On 17th August 2022, family and friends gathered at Eltham Crematorium to honour Stewie, before sharing brunch and stories at our house to celebrate his memory. It was as beautiful as it possibly could have been, and it meant so much to us to be able to stand up in front of so many people who cared about Stewie and talk about what he meant to us and how we will always remember and talk about him. 

Adam spoke beautifully and in the moment, about how excited he had been to become a dad and the adventures that the future held, and how Stewie had quickly become central to everything he did and how the prospect of becoming a father made him grow as a person. He spoke about how love had brought us all together to remember and celebrate Stewie - love is what created Stewie, it nurtured and named him, love brought him into the world, and our love was the first gift we gave him. Love is also what will make sure Adam never forgets that Stewie will always be his first son and he will always be his dad. It was everybody's friendship and love for Stewie and us that gave us the strength to get up and speak, and it was so special for Adam to be able to do this.

As somebody who writes and speaks to process, I had a lot to say and started writing in the days leading up to his service. I could have spoken for hours about Stewie, but these are the words I chose to share, to thank Stewie for being the most beautiful and perfect gift. 

Stewie

Even though we had such a short time together, I have so many stories to tell about Stewie. I couldn’t possibly mention them all here, but I have tried to write as many as I can on his website and will keep adding to them. I hope you’ll give them a read.
 
For now, I want to give you a taste of our time together, and focus on what Stewie means to us, and how we wish to move forwards with him forever in our thoughts and words.
 
Any time I was asked if we were having a boy or girl, I would say a boy with a massive grin. Having always imagined myself with daughters, as that was what I was familiar with, I was quickly so excited to have a boy, who if anything like his amazing father would be kind, compassionate, loyal, caring, clever, and we really, really hoped would have his sense of direction, driving ability, survival instincts and general common sense. From me he might have inherited a love of organising and labelling everything in sight. Or perhaps a hatred of it, who knows!
 
But it is simply unbelievable that we can only wonder at what person Stewie would have become. What he would have looked like, his personality and interests, what inspired him, how his laugh would have sounded as a baby, a child, an adult; the jokes he would have told and the pranks he would have played. But simply thinking about all the ‘what ifs’, and there are so many, doesn’t honour ‘what was’, which is what I want to do today. Because we had 9 precious months together, and they all counted.
 
We spent every single day of this pregnancy together as a trio having the most amazing adventures and making so many memories. From meeting elephants and kayaking in mangroves in Thailand, to whale watching in Sri Lanka and swimming with reef sharks in the Maldives. He even convinced us to go to Italy for a pasta odyssey babymoon. We are so lucky that we got to experience so much together.
 
But we got so much enjoyment from the everyday as well. For several months, Stewie’s favourite pastime was to put on a show while we were settling down for the night. Every evening I would sit in bed with bump out and delight and wonder at the rolls and waves of his nighttime activities. As if in preparation for testing my boundaries, if feeling particularly cheeky the finale would include a solid kick to my bladder or a firm and incredibly uncomfortable parking up on my right-hand side. He seemed very keen to ensure his presence was never forgotten. Leo babies I hear love to be adored so perhaps this was down to that. Along with these nighttime performances, he wasn’t afraid to kick me off if I took the liberty of using him as a book rest, or whenever the midwife wanted to hear his thundering heartbeat with the doppler. This little boy knew his mind from the start.
 
I remember one day telling Adam how much I loved being pregnant (after we had gotten past the initial nausea), and how I could understand some women becoming addicted to it. I also remember the very next day, which must have been around week 34 or 35, declaring that I very much no longer felt the same way. Stewie had perhaps heard the previous days conversation, established that he was King Baby who could do no wrong, and therefore had free reign over my insides. It clearly wasn’t enough that my stomach had taken amnesty in my rib cage months ago, he now intended total domination.
 
But the discomfort aside, having Stewie grow and live inside me was the most incredible, precious and rewarding experience of my entire life. Having been someone with severe apprehensions about pregnancy, it felt so natural and right to have him as part of me. He will always be part of me, and of our family. We will never close the door on him and instead will talk about him openly with love and humour, remembering the joy and entertainment he brought to us from the absolute beginning. Whilst he won’t continue living and growing in the outside world, in just 9 months he was such an established part of our world, of our family, and he will stay that way forever, always our first child and us always his parents.
 
We also can’t forget that we got to bring him into the world together, an experience that was both incredibly beautiful and deeply sad. Having had time and space to prepare ourselves though, we had been able to find some peace and determined to make our last days and hours together as positive as possible, to truly honour Stewie and enable us to create our last enduring memories together. 
 
With the unfailing support of my incredible husband and the wonderful team at Queen Elizabeth hospital, I gave birth to a beautiful 7lb baby, and it was the best, most empowering, and beautiful thing I have ever done. I came out of it with a few small physical wounds, as did Adam. And whilst the biggest wound was to not be able to bring him home with us, we found so much peace and happiness in the fact that we got to give him the birth we did. Whilst we couldn’t change the outcome, we knew that we could influence how we experienced and remembered bringing him into the world, and we had determined for it to be as positive as possible for the sake of all three of us, as Stewie deserved no less. We will always cherish the experience and our time together after he was born.
 
Something else that has brought us some comfort during this unimaginable time is the thought that he is with his Granddad and our beloved cat Percy, embarking on an eternity of adventures together. Perhaps right now they’re enjoying sardines and prawns at the John Bull pub in Portugal. Or maybe they’re on a sailing adventure to Madagascar to meet the lemurs. Grandad might have even decided to take Stewie back to Lesotho to relive some of his daredevil escapades like hurtling off a cliff in a tin can postal plane. Or they might have decided to have a rest at home and have Great Grandma over for tea, where she will secretly feed Percy under the table and feign total innocence. Regardless, we know that he’s in the best hands, and being able to imagine them all together gives us an incredible amount of comfort, and a way to navigate our grief.
 
And I know grief well, and just how it can swallow you up and sink you to the very depths of despair. But to give in into despair at this point does nothing to celebrate or honour Stewie. I think it would take away from everything that we went through together, to get to where we did. Whilst we may have been robbed of the future we imagined, we got to truly enjoy the time we had together. It is so important for Stewie and ourselves to recognise that. This time was not a waste. What happened was a tragedy and a travesty, but the time we got was not for nothing.
 
Stewie was such a pure and positive light, that darkness should not be part of his legacy, or at least an enduring part, as I know there are dark days ahead. But whilst we will grieve and miss him forever, we also hope that we will come out of this stronger and better people. Kinder, gentler, more compassionate, more resilient, and always together. I have never loved and admired Adam as much as I have throughout this pregnancy, and I think that love is what should be Stewie’s lifelong legacy.
 
It seems impossible that we should now need to find final words to say to Stewie, and it is. I don’t want to say goodbye to him, and perhaps we don’t really need to, because he will always be with us, around us, within us, remembered and spoken about forever. Hopefully we’ll be lucky and every now and then see things that make us think of him, like the hedgehogs we’re sure he sent to our garden to say hello in the days following his birth – something a little bit magical to ease our pain just a bit, and remind us that the world is still full of wonders.
 
So instead of goodbye, I want to say thank you to Stewie from both of us. Thank you for giving us so much in the 9 months we spent together. You strengthened our relationship, you brought us so much contentment, you made life more adventurous, and you gave us so much to look forward to. Thank you for being the most incredible gift. Even though you can’t be with us for the future we had imagined, we get so much joy and comfort from thinking and talking about you and the time we had together, and we promise that will never, ever, change.