By the end of this month we should be living in a new house. We’re moving to what we expect will be our forever home and I can’t wait.

I’m excited about the move but I also wonder how I’ll feel as I close this door for the last time. This house has been the setting for so much of my life story to date. It’s been home for 14 eventful years. It’s the house where Conor lived and kicked but also the house where he died.  It’s the house we planned to sell when pregnant with Conor but only now have the energy and decision making abilities to do so.  It’s a house that has witnessed so much raw emotion I’m surprised I never caused a flood with all the tears. It’s a house I felt safe in even when we returned from the maternity hospital completely empty handed. It’s the house I hibernated in when the world outside was too scary.  It’s also the house my dad visited on his many DIY mini breaks. It’s where he taught me how to paint walls and fill holes (a technique very similar to icing a cake!)

I am ready and eager to move. If you stand in a particular spot in the new house there’s a little glimpse of the sea that’s at the end of our road. I’m also ready to put myself out there to meet new people. I am hoping to find play mates for Conor’s little brother. On the whole I find interaction with strangers easier than with people I sort of know. I have no expectations of their expectations of me. The new neighbours will only know the new me so there can be no comparisons with how I used to be. I do wonder however how and when I’ll tell any new people that I am a mother to two special boys and not just the one they can see and hear. If I delay telling them will I give the impression that Conor is a taboo subject. Yet if I tell them straight away do I risk scaring people off with my dead baby story. I have got so used to telling it that I forget how it shocks others. I hope I can get the balance right and that my story is heard with kindness.

I do not feel that moving from this house means I am moving on from Conor.  There’s a beach just 5 minutes walk away waiting to have his name written in the sand.  There’s a new oven waiting to bake cakes for Conor.  There’s also a railway that passes by our new house and Conor’s graveyard.  I’ll think of him (and Dad who loved that train journey) every time I hear the trains.  In the meantime we had road repairs outside our current house. I crept out under the cover of darkness and left a permanent reminder of the two amazing boys who lived here; our little star and his rainbow brother.