Four years on: A ritual complete.

August 2008: I was 34 weeks pregnant and we were on holiday in a cottage in Northumberland. In the peace and the quiet, I started a birth sampler for our baby.

Then she died being born.

And I knew I would finish the birth sampler. For her. I could do so little. But I could do this.

Except I couldn't. Not for months and month and months. Not until I was pregnant with Toby. My pregnancy was physically so easy but mentally the craziest nine months ever. My cross stitch became my grief project - my way of staying close to Emma when my focus was elsewhere so much of the time.

I said on still life 365 once that it was a ritual - each cross a kiss I never got to give her. There are a lot of stitches in it but not enough for all the kisses I would have loved to have given her. That I should have been able to give her.

 I didn't finish it before I finished growing Tobias Matthew Scrumptious-bum and life with a newborn is not conducive to sewing much (Not that I'm complaining - no way, not ever. He saved my sanity in a way that fabric and embroidery floss never could!)

But I did it. Finally. Pretty much bang on four years since I started it. And it feels good to have done it. For her. For a baby who was stillborn but still born. For Emma.