Think about how you’re going to honour that baby in whatever way you want to, and how you’re going to carry on navigating life, and go back to being a normal human who can participate in life with everyone else, without shutting yourself off or becoming bitter, or not living your life to it’s full potential because of what’s happened to your family. She popped up in my suggested page on Instagram and I was instantly drawn in by her beautiful pictures of interiors and her gorgeous pug Borris. It’s hard to review this book when it is such a heart-breaking, personal story and when the author and I have such different world views and ways of coping with loss. Yes, I cried reading this book – it’s impossible not to feel emotional when following a mother’s account of losing her child, but it’s also layered with Elle’s trademark humour.

I chose this book to educate myself how to better support the bereaved/bereaving families I work with. The human race never ceases to surprise me: The person who you think wouldn’t know what to say, suddenly becomes an absolute hero of mine, because they say all the right things. Three days after delivering him into the world, she sat with Teddy as he took his last breaths, and tucked him in for the final time.

I really appreciate how Elle challenges our definition of motherhood and points out that many mothers continue on in the journey without their precious little ones - empty arms, nothing to show for their motherhood. The overall book is written from the heart that it’s hard not to get emotionally attached as a reader.

There were some very relatable parts but although the author repeatedly refers to everyone grieving differently, much of the content is also quite sneering/judgmental of those who do grieve differently to her, despite her having to go through much of what she judges in others to get to the place where she can be what she views as unendingly positive (I’d query this). Not many people know how the utter devastation that is caused by the death of a baby, but how Elle describes it is so breathtaking.So maybe it’s time that we all acknowledge its occurrence, and try, however hard, to engage with the conversation both as people who are directly affected, and those that love and support them. I was sobbing in some places and smiling in others, I wanted to give Elle a huge hug in many places, you can feel every emotion in this book and it is so beautifully well written. Because they are the charity who are out there doing exactly that: They are empowering women from the moment they find out they are pregnant to the moment they deliver that baby, to take ownership of that pregnancy and the little person that is growing inside them, and that they have the right to check.

This book not only validates the grief and the avalanche of emotions that bereaved parents face, but it's also a handy guide for anyone who's brave enough to dive into the details of this journey. I followed Elle on Instagram and had learnt about her son Teddy and his death only a few days after his birth through her photos and stories, shared with bravery and love.I’ve followed Elle’s story for the last few years after hearing her interview on Loose Women with Marina Fogle during baby loss awareness month. Ask Me His Name is a moving account of Elle's pregnancy, Teddy's life, and what happens when a mother leaves a hospital with empty arms. And that may sound really silly, as I know the name is ‘Mother’: If you give birth to a child you are that child’s mother regardless of whether that child is here or not.

I think it’s so important when you’re talking about maternity, when you’re talking about motherhood, that everybody’s narrative gets an opportunity to be heard: I come across a lot of women who have lost children, or had recurring miscarriages or stillbirths, and haven’t been able to go on and have any more children, but still consider themselves a mother. I have followed Elle for a while on Instagram and love her blog and her day to day post about general things.But the problem that we have in our culture and society, is that if somebody’s husband dies they’re a widow, and if somebody’s parents die they’re an orphan; whatever it is, if we have a word, we have a way to describe it. So I just say it to people, and sometimes I get them looking anywhere else but at me, and sometimes people are brilliant. That’s why I started the blog, because it’s not just about Teddy, it’s about all the other stuff in my life: I like interiors as well… We must admit that we first discovered Elle’s work because of her gorgeous floor tiles in a picture on Instagram. Before I met Elle and Michelle I wrongly assumed that when someone told me they’d lost a baby it meant they didn’t want to talk about it. This is a book that anybody can read, whether you have lost a child yourself, know someone who has lost a child or is just interested in Elle and her story.