Travels With My Son

Aching Arms is a charity which is very close to our hearts, as it supports parents who have experienced the heartbreak of losing their baby during pregnancy, at birth or soon after. This support is immeasurably important as this kind of loss can feel completely isolating as well as absolutely devastating. Knowing this from personal experience, Aching Arms offers parents who go into hospital expecting to leave with their baby a beautiful comfort bear to fill their arms, and a community to support them as they grieve. Each Aching Arms bear is in fact given as a gift from one bereaved family to another to provide comfort and let us know that we are not alone.

When we went back into to hospital to bring Stewie into the world (already knowing that devastatingly we would not get to bring him home – if you would like to know more about this and Stewie’s positive stillbirth story you can read more here), we were gifted a bear in memory of baby Finley Maurice Connolly, who passed away on 30th August 2020. I’ve always planned that Finley’s name will eventually be embroidered on our bear’s foot, so that Stewie’s future siblings (hoping we’re lucky enough) will always keep this little boys’ name alive – although his name is spoken often as we decided to call our bear Finley the Bear.

I had no idea at the time just how important this little bear would become to me – in fact he’s spent many a night under my chin, becoming a bit of a tissue on his less lucky days. When he isn’t with me, he spends his time sitting on the nursing chair that I recovered with my mum for Stewie’s nursery, sometimes sharing his space with Small Cat – and occasionally being evicted by her. Every so often, there’s even room for Chops.

Finley the Bear with Chops (left) and Small Cat (right)

We donated a bear in memory of Stewie soon after he was born, so that one day a family going through the same heartbreak would hopefully receive as much comfort from their bear as we continue to from ours. We decided that donating a bear on 27th July each year would also be a beautiful way to mark Stewie’s birthday, and keep his memory alive with even more families.

I really don’t have enough words to describe just how comforting an Aching Arms bear can be, and I wish for every bereaved family to have one. So if you are a bereaved parent (no matter what stage of gestation your loss happened at) and would like to request a your own bear, you can do so here. Anybody can also donate a bear in memory of a baby here (if you would like to donate a bear in memory of somebody else’s baby I would just encourage you to ask first).

As well as supporting parents directly, Aching Arms also provides workplace bereavement training, and I would highly encourage anybody reading this to talk to their HR manager about considering this. So many people suffer through the pain of bereavement, baby loss, and even infertility at work, and it’s by undertaking training, doing research and opening ourselves up to difficult conversations that bereaved parents can hopefully feel as supported as possible, and their employers and colleagues will feel more confident to talk to them.

We are so incredibly grateful to Aching Arms, and so it is one of the charities we chose to support in memory of Stewie. The money that has been raised so far has been used to dedicate more bears in Stewie’s name, and to help fund essential projects to support even more parents.

You can find more information about Stewie’s legacy and supporting his special charities here. Additionally, the Aching Arms website provides lots of information on fundraising events and other ways to support them.

We would love to know if you do decide to donate a bear or support Aching Arms in any other way, as it is a very special charity indeed.