Oh our hearts!
One mum’s beautiful way to keep the memory of her stillborn daughter alive has touched us deeply.
When her daughter Beatrix was stillborn, mum Louise White’s world caved in. But with the help of a tiny woollen bumblebee, she was able to feel close to the daughter she lost, as well as raise money for Kick’s Count, the UK’s stillbirth and neonatal death charity.
It was over two years ago when due in just four weeks, Louise felt that something wasn’t right. She felt a pain in her side and her belly was rock solid. Worried, she went to the hospital.
And sadly, when doctors scanned Louise’s tummy to check on the baby, there was no heartbeat. Louise was devastated.
“The doctor told me she was sorry,” Louise told The Mirror. “There’d been a placental abruption and there was no heartbeat. I started screaming ‘I can’t give birth to a dead baby!’”
Louise needed emergency surgery so when she came to a day later, she discovered her baby was a little girl. They had already named her Beatrix.#
Beatrix was kept in a special cold cot to preserve her tiny body, and for the new couple of days, Gareth and Louise held her, told her they loved her and read her Guess How Much I Love You.
Then the couple had to leave, poignantly taking home a lock of her hair and prints of her hands and feet.
After Bea’s funeral, Louise, also mum to boys Finnley and Matthew, struggled to cope.
“Bea was always there,” she told The Mirror. “I had her handprint tattooed over my heart and her feet on mine, so she’d always walk with me.”
But when her friend Keeley visited her with a small woollen bumblebee, Louise found another way to keep her daughter close. Naming the bee Bumble Bea, she took it with her all around the world, so angel Bea’s spirit was always with her.
“Bea was photobombing from heaven!” Louise says.
And amazingly, she found a wonderful way to turn her grief into helping others, buying the bees online and setting up a Facebook page Bea’s Bees Adventures.
Louise has since given birth to a beautiful baby girl, Evangeline.
“I was clutching my bumble Bea as I was wheeled in to theatre,” Louise says.
“This baby was a gift from Bea.”
