‘I couldn’t bear the thought of my little boy just dying inside me. I wanted to hold him and let him know he wasn’t alone’

Laura Doyle and her husband got a devastating diagnosis for Beau, their much-wanted son and little brother to their three elder children, at his 21-week anomaly scan. She writes about the shock, the grief, her gratitude at being able to spend time with her baby boy and her plans to help others and honour his memory

Laura Doyle whose baby son Beau passed away due to fatal faetal abnormality in November 2019 at her home in Delgany Co Wicklow. Photo by Steve Humphreys

Laura Doyle

ON the rare occasion, especially these days, that I take my kids to the supermarket I am usually met with the same comment: “Well you have your hands full there.”

I nod and smile but inside I’m screaming. I want to cry out that my hands should be fuller, that I had another child, one more who should be here, he just didn’t get to stay. And I walk away never mentioning that I had one more baby. One who now lives in the sky.