Michelle,

I think how you are feeling is perfectly understandable given you lost a precious baby. Mine is not a good story to add to your fears, but should be told. I gave birth to a baby boy early March. He seemed perfectly healthy, but the Ob wanted to get him checked over just in case, she suspected his breathing to be a tiny bit laboured. He was born at 9pm at night. The following day, after a normal first morning with my beautiful boy, he fell asleep in my arms at 2pm. I was exhausted from a long birth, and lay down to sleep too. I awoke at 4pm, my baby was still asleep in his hospital crib. I got up, looked at him, and thought he seemed to be sleeping too heavily. I tried to wake him, he wasn't stirring. I grabbed him and took handed him to the first nurse I saw in the Nursery. I could tell by the look on her face that this was serious.

The rest of this story does not get any easier to tell, and I must keep it short. A parents worst nightmare unfolded for my DH and I. Our baby had died, and they were unable to resucitate him. Nobody knew why, how - we were given no answers. I went into a state of shock and grief that is undescribable. Everybody just told us SIDS, that it was not explainable. After waiting some months for an autopsy report - we finally learnt that our baby died of pneumonia. That he had aspirated some "gunk" either during or shortly after birth - and that resulted in acute-pneumonia. It was some relief to know it wasn't SIDS. To say I'm upset he wasn't checked earlier would be an understatement. I don't know what more to say about it, it's too painful to go back to this time, it's like a nightmare video that plays again and again in my head. I still can't believe my gorgeous boy slipped away.

I'm so sorry to tell you this, I know it's not going to help you anxiety. But, how my son died would be so extremely rare, and he was ultimately a vulnerable very new born babe.

All I wanted to be was pregnant again - and within 3 months I was. I'm now nearly 10 weeks - and to say that I'm feeling anxious about this pregnancy and baby would be an understatement aswell.

I guess there is one main reason I wanted to reply to your post, and I shall be taking this advice myself. Our loved ones are only every on loan to us. We hope and pray that we will have them in our lives for a very long time - but this is not always the outcome. We must love them while we have them here with us, as we never know what is to come.

I plan on borrowing a monitor from SIDS (they have very good ones) for my next baby - for my own peace of mind. You should look into monitoring your baby as well, it will give you some reassurance to be sure. I'm so scared my next baby will die too - but I feel I had 2 choices after I lost my son - to either get back on my bike and try again - or give up. You can see which way I went.

Michelle, I'm very sorry if this upsets you. But our anxieties are real and we must find ways to reduce them - meantime love and enjoy your bub every single minute, worrying will not change anything but the quality of the present moment. You are very lucky to have such a lovely bub, and I wish you some stress free times ahead.

Lee xo