Harry Arter reflects on baby loss experience

Bournemouth football player, Harry Arter, has spoken to The Guardian newspaper to reflect of the last 12 months since his daughter, Renee, was sadly stillborn.

Renee was born on the 10th December 2015, and Harry has since spoken to The Guardian sharing his and his fiancee Rachel’s experiences of baby loss. In the interview he talks candidly about the struggles he has faced with grief and the effect that Renee’s death has had on him as a football player also.

In part of the interview, Harry discussed how his grief affected him emotionally: “I wasn’t in a good place around that time. Physically I wasn’t great – I think stress takes a lot out of your body and I was always picking up little injuries – while mentally I was completely in the wrong place. I was very angry towards people, which I now think was the sense of loss taking over. I was lashing out and the closest people were those at work. I never got angry with Rachel. I was probably storing up so much at home because I was looking after Rachel that I didn’t grieve in my own way.

“I can reflect on this now because I feel like I’m in a much better head space than I was then, but at that time I honestly didn’t think anything was wrong with me. I just thought it was everyone else. All it took was one person to say something to me and I was ready to kill the world.

“I probably should have been a little bit more professional and decided I needed a little bit of time off to get my head straight. But I never asked for a day. I got upset, I did shed tears but probably nowhere near as many as I should have and all of that came out in the wrong way some three or four months afterwards.”

Harry also talks about the positive work that they have done in Renee’s memory, by fundraising for the charity 4Louis who supplied Harry and Rachel with a memory box. Supported by fellow teammates and footballers, they raised £14,000 for the charity, and they were able to supply Southampton’s Neonatal unit with a cuddle cot, dedicated in Renee’s name.

Harry also discussed how he has helped others by sharing his story and being open by his experiences.  “On social media I get a lot of messages from people thanking me for telling my story, saying that it helped them a lot,” he says. “In a selfish way, when I did that first interview with you, I was just saying how I was feeling to get things off my chest. But now I’m really happy that I can help people and I’d be prepared to speak to anyone to make them feel better in their situation.”

The couple are also expecting another child, due in February. In the interview, Harry comments on the difficult emotions that a pregnancy after a loss can bring: “I just hope everyone doesn’t think that because we’re having a new baby that we’ll forget about Renée, because that’s totally not the case. Rachel is still so sad about the situation, so I need to make sure that she stays strong now – which she is doing.”

In his preparations to celebrate Renee’s birthday, he comments that he is now able to focus more on the positive effect that she has had on their lives. “Having Renée on my mind doesn’t fill me with depression any more. It fills me with a bit of happiness, I enjoy talking about her like any dad would talk about their little girl. That’s probably down to feeling a lot better in myself and seeing Rachel a little bit happier, because we both know that Renée wouldn’t want us to be sad. She’d want us to be happy and to make sure that we look after one another, and that’s certainly what we’re doing now.”

You can read the full interview here.

Photo credit: The Guardian