I was up with the bonus baby at 5 AM on Pamela's birthday. I guessed Marion, Pamela's Mummy would be awake too. Marion and I had almost matching families. Our eldest sons were in the same class in their final year at school when we both unexpectedly became pregnant. We shared the experience of our babies since conception - first movements, first contractions, first smiles, first steps and first birthdays. From the early months, our babies gleefully recognised each other and the various members of both families. Then, at eighteen months, there was an accident.

Those awful words, "Pamela is dead". The shock, disbelief, anger. Going to see Marion, her husband, the other kids. I wondered, should I take the bonus baby the first time? (There were to be lots of firsts: - the first time Marion came to my place without Pamela, the first time we went out together with only one infant seat in the car, the first birthday after Pammy's death). I wondered would I make Marion feel worse if I took my baby? (How could anything be worse?) Would it be unnatural not to take him? Marion and I had not seen each other without our respective babies attached to our person since they had been born just a few weeks apart.

Some years previously, my baby nephew had died suddenly. Then too, I had felt as though I was in some hideous dream that would go away if I could only wake myself up. One day Ryan had been in my arms gooing and giggling. A few days later he was in my husbands arms in a little white box. I remembered the funeral. The ministers' words seemed empty. I was thinking, bugger God. I loved both Pammy and Ryan, but I can't begin to imagine how devastated their parents must feel.

Psychologist Carolyn McLean, director of The Co-operative Family Centre in Melbourne sadly recalls the first spring after her little daughter Kerrin was accidentally killed, "I couldn't believe that all the deciduous trees would want to sprout new tiny green leaf buds. I didn't want to live for about three years after she died because the agony was so intense. For the first year I would hunt her -if I just got into the next room quickly enough, (I thought) I'd find her. Even worse, I withdrew emotionally from my three older children. I didn't dare love them to the fullest extent anymore."

Carolyn says, "what makes coming to terms with the death of a young child so traumatic, is the unnaturalness of it. Her body and mine were still merged. If we walked I would hold her hand for the sheer pleasure of it. If we were talking, I sat her on my lap, for the sheer pleasure of it. She had nightmares from 9 months, so had always spent part of a night in bed with some of her body touching mine. Wherever I went after she died, my body missed her."

A former funeral director, Deborah Sullivan claims her professional experience was no preparation for the intensity of her feelings when her third baby was stillborn - feelings of shock, which Deborah explains are part of the denial process. "This allows you to take on board only as much as you can handle at a time." Feelings of guilt, "that in some way you've failed to nurture and protect your child." And feelings of anger. "Its part of the grief process to have angry feelings, even towards the deceased, This doesn't make you a cruel and horrible person."

And, amidst the confusion of her see-sawing emotions, uppermost in Deborah's mind was the very real fear that she would forget what Frances looked like. Deborah held Frances for twenty four hours after she was delivered. Her two other children held their baby sister too. She encourages other families to do the same, "most mothers, if they overcome their fears find their dead babies profoundly beautiful. Even if there are problems, it seems nature helps you focus on the most attractive attributes." Deborah believes parents and siblings who don't view the deceased may harbour greater problems with images than reality. She also advises parents who have lost a new born, "it's important to collect any memories you have, things you can touch and look at - photos, foot and handprints, casket flowers, a birth announcement. If a child hasn't lived with you, you don't have their little nuances to remember."

For parents who have lost a baby or young child, grieving can be made difficult by the expectations and reactions of other people. Often if the parents mention the child's name, the topic of conversation will be quickly changed. And it seems there is no shortage of well meaning but ignorantly hurtful comments. Deborah gives examples that she experienced: "Oh well, she never really existed anyway." "You're in the land of the living" and, a perennial, "you have two other children."

Although Carolyn McLean believes, "Looking back, my agony would have been as intense had it been any one of my four children", she stresses, "Children are not replaceable." Deborah suggests, "people need to acknowledge your loss, not diminish a child's death on the basis of what is left." She says, "other people don't know how to handle it. If you cry, they feel it's their fault. They don't want to think they're the cause of your distress. But there's no relief from pain until the tears have gone through. It hurts and it hurts and it hurts. Only tears release the pain."

Carolyn reveals that because of her personal history, she didn't know how to cry. "I couldn't cry and in my dreams Kerrin was always alive but slightly in need of good care. I was denying that she really was dead. I had just come from interstate when she died and I didn't have my old, old friends and family who I know could have helped me through."

Carolyn's postponement of the grieving process had drastic consequences. "After three years, I knew I was cracking up. Literally. I could feel a crack in my chest." At that time Carolyn participated in a one day seminar with grief expert Elizabeth Kubler Ross who was visiting Melbourne. She realised, "I urgently had to begin grieving."

Unfortunately, at that time in Melbourne there were no self help groups for bereaved parents such as The Compassionate Friends and Carolyn discovered a paucity of understanding among professionals. "I searched for a psychiatrist, but when I told him that if I really experienced the depths of my anguish, I'd howl like an animal, he quickly moved me on." Carolyn sought another psychiatrist but he also was not capable of allowing her to grieve passionately. Eventually, Carolyn discovered a personal growth group that used psychodrama. She says, "because that method allows people to shout and scream and be very physical, finally, I could go to the depths of my grief and let go. And come to the point of celebrating Kerrins life."

"This healing process", Carolyn explains, "took a number of years, because I had to learn to be an open person, instead of a hidden person, a feeling person instead of controlled, an expressive person rather than a withdrawn person and an articulate person instead of an inarticulate person. But through facing up to the grieving process and putting myself into a supportive and loving group, I came out of the loss process a very enriched person, and when I became a psychologist, it gave me great confidence in people's ability to regenerate and rise above adversity."

The words, "Till death do us part," can have significant meaning for couples who have lost a child. According to Compassionate Friends, "an astounding seventy percent of marriages where children have died, become endangered and end in separation or divorce." Harriet Schiff, author of 'The Bereaved Parent' puts the marriage break-up figure even higher. She states, "some couples are in serious marital difficulty within months after the death of their child."

William Schatz, author of 'The Grief of Fathers', a booklet available from Compassionate Friends, claims there is a vast difference between the male and female grief response. Shatz, who attributes male attitudes towards grief to stereotypical conditioning says, "a man sees his wife frequently crying, having "blue days" and openly able to talk about her pain. In contrast, he may be irritable or angry and less able to verbalise his pain. There may be difficulties as they attempt to support and understand each other. She may see lack of openness as not caring. He may think there's something wrong with her because she's still crying after six or eight months, or that something is wrong with him because he's not sharing the same emotional response as his wife."

Carolyn McLean believes the death of her daughter contributed to her marriage break-up. Her husband who mainly worked overseas, devoted himself to his business, perhaps as a way of anaesthetising his pain. Carolyn says, "I remember writing to him, if you knew how unhappy I was, you would come home. I think we probably both resented that neither of us was able to comfort the other."

However, there has been light at the end of the tunnel for Carolyn's family. Last year, her ex husband flew to Australia and paid for two of their now grownup "children" to come to Melbourne from overseas. Carolyn recounts, "for the first time we visited Kerrin's graveside as a family and all cried and held each other. Then we all cooked lunch together and spent the afternoon looking at photos and telling stories. And because none of the children had partners or their own children with them it was a real celebration of all that had been good in our family life. It was immensely priceless and I'm very grateful that he did that."

At first, the bonus baby didn't seem to understand why his playmate Pammy wasn't there. His vocabulary and cognitive skills limited him to a concept of "Pammy gone". But, a few months later, when the penny dropped, he sobbed with his whole body. Cuddles may have been a comfort but they didn't quell his tears as they would have for a physical hurt. And, as he reaches more mature developmental stages, he occasionally has a "Pammy day". Sometimes there are obvious triggers, as one day when we were gardening together and he took his spade over to our dog's grave and told me. "I'm going to let the dog out." After a brief explanation about the dog, he thoughtfully made some connection, smiled and said, "I know, Pammy has gone on a big holiday." Other times, I am unaware of any obvious triggers, such as the time he declared, "Pammy is an angel." "Pammy is an angel?" I reflected. "Yes", he answered excitedly. Angels have wings. She could fly down. I will call her very loudly!"

In his three year old mind, the bonus baby is working it out. He is not the only one. On Pammy's birthday, early, Marion was up too. Working it out. And, that morning, as I discovered my bonus baby plastering his hair with a big brother's hair wax, I glanced thankfully at his sticky finger prints all over the mirror, hugged him tightly and told him what a spunk he was.

Then I grabbed the camera.

This article was first published in Better Parenting (Universal Magazines, Sydney.)