss has been one of two parts, the absolute joy and pride of becoming a father to our amazing little girl Emma and the second part being total devastation and bewilderment. In early 2022 my wife to be sat me down and gave me their news that we were expecting. We were delighted and my pride took me straight into Dad mode.
Over the following 9 months we had an amazing time learning what it takes to be mom and dad. We had a lot of fun at, anti-natal classes, painting furniture for Emma’s room and learning we were having a little girl. An image I will always treasure is Emma, her mom and I sat on the sofa watching Emma kicking and wriggling around like she did most evenings and early mornings. Another thing I will cherish is a 3d scan video made the day after our wedding which shows her yawning her head off.
On Monday 17th October 2022, a couple of days before Emma’s due date we noticed some changes in Emma’s movements. Arriving at the hospital we were blissfully unaware of what was coming. After scanning with the doppler for what seemed like an eternity we received the most haunting words I’ve ever heard “I’m so sorry there is no heartbeat”.
How we felt can’t be explained in this short post but I’ve heard it summed up as “The deafening silence”. Over the next five days Emma’s mom has forever humbled me as we went through an extremely difficult and long labour. We worked through it as a team and despite the heartache there were many beautiful moments.
Emma Gardner was born on Friday 21st October at 1.42am and she was perfect. Dark black hair which I’d never imagined, perfect lips and the cutest little nose. She was definitely the image of her mom.
Thanks to the Lily Mae Foundation we were gifted a Memory box. The memory box means the world to us we have some precious memories of our beautiful girl.
Emma, I will never understand why this had to happen to us. Even though I can’t hold you in my arms I hold you in my heart every minute of every day and I’m convinced that you’re cheering anyu (mom) and apu (dad) on all the way. We keep your light shining everyday and you have touched many, many lives because thats the huge soul you are. You are our sunshine and we are so proud of you. x
