A Moment in Snowdrop

By Ellis Brennan

Ellis had always dreamed of being a mother. This story tells of her journey to motherhood and experiences of being a mum to her daughter, Paige, before Paige died at seven weeks old on a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. No parent can prepare for the worst, but A Moment in Snowdrop shares an insight into the realities of loss and exposes the experiences, heartache and grief that come when a baby dies.

Highlighting Ellis’s desperation for some way to ‘feel better’, to find her identity, and how she thought she would never smile again, A Moment in Snowdrop is a book of immense love, despair and longing with hope for happier days to come.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Beaten Track Publishing
• Release date: Jan 28, 2021
• ISBN: 9781786454720

Ellis Brennan

Ellis Brennan lives in the North West of England and is originally from Burscough, Lancashire. She studied for a degree in Criminology and Sociology at Edge Hill University, graduating in 2012. Ellis has always worked within the criminal justice system and is currently employed to supervise and rehabilitate young offenders. Ellis has had one child, and A Moment in Snowdrop is her first book. She seeks to raise awareness of the impact of baby loss and childlessness and offers support or connection to those who have also experienced the death of their baby/babies. Ellis currently lives with Dean – her partner and father to their daughter.

Book preview

1

Dean, my partner, has left to go to work for the afternoon. It seems he gets more happiness and enjoyment in telephone calls to his boss and being at work than being here with me. But why wouldn’t he? He wants the break and a different focus, and I’m bitter and nasty and weird. I smacked myself across the face and around my head (repeatedly) again earlier until Dean stopped me, and then I almost laughed whilst I cried because I know it’s not normal behaviour. But this is not a normal situation. Our seven-week-old daughter, Paige, died five days ago.

A child without parents is an orphan. A husband or wife without their spouse is a widow/er. What am I? A mother who has lost her child and therefore everything, and yet I’m nothing. There is no label or name for me. I feel like a nothing. I’m so full of love but still empty. I’m so full of anger but still numb.

I don’t know how to make sense of all that has happened and how I’ll ever feel OK again, but what I do want to do is write. Write, because I’m getting it out. Write, because I’m scared I’ll forget any part of this whole experience. Write, because I can’t articulate myself verbally. And share, because I may help someone else in this situation. I may help others understand the dangers of questioning during pregnancy and how not everybody can experience an innocent joy and beauty to it.

I hope to provide an insight into grief of this kind and the ongoing ramifications that parents who have lost children, babies specifically, go on to suffer or experience. I may just create a real, human and interesting read—I hope. But most significantly, I’ll be talking about Paige, my interest, pride and a love of my life, and if we are still talking and learning about her, she still exists.

Dean is shocked. Not like you to be so open about things, he says, and he is right. I can be a very private person. I was extremely secretive throughout my pregnancy about what was going on and then again, to some but a lesser extent, whilst Paige was in hospital. But now I am changed. How can you lose your baby and not be?

So this is the story about Paige and me and what we went through together and beyond. If you have had a similar experience, are in the depths of your pain and on a quest to find something that will make things ‘feel better’, then this will not be a how-to guide or a guide to grief because I do not believe such a thing can exist for unique humans in unique circumstances. However, what I do hope it does is give you permission to feel whatever it is you feel. You may find a relatable tale, and I hope it helps you feel less alone. I hope it provides an education for those who have been fortunate enough to have not walked this path or enables you to feel better equipped to support someone who is on it.

I make no apologies for our story being raw and real, but it is full of love because the more pain you feel, the more love you have.

A Moment in Snowdrop…

2

As I write this, I am nearing my thirtieth birthday. Quite a significant milestone and a time for reflection. As someone who has never previously been particularly philosophical, I still find myself reflecting and organising my thoughts. The conclusion I reach is that life is not what I thought or hoped it would be by this age, probably because I am not running around after my children and have never hit the dance floor at my own wedding.

I didn’t have a timescale on these things per se. I didn’t have an idea in my head that ‘by age twenty-seven I must be married’ for example. But as I approach thirty, I have become more and more aware that life does not always go the way we hoped, expected or intended, and I wonder how many people does it all just ‘work out’ for? I wonder how many people have all their boxes ticked, and if they have, are they as happy as their Instagram squares suggest?

Is it society that puts these so-called pressures on me, and women in general, to have children and be a mum by now or something I genuinely want? Maybe it is a socialisation process or combination of both, but more than anything, it has always been in my hopes and dreams that I would be a mum, and I have never made a secret of that. It is what I have worked for and aimed towards, and, for me, it represented the pinnacle of what I could do with my life. The greatest experience and joy to be gained, I believe, is in my children. So yes, being a mum is what I want, and I can’t imagine feeling fulfilled and truly happy without.

I have always lived in the North West of England. My parents separated when I was around three or four years old, and whilst I have some unpleasant memories and knowledge of things they probably don’t know I have, overall my childhood was happy and normal. I have a brother who is two years older than me and a step-brother and step-sister who came with my step-dad. My memories of being little consist of playing out on my go-kart, riding my bike that my dad did up for me and taught me to ride, family trips to Wales to stay in my nan’s caravan and making up dance routines and songs with my friends. The Spice Girls were adored, and going to the school disco with crimped hair was life. I was probably very maternal even then; I had a doll, Louise, whom I loved very much. My neighbour and I would play with our ‘babies’, buy real clothes for them, put them in nappies and walk to the local fruit and veg shop (alone!) to buy healthy snacks for our ‘children’.

I loved looking after my younger cousin, and I had a real pram for my doll that my auntie gave me when my cousin no longer needed it. I remember walking the pram up and down the road we lived on, either with my poor cousin in it or Louise. I remember my mum being the best play partner, who would spend hours with me whilst I emptied the kitchen cupboards to play shop. I painted her nails in our salon (our porch), and I would drive to the porch window to pay for my petrol in my car (my go-kart).

My brother and I made dens and recorded our own radio shows; we had fights over him wanting to watch WWF whilst I wanted Sabrina the Teenage Witch or Sister Sister. My mum videoed us as we played instruments, did dances, presented news and weather programmes (Mum being the witness or person we interviewed in relation to a news story), and my brother, age ten at the time, particularly enjoyed creating adverts selling MFI kitchens. We camped in the back garden, played hide-and-seek in the dark with our dad and had Sunday dinners made by Grandad. It is all these things I’ve hoped to recreate with my own children.

I have so many of these wonderful memories, but I can also remember being a very anxious child. My dad and step-mum jokingly—but not joking—refer to me as ‘the second most negative person we know’. The older I get, the more I learn that perhaps my negativity and tendency to catastrophise is symptomatic of someone with anxiety, but at the same time, in the worst way, life has shown me why it is sometimes necessary to be a worrier and that sometimes you can’t relax and expect everything to be OK because it’s not.

As a child, I remember my mum could not go anywhere without me for several years, not even out for a meal with my step-dad. I can still remember the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach I would get being apart from her—the same feeling you get after going back to school after the six-week holidays or going back to work after two weeks off, but worse. I did not sleep over at friends’ houses for a long time, and if I was going on a school trip and something different was happening, there would be panic and tears. I can remember my teacher dragging me away from my mum as I clung to her in fear because I was going on a school trip to Chester. I remember a family holiday to Turkey when I was nine: the evening before we went to the airport, I was riddled with nerves instead of excitement. And on Christmas Eve, the prospect of Father Christmas—a stranger—coming into my bedroom, whether he was delivering presents or not, unnerved me. I don’t know what my fear or anxiety about things was exactly, but fortunately for everyone, I grew out of it. Ish.

For years, I pleaded with my mum for a baby sister, clearly with no understanding of how these things work. When I was ten years old, my wish was granted, and my sister was born. I adored her. I was in love with her, doodled her name on paper, took care of her, wanted to help with bathtime, nappy time, bedtime, feeding time. I think I decided I was her ‘second mum’. I wasn’t; I was a fantastic big sister. My other siblings had expressed they were worried that I would ‘hog’ the new baby. I did. Well, she loves me the most anyway.

I was given levels of responsibility for my little sister in my early teens that wouldn’t happen these days, but our bond was strong, and many decisions throughout my life have been made with my sister factored in (not that I would ever expect her to do the same). I would spend any money I had on treats for her, would regularly walk around with her attached to my hip, and I spoke of her with such pride. She’s ten years younger than me, and even though she’s nearly twenty now, I still feel the same love, protection and bond that I had when taking her to the swings when she was two and picking her up from school when she was six.

Secondary school was enjoyable. I was the only one from my primary school to attend my secondary school. I think they call that ‘character building’. I hated maths and did everything I could to get out of PE lessons. My mum would write notes excusing me. I had the world’s sorest elbow for about six consecutive weeks. Could we not have come up with a better excuse? I hated PE because I was not good at anything and the PE teachers only liked the ones who were good at netball, long jump, high jump, etc. I stopped growing in year seven, when I had reached a whole five foot and half an inch (always the smallest in the room from this time onwards), and so these ‘fun PE activities’ were anything but for me. It exposed me to the class as having limited coordination and sporting agility, and it always meant getting my pasty white legs out that turned purple with pimples in the cold.

But overall, school was good to me. I had a great group of friends whom I loved being with; I did relatively well in most subjects, was a lover of English and was a well-behaved pupil who tended only to get in trouble for giggling too much with my best friend, who is still my best friend and still gives me the giggles. I was not as well liked by the teachers as my marvellously academic brother who preceded me, but I was all right with that.

I followed a typical path after school and went to college to study for my A Levels. Once I could pick my own subjects, I flourished. I had found the subjects I enjoyed and was passionate about. On the social side, however, it took me some time to settle into college, and those first few terms I didn’t enjoy. I felt lost and lonely. As time went on, old school friends returned to me from their new explorations of the social experience of college, I made my own new friends, and I met my first serious boyfriend. From college, I went to university, but I did not feel any strong desire to live the stereotypical university life and remained local and living at home. Plus, I couldn’t leave my sister: she was only eight.

I went to university to study criminology and sociology, my goal being I wanted a job where I could help those who were disadvantaged or needed support, and the crime element was something that had interested me for a long while. I loved academia and the discipline of studying for a degree. I put a lot of pressure on myself to achieve the highest of standards in my work, and by the final year, I was probably on the verge of a breakdown. I was suffering with intrusive thoughts that caused me to feel horribly anxious, and my mum suggested it was caused by stress. I would be inclined to agree, as I felt much better once it was all over, regardless of how much I had enjoyed university. I graduated, proud of my achievements, and had two job offers lined up. I had interviewed for a job working with teen mothers and a job in the education department of a juvenile prison. I was in an extremely fortunate position to have gained two job prospects upon graduating in the economic climate of the time and felt like I was winning at life. I made my decision between the two, accepted the job, and I went to prison.

As a just-turned-twenty-two-year-old, for me, the hyper-masculine environment of the prison was a challenging place to learn about the dynamics of working life. The oppressive nature can turn some staff into not the nicest or kindest of people, and it’s important to keep your mind strong and have your wits about