I decided to create family memory boxes for Astrid’s first birthday. I’m not sure where the idea came from, but it popped into my mind one day that I’d like to give some of Astrid’s family a little gift from her and it went from there.

We had been so ready to share our girl as her birth approached, and then when it was clear she was unwell our parenting instincts came into full force and we simply wanted to protect her. We did that by keeping certain things to the three of us and her healthcare team, with very specific invites where we could. At the same time, she was our brand new perfect daughter who we wanted to show off to the world. It was a fine balance (and still is) of how we both celebrate and protect her.

When Astrid passed away, many of the physical items we had of hers became incredibly precious, these were her things and symbols of not only her life but the start of our parenthood. Then there were new items, the items we created together as a family, kindly shared and donated by nurses, charities such as 4Louis and Honeysuckle, and also other bereaved families. We kept these items close to us and wanted to keep them protected. That fine balance of how we shared our girl with others who loved her became trickier to find as we managed our own loss. In the early days I longed to be back in hospital, not only because that would mean we were still physically together, but because honestly it was easier. We had to protect her then, she needed physically looking after, and we could control things to some degree, but when she passed there were no longer practical barriers, it was up to us.

The choice we made as a family in the early days was certainly the right one for us, we kept everything about Astrid as safe as we could, we shared what felt right and adjusted that over time. As the year went on and her birthday neared, I personally felt that I had a better grasp on what felt good to share now, particularity as it related to Astrid’s things. Together, we agreed what felt right to share and Astrid’s birthday memory boxes were the result.

Creating and giving the boxes was a very healing and special experience. It was a part of my imagined Motherhood that I was gaining back. I had hoped to spend evenings crafting things for my children and creating new traditions and doing this gave me that back. There are so many parts to the Motherhood I dreamed of that I have not yet been able to realise, and many parts I have lived that I never imagined, so being able to do this was really important to me in ways I hadn’t anticipated.

I bought white gift boxes that seemed sturdy enough to me to be used for a long time but also beautiful and simple. They had a magnetic closure and white ribbon, which felt fitting for a first birthday. I was able to find vinyl stickers in a colour and font that felt very ‘us’ and had those made so I could add them to the tops of the boxes. Simply searching for the materials also felt like a way I was loving my girl, and finding the things that felt just right.

I lined the boxes with a white tissue paper with just the right amount of sparkles and got to preparing the bits to go inside. We wanted the boxes to feel complete just as they were but also inviting enough for family to add their own memories and items in.

We selected pictures, both of Astrid, of us three together and of us when I was pregnant with Astrid. These all felt like parts of her life and we printed a sweet little selection. Some people were also able to meet Astrid and so we also printed photos of them together if we had them and put them in that person’s box.

I created a little birth announcement style card with her details on and a cute bunny image that has become one of our instant Astrid symbols. I did a lot of trial and error in creating nice copies of her hand and footprints, it was really important to me that for the boxes these were lifesize and I got there in the end, so a copy of these went into each box too.

While in hospital, an especially lovely nurse (they were all Saints in my eyes) asked if we knew how long Astrid was. It isn’t standard for babies to be measured at birth anymore and she felt (I agreed) that it was important we knew how long she was! She took out a paper tape measure and marked 50.5cm on it. She then, with the help of another nurse cut out ribbons that represented how long she was at 9 days old and tied them to beautiful hand written tags. We had a few of these so I decided to recreate them with wooden tags so everyone had a little representation of how big baby girl was. Over time this has become increasingly special to me as her weight wasn’t something we could accurately capture or know to be true due to the fluid changes she experienced each day. Her length was a special little nod to her newborn identity, like a birth weight is so to many others.

I had mentioned the boxes to our Honeysuckle support group and one of the volunteers who put together their memory boxes offered to send me some items. These included a beautiful white butterfly (something else we now love to see), a delicate white ribbon which was just cute in my eyes and a heart in the hand key ring, where the little heart could stay in her box, and the keyring could be used. There was also a baby-sized bracelet which became a project in itself. All these lovely items went into Astrid’s birthday boxes and I also wrote a card explaining what they were. The cards featured artwork from ‘Guess How Much I Love You’ which was the last book we read to baby girl and has become a gorgeous symbol of our unending love for our girl.

These boxes were symbolic of us giving a little bit of Astrid to her family, in a way that as her parents felt fitting of how we chose to parent our first daughter. It wouldn’t have been the same if people wanted these items, I think the big effort on our part was the choice to invite people in and give a little bit of our girl to those who love her just as much as we do. Over time this will grow I’m sure, but to be here one year on is more than I could have imagined.