The first time I knew I would be a father, the pregnancy didn’t go as planned. You can read my account on what happened here. It’s also the reason we started this blog. For some of you who had only known me over the past couple of years, this post may shock you. But don’t worry, I am okay now.

I never shared this before, but on the day Nathaniel left us, I learned a lot about being a daddy to a stillbirth child. And I think it’s useful for me to share some of the stuff that I learned. I hope this would just be interesting, good-to-know, knowledge, for most of you who read this.

(This is based only on my personal account and not any research. I think it’s fairly accurate but do check on your own if need be with the relevant authorities) 

# 1 Just like livebirth, stillbirth needs to be registered 

When Nate passed away, I was informed by a friend of our pastor (I think he is an undertaker/funeral director) that we needed to register the stillbirth. He was really helpful and drove me to the police center (we went to the one beside KKH but I think you can do it at many other places). It’s quite surprising and I think many people don’t know this, but stillbirth in Singapore needs to be registered.

I have never shared this with anyone except for Deanna, but I can clearly remember the registration encounter with the police officer. Nice guy, about my age (I was 29 then). I was 2nd in the waitlist and there was a guy before me. I wasn’t sure what was the issue, but the officer wasn’t exactly in a good mood dealing with him. He was kind of lecturing/telling the guy off.

Then it was my turn. I passed him the hospital documents and told him I needed to register for my son. Immediately, his face turned. He was professional but he felt my sadness. It was like my sadness spread to him. He didn’t say much until the registration was done. He then told me “I am really sorry for your loss”

Thank you, bro. I will never know you again even if we meet, but you didn’t know how much your words meant to me. Thank you, SPF for having such officers.

# 2 You need to handle the funeral on your own

Another thing I learned was that if the pregnancy goes beyond a certain period – after 24 weeks I think, you will need to handle the baby on your own. The hospital won’t be able to do it for you. For us, we did a cremation the next day. You need to get a permit for the cremation. I got it from the police station as well. Our pastor, along with the undertaker, helped us with the cremation service at Mandai. There wasn’t a wake.

# 3 The hours after you know your boy is gone and before he is delivered, dammit. Those were some of the longest and worse hours of your life

It was traumatizing. I can’t think of any other words to describe it. I can’t give you any advice. But I can only share what we did.

The first thing is to call your parents. They deserve to know it and they need to hear it from you (or in your absence, at least your brother or sister). My parents are staying on their own. I remember calling my parents and my dad picked up the phone. And I told him “Dad, Nathaniel is gone. He is no longer around”

It was tough. My brother was living overseas during the period so his family wasn’t physically being able to be around us during the period.

# 4 Type of delivering is also a decision

We opted for a C-sect because we didn’t want Dee to have to endure the pain of natural birth. I remember being afraid of seeing Nate, scared of how he may look. He came out and he was perfect. Just like how most newborns look, except of course that he was no longer here. I remember the nurse coming over and saying softly to me “he’s a boy” It wasn’t until Sib was delivered a year later that I realized just how noisy the delivery suite ought to be.

Thank you, Sib. Without you, Daddy would not be okay today.

# 5 You can choose to do a post-mortem but we didn’t

Besides our gyno, there was a pediatrician in the delivery suite with us. The idea was to see if they could better understand what happened to Nate. However, based on what they could observe, they couldn’t find anything wrong.

The hospital will give you the option of doing a post-mortem. They also said that the post-mortem may not undercover the cause of death either. We declined it.

# 6 We did a funeral the next day. It was really hazy

You know the TV screen at Mandai when they tell you which funeral is at what time and which hall it’s held. Since Nate didn’t have an official name, it’s just called “Child of Timothy Ho”. This was one of the more light-hearted moments for me. Many of our relatives came, even though I don’t remember telling anyone about it. Thank you for being there.

# 7 A baby coffin is really small

Typically, coffins are pretty big and need to be carried by 4 people. A baby coffin is really small. The undertaker carried it in on his own. We went into the hall first,  with our pastor. We said the Lord’s prayer and kissed him goodbye.

Gosh, I really miss you, baby boy.

# 8 We went into depression for about a month after that

The month after was tough. We had some friends visiting but we tried to keep interaction to a minimum because we didn’t really want to talk to anyone. Dee and I showed symptoms of depression. What helped was that both of us were going through it together. So we could be there for one another. And we cried many nights together.

# 9 You don’t need to collect his/her ashes immediately

I can’t recall exactly how long, but Dee and I only collected Nate’s ashes a month or so later. You don’t have to do it immediately so don’t rush. Check with your funeral director on this.

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Dear Nate,

Blessed birthday to you! It’s our fourth year visiting this special place in remembrance of you – a place where only Mom, Dad, Sib and Em will always be visiting whenever we miss you.

Your sis specially picked this ‘yellow’ bouquet for you. Hope you like it!

A Special Meaning Behind This Yearly Family Affair

As much as we wished you can be around with us here, we know there’s a greater meaning behind why you left us to join God in heaven. This annual visit means a lot to us as a family – it makes us treasure one another even more, letting us appreciate every blessings we received thus far.

For every losses, every challenges, every blessings are part and parcel of God’s plan for us. Some challenges are harder to embrace, and some blessings are easily forgotten – but whenever I look back at how we lost you, it always make me realise how unexpected life can be – we can only treasure what we have at the moment and make the best out of whatever circumstances we are in. Life is short but it will be shorter if you start letting your days pass by without appreciating everything you have  around you.

May every 2nd February be our official family day! To put everything behind and just have as much fun as possible for just this special day!

Here’s us chilling together for late lunch 😉 Checking out the horses and laughing over the silliest things we see! We had a lot of fun despite Em having slight running nose and Sib with a churning stomach.

Hope you are enjoying yourself up there too! Love you so much, Nate!

Love,
Mummy

Dear Nate,

It has been a while since mummy has written a post here. Time really flies and your little sister is now 3 months shy from turning three! Today is actually her first day in school!

Check out that wide grin on her face – she couldn’t hold in her excitement at all!

Family Milestones Like Today’s Just Makes Me Miss You Even More

As much as I’d like to smile as wide as your little sis, I just couldn’t help thinking about you and I wished you were here with us to celebrate today’s milestone too. We will continue to share stories about you with your two sisters. And you will always have a special place in our hearts, no matter how long you have left us.

It’s Almost 3 Years Since You Left Us And We Still Miss You A Lot

I’ve read somewhere that the grieving will taper down as time passes – as new memories replace old ones. I don’t think that’s true at all.

The loss will still continue to grow as time passes. I will always be grieving the loss of your every milestone – your first day in school, first family holiday, first girlfriend and so on and forth. 

So, I will continue to miss you badly – and I know that’s what a normal grieving parent will do. And that’s perfectly okay. 🙂

Here’s to more milestones to celebrate and I will continue to miss you, Nate. May God continue to shower us strengths and protections to the family as we grieve in a Godly manner and remember you forever.

Love,

Mummy

The past week has been a rough one, both physically and emotionally. Being in Singapore, it’s pretty guessable that work is one of the reasons why.

Running your own startup has its own pros and cons. One of the cons is that it’s just naturally harder to separate between work stress and personal stress. And personal stress has its way of getting into family matters. You get tired, you get cranky, you start losing focus and you just snap at home.

In Singapore, working adults pride ourselves on being able to work hard and to be productive for our company. Whether it’s to impress our boss, co-workers or just our family and friends, being able to achieve in the workplace is seen as a major sign of success in life – somewhat similar to getting good grades for exams.

What happen though to spending time at home, raising your kids and being there for them when they need you? Is being a successful dad less important? Surely not.

Are We Killing Ourselves For A Company Who Will Just Replace Us Within A Day If We Are Gone? 

People leave companies all the time. Whether it’s due to poor performance, a working relationship with the boss go wrong, career advancement or retirement, every company would deal with losing with good talent. A company doesn’t just decide to stop functioning because it loses a good employee or even it’s CEO.

In fact, they try to replace you (and I) with someone better. And very often, they succeed in doing so, regardless of how important you and I think we are to the company.

Our Kids Can’t Replace Us…Even If They Want To

While many of us dad may pride ourselves on being able to bring home the dough, we need to ask ourselves one additional question. How “successful” are we faring in our role as a dad today?

We spend 9, 10 maybe even 12 hours a day in the office. But even as the CEO, I am under no delusion that my company will continue to function well if I am no longer around to work with them tomorrow, for whatever reasons.

You know who is going to really miss me though? My family.

My parents will be devastated. At their senior age today, the realisation that they will spend their golden years without one of their son beside them is going to heartbreaking. They will need to move on and continuing living their lives well, knowing that they still have children and grandchildren who are in their lives.

My wife will need to move on. Unfortunately, there is no option to opt out of lives whenever bad things happen and the responsibilities of the kids will fall upon her. It will be tough but she will need to do her best for the decades to come. The next 20 years (at least) will be very difficult.

For for my girls, 2 year 9 months and 10 months respectively, they are going to grow up without a dad. At the start, they may not notice it. After a while when they are older, they will start to realise it. They may think it’s okay because they will never really know what it’s like to have a dad who loves them, because they never experienced it in the first place, and that’s the sad, painful part.

IfSib, I love you. Always remember that 🙂

Money, talent, skills, opportunities or even good health is something that we can’t always promise we can give to our kids. One thing can definitely give them, if we want to, is our love. For many of us, spending time with our girls, loving them and just being with them is something that is within our control.

Come home early whenever you can. Spend time with them. Read and laugh with them. Pray with them. Because our kids can’t replace us.

Today, Daddy and Mommy talked about you. We are reminded that you are, and always will be, a part of our family. We remember the 39 weeks that you were with us, and the two cherished moments that we had with you – After you were delivered and before you had to be cremated.

Even though these fleeting moments were less than five minutes in total, they are memories that have long been seared into our hearts, and will remain so for a long time, perhaps as long as we lived.

After your passing, neither of us could get close to babies without having the painful memory that we lost you. Thankfully, we were blessed to have your baby sister slightly more than a year later. Though she is still young and doesn’t yet know, she has been the renewal that we needed in our lives. For a long time, we were in a dark, difficult place. Families and friends encouraged us, work (and Netflix) kept us occupied, but your baby sister was the spark that reignited our lives.

Today, we brought her to the place where we once buried your bones. Of course, it’s only symbolic now because 1) you are no longer in our world and I hope that you are having a blast up there in Heaven, and that it’s as good as advertised and 2) the bones have been back at home for the past year.

As usual, we brought flowers. Your baby sister helped choose it and the salesperson even asked her if she was buying it for someone special. She was!

Of course, we brought her along to drop off the flowers.

Mommy and I joked this morning that your baby sister is more pampered than most  because of you. She is showered with all the unconditional love that the people around her could possibly give.

In the future, your baby sister will grow up and understand why. She will treasure the care that people have shown her.

Still, all of these will never make up for the fact that given a choice, she will trade all of these away, just for the chance to be able to grow up with you, her older brother, by her side. However, this isn’t her choice, or ours, to make.

We love you and we miss you.

– Daddy, Mommy and Sib

Our baby daughter is now almost 8 months old!

Time flies. The last time we wrote, it was the day before little Natalie was due. It’s been almost 8 months since.

Natalie has been the most amazing little baby that Dee and I could ever have hoped for. She is soooooo cute (I know everyone says that about their own baby), getting all the attention wherever she goes, and really getting along with almost everyone, including other babies and toddlers. She is great to be with, play with, live with and to talk to.

A part of us always wished that Nate and Nat could have known each other. Seeing how Nat plays with other babies, there is no doubt in our minds that the two of them would have enjoyed each other company. Nate would love her, and his little sister would love him.

Dee and I always remind ourselves that Natalie have a “kor kor”, just that he is no longer around by the time she came. We talk about how Natalie appears to have the  characteristics of what it takes to be a “good little sister” – just by the way she enjoys observing others.

To Nate, Daddy wants you to know that we are doing really well. Your little sister has been a bundle of joy beyond our wildest imagination. We thank God for each day that we get to spend with her. She is so adorable that both of us misses her, even after just half a day apart. We wish you were here, because you would have loved her every bit as much as we do. She’s that adorable! 

Natalie (aka Sib) on her first month birthday!

To both Nate and Nat, we will always love and treasure the time that we spend with both of you. Though both of you didn’t get the chance to meet one another, at least not on this side of our world, we are and always will be a family together. Daddy, Mommy, Little Nate and Little Nat.

Dee recently share an article about rainbow baby. A rainbow baby refers to a baby born after the loss of a child. It could be a miscarriage, stillbirth or infant/child loss.

I am not sure how the term came about. One possibility I suspect is that it’s make in reference to God’s covenant with Noah after the flood, when a rainbow appeared as a promise that a flood will no longer destroy the earth again.

A rainbow symbolises hope. Hope that the future is going to be better than the past. Rainbows typically appear after storms have passed.

Living In The Present

Having lost a child at late pregnancy makes the next pregnancy tougher. You are  afraid to plan too much in advance. We try not to think too much about the future. None of the financial planning about how much this will cost us, what to do on her 1st month birthday, who is going to take care of her in the next few months.

People have asked us these practical questions, we don’t really have answers (yet).

We much rather live in the present than to worry about the future. If anything, the previous pregnancy taught us never to take anything in the future for granted.  Everyday, we talk to our baby daughter in the womb. Every kick is a timely reminder of the amazing gift that God has blessed us with.

Dee has been an amazing Mom the past 9 months. Being awaken in the middle of the night by little sib’s kicks is something we will treasure. Dee will wake me up and in my groggy state, i will put my palms on her for a short while, feel sib’s kick, smile and get back to sleep. It’s been an amazing few months seeing sib grow from the faint nudges to the big kicks.

As much as I like being awaken by the kicks, I am gladly looking forward being woken up by the cries in the future.

It’s Moving Forward, It’s Never Deja Vu

A week ago, Dee asked me if I have any feeling of deja vu. My response was easy. No – no deja vu for us.

Of course, circumstances can appear similar. 14 months ago, we too were awaiting baby Nathan to join us, but that didn’t happen.

This is a different pregnancy. It’s different because it’s a different child. It’s different because no matter what happens, Nathan will always be in our heart. Having baby sib won’t change the pain of losing Nathan, but it would, however, remind us that we can move forward in the chapters of our lives with hopes in our hearts – hope that tomorrow will be good.

It’s not deja vu because couples move forward, not back.

Praying For The Future

I reminded myself that as much as tomorrow may seem like a “big day”, it’s actually not for me at all, but for my two girls.

For Dee, it’s her second delivery in less than 14 months. In fact, she has been pregnant for the past 22 months, with the exception of a 4 to 5 months gap. It’s been tough, physically, mentally and of course emotionally for her.

For sib, it’s obviously a big day for her. I have no idea how babies think/feel/react but I can imagine how life in our world would be drastically different from whatever it is that they are used to in the womb, at least for the few first weeks.

As a Dad, I remind myself the only thing I can do in the days, weeks and months ahead is to be there for her, to care for her in the best possible way I can, physically, emotionally, spiritually.

To my dearest sib, when you are old enough to read for yourself. I want you to know that Daddy & Mommy loves you, a lot. We love you while you are in the womb, and we will continue loving you with all we have when you are with us, for as long we are around. You are an amazing gift that God have given us and it’s our prayer that you will be with us for the rest of our lives on this earth. 

Today is a special day for Dee & I. It’s the first year anniversary for our child, Nathaniel.

We knew this day will eventually come. During the weeks leading up to it, I wondered to myself if this should be Nathan’s first birthday (since he was technically born on 2 Feb 2016) or his death anniversary (since he was pronounced a stillborn child on the same day). Eventually, we decided to just settle down on this being his first anniversary.

Though work has been busy for us lately,  we decided to deliberately slow down today. We took off from work so that we could spend a little more time with one another.

One year ago, our lives were shaken when we found out Nathan wasn’t going to join us in this world, and that his journey with us has ended. It was a loss that wasn’t just our own, but also those of our parents, our family, our relatives and friends.

Nathan’s passing taught me and Dee that nothing in this world is permanent. And that sometimes, life will throw difficult curve balls that we have no answers to.

2016 was a year of two half for us. After losing Nathan in Feb, we found out in August (9 Aug in fact!) that Dee was pregnant with baby “Sib.” At times, 2016 felt like such a difficult year that we almost forgot to count our blessings, and that is God giving us another baby in our lives.

Picking Up The Pieces…

About 10 months ago, we buried Nathan’s bones somewhere special. We didn’t want to hold on to it for too long then because we felt it was right for us to let go…even if it’s temporary.

We packed his bones into this little box.

Today, we decide to revisit the place where we buried his bones. We told ourselves that if we do visually see the box, or what’s left of it, then we will bring it back home…Otherwise, we will just leave it at where it’s buried.

And we did…bring it home, and we left some flowers there instead 🙂

Obviously what we did is not what most people would do, or even should do…there are proper places where remains can be kept. But our rational was that since he never got a birth or death certificate anyway, there was no reason for him in having anything permanent.

So we did what we wanted to do to cope with our loss and recovery. I guess the point behind this is that each loss is personal.

The most important thing about this isn’t actually about what we did. Rather, it was that we did as a family, Dee and I – super happy as well that sib could join us as an (unwilling) accomplice this time around!

Losses Can Be Very Painful, But Moving On Is Possible

The past year have taught us that while some losses are agonisingly painful, we can still move on to another chapter of our lives.

The greatest fear for us moving on is being afraid that the shared experiences that we previously had with Nathan would be lost. That the memories of him will slowly fade away in our lives. But that’s not a good reason to cling on.

We move on not because we have to, but because we want to.

I know that Nathan will always be an important part of our lives. The next chapter of our lives has already started, but that doesn’t mean the previous chapter we had with him is over, or irrelevant. The impact he has brought us will shape our thoughts and how we are as person, and also the parents we will be.

And that’s the kind of impact a loved one can bring to anyone, even little babies like Nathan.

I recently re-read the book, “A Grace Disguised” by Jerry Sittser. Here’s a quote which caught my attention from the book.

“Choice is therefore the key. We can run from the darkness, or we can enter into the darkness and face the pain of loss. We can indulge ourselves in self-pity, or we can empathise with others and embrace their pain as our own. We can run away from sorrow and drown it in addictions, or we can learn to live with sorrow. We can nurse wounds of having been cheated in life, or we can be grateful and joyful, even though there seems to be little reasons for it.” 

For those of you who are wondering how Dee and I have been, We just want you to know that we are doing fine.