Travels With My Son

Aching Arms supports parents who have experienced the heartbreak of losing their baby, during pregnancy, at birth or soon after. They offer a beautiful comfort bear to fill our arms and a community to support us as we grieve. Each Aching Arms bear is given as a gift from one bereaved family to another to let us know that we are not alone, and before we left hospital we were gifted a bear in memory of baby Finley, who passed away in August 2020. One day a family going through the same heartbreak will be gifted a bear in memory of Stewie, and hopefully receive as much comfort from their bear as we continue to get from ours. In fact these bears are so special we will be donating one in memory of Stewie on his birthday each year. As well as supporting families directly with counselling and a helpline, Aching Arms provides training to workplaces to help support employees and colleagues through loss.

You can read more about our experience with Aching Arms here.

In June 2023 we attended a completely transformational weekend retreat for parents who have lost a baby due to SIDS, stillbirth or neonatal death. The retreat gave us time and space to to move forwards in our healing and build meaningful and lasting connections with other bereaved parents who truly understood our grief. Teddy’s Wish funds the entirety of these annual retreats, asking parents only to cover their travel costs, but relies on donations to enable this. We would be honoured if Stewie’s legacy could help support other parents to benefit from this invaluable experience as we did. As well as annual retreats, Teddy’s Wish also funds lifesaving research into SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome), neonatal death and stillbirth, and supports grieving families with counselling.

Child Bereavement UK helps families to rebuild their lives when faced with the immense challenges of bereavement. Child Bereavement UK supported us with specialist counselling to help us navigate the loss of Stewie, and learn tools to help us cope and support each other as we were faced with building a completely new future. As well as providing free bereavement support through counselling, a helpline and support groups, the organisation also provides training to professionals in health and social care, education, and the voluntary and corporate sectors, equipping them to provide the best possible care to bereaved families.

When we lost Stewie, we received incredible care from the bereavement and midwife team at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Greenwich, supported by SANDS. SANDS is the leading stillbirth and neonatal death charity in the UK. It exists to reduce the number of babies dying and to ensure that anyone affected by the death of a baby receives the best possible care and support for as long as they need it. SANDS is the driver behind Baby Loss Awareness Week, a national campaign to raise the profile of baby loss and encourage anyone bereaved by it to reach out for support. It is also an opportunity to commemorate all the babies lost.