My little boy was born two years ago today. At 11.09am in Frimley Park hospital, Matthew Christopher Stuart Russell was stillborn. It should have been the greatest day of our lives, instead it left a small empty space in our hearts.He was about 12 inches tall and weighed just under a pound, he had blonde hair, tiny little fingers and my nose, he was all but perfect and his only mistake was to be born too early.
My memory can be flaky at the best of times, sometimes I forget what I'm saying in the middle of a sentence or get to the supermarket and buy something I don't need but I remember the day my son was born with incredible clarity. Every, single second of it.
My strongest memory was of lying in a special room in the delivery suite with Elly, our little man in the middle swaddled in a tiny hand-knitted blanket. It was so very quiet, like someone had stopped time. Everything was still, the world consisted of our tiny little family, even though he had already gone.
These days, when I need somewhere to escape to, it's my special place, the most perfect moment of my life - odd really, given the circumstances, I guess you had to be there to understand.
After two years, I still think about him every day and wonder what he'd have been doing on his birthday, what he'd be saying and which toys would have put a smile on his face.
The world continues to turn and life moves on, but at 11.09am I'll find a way to stop time again, if only for the briefest of moments.
