Baby Loss Awareness Week and my season of remembrance

As Baby Loss Awareness Week begins, the world turns to autumn - a season of colour, change, and quiet reflection. For me, these months are at once heavy and full with memory, loss, and love. October will always mark the beginning of my season of remembrance - a time when the world mirrors the ache and inherent beauty of losing, and still loving, my daughter, Poppy.

As the air grows cooler, the days shorter, the light softer and leaves fall in waves of gold and crimson, it is a stark reminder of how beauty and decay can coexist with such complexity.

It was in October, at our 20-week scan, that we learned we would not bring our baby home. And in November, I delivered our sweet Poppy. Those two months will forever be suspended in my memory: October’s sharp heartbreak, November’s deep, dark ache, and the fragile thread of luminous love that somehow held me through it all.

Autumn’s slow fading, its quiet surrender, and the strange, steady light that still flickers through the dark remind me that endings can also be beautiful. That loss can sit beside love, and that both can exist without diminishing the other.

“I’m starting to believe that it’s only by leaning into the worst times that we can gain something from what we lose. More insight. More beauty. More gratitude. A deeper idea of what life is about.”
— This Wasn’t Meant to Happen, p.280

Whilst this season of remembrance - that begins for me with Baby Loss Awareness Week, as it does for so many others - is very much about the pain of that loss, my remembering is eternal. I think of Poppy, and I mother her, every single day, through every season.

My memories of losing her are inextricably entwined with these weeks, but my love for her is not. It is woven through every breath, every small act of care, every moment of stillness, all year round.

Baby Loss Awareness Week simply marks the beginning of this time when I pause to share what is always within me - not because I ever forget, but because it is a moment to remind the rest of the world that our love for our babies does not fade.

Because truly, it isn’t us who need reminding. It’s those around us - our friends, our families, society itself - who need that gentle nudge to remember them too. To say their names. To hold space for them, and for us, in both the light and the dark.

Over the years, during this season when the leaves fall and the air cools, I find Poppy everywhere - in the golden glow of late afternoon, in the hush of dusk, in the small, ordinary moments that catch me off guard: a ray of light through bare branches, the stillness before the rain.

Last October, my youngest son found a poppy in a haystack at a pumpkin patch. During Baby Loss Awareness Week, I saw an egret on a solo walk - still, silent, bathed in golden sunshine. Egrets are symbols of purity, grace, and wisdom. They are seen as messengers of peace and tranquillity, representing harmony and serenity.

In so many ways, this season is completely hers, a constant reminder that love and loss are part of the same cycle.

For bereaved parents, Baby Loss Awareness Week is about that love too - endless, eternal, quietly enduring. It is about the invisible threads that bind us to the babies we cannot hold but will never stop loving.

That it falls in this season of ‘fall’ feels like nature’s way of reminding us that even in the letting go, there is love - the kind that began the moment we saw that faint line on a pregnancy test, and that never ends.

“Nature showcases both birth and death in all its glorious beauty and unexpected tragedy every single day. And yet humans fool ourselves into thinking we can prolong it, escape it even. But only this middle bit — the living — or rather, our attitude towards it, is in our control.”
— This Wasn’t Meant to Happen, p.305

Each October, I try to slow down and create small rituals that help me honour both the grief and the love. These gentle practices help me find space to breathe, remember, and reconnect:

Plant something that will bloom later.
Each year in October, I plant spring bulbs around Poppy’s cherry blossom tree to emerge in March - the month she should have been born. Digging into the soil reminds me that, with time and patience, beauty grows again.

Take long walks.
Walking through crisp air, noticing the shifting light, and feeling the ground beneath my feet remind me that nature holds both life and loss, constantly renewing itself.

Practice yoga.
It grounds me and brings me back to my body and breath - a reminder that I am still here, still living, still capable of feeling both grief and grace. In these quiet moments of movement and stillness, I find connection and awareness and a deep knowledge that Poppy is still a part of me, and always will be.

Find quiet moments of reflection.
Light a candle. Sit in stillness. Allow yourself to feel whatever arises - sadness, gratitude, longing, peace.

Bake, craft, or create.
Working with your hands can become a form of meditation, a way to express love through action. This year, I’ll be working on this jigsaw - the words of which resonate hugely.

Turn to books for comfort.
This time of year, I always return to Wintering by Katherine May - a reminder that rest, reflection, and slowing down are all part of healing.

Give permission and grace to your grief.
There is no right way to grieve. Slowing down allows space for both the grief and the love - for honouring our difficult days as well as our resilience.

However you choose to spend this week honouring our babies that were here - albeit briefly - and are still loved endlessly, know you are joined by those who know that their light continues to shine. You are not alone.

Written in honour of Baby Loss Awareness Week 2025, and for every parent carrying love and loss side by side.