Lyndsay knew something was wrong as soon as she woke up.
"I hadn't felt any movement. I remember noticing it, but then just carried on with my day," she told Mamamia.
38 weeks pregnant at the time, the Sydney-based mum was kept busy with her three-year-old son Billy. Until she couldn't ignore the gut feeling.
Watch Lily Allen talk about stillbirth. Post continues after video.
"I messaged my very good friend, and said that I hadn't felt any movement. And she said, 'Okay, I don't want to freak you out, but maybe call the hospital and just ask for a check in'."
She took the advice, and the hospital staff suggested she come in for an ultrasound. "As I was vocalising, I thought 'something's not right here'," Lyndsay said.
After calling her partner Liam, who came home immediately, they went to the hospital with Billy. On route, Lyndsay recalled with a sinking jolt what she had told her three-year-old earlier on in the pregnancy.
"I remember saying to Billy, 'The next time you come into the hospital, there'll be a baby!'. And I remember thinking, 'Why did I say that? Because there's not.'
"I had already kind of decided that I knew the outcome."
Lyndsay's gut feeling was tragically proven right when no heartbeat was found. While she "already knew deep down" that she had lost her second baby — a girl they had planned to name Summer — it was a different story for her partner.
"Liam got the call from me, pretty much out of the blue, he just thought the baby was going to be in a bad position. I think for him it was very confronting."
Due to complications with the delivery, Lyndsay was kept in hospital for a few days, where she and Liam worked out how to break the news to Billy. At this point, all the three-year-old knew was that his mum and baby sister "weren't very well".
"I knew he was really invested in becoming a brother, and Summer was due the day after his birthday," Lyndsay shared. "We had said, 'You're going to be a brother for your birthday!'. So I knew that he would really feel it."
Arriving back home, Lyndsay met Billy in the garden. Here, he asked the first of what would be many questions, 'What did you have?'
Lyndsay responded, "A little girl."
"He just carried on playing. Then my husband and I took him up for a sleep," she shared. When Billy woke up, it was time for the difficult conversation.
"We were told to, quite bluntly, say the baby died, which is quite confronting language, but we were told to try to make it as clear as possible," Lyndsay said.
"He had lots of questions, very maturely for a three-year-old. 'Why didn't the doctor give her medicine?' he asked. And we said, 'Oh, you know, the medicine didn't work'.
Billy: So, where is she now?
Lyndsay: She's gone to heaven.
Billy: But the medicine will work, and she'll come back?
"Those conversations were difficult, obviously," Lyndsay said.
"But we were told that it was really important for him to understand that we were sad, and feeling sad is fine. If you try to mask it, then they know something's off. But if you say, 'Mum is sad, and it's okay to be sad, and Dad's just a bit sad', they know those feelings are around."
Navigating their own grief in tandem, their son gave Lyndsay, now 47, and Liam, 39, a "reason to not fall apart".
"I couldn't go to bed and not get out of bed, that just wasn't an option," she said.
As Billy processed the news, Lyndsay continued to answer his questions.
What was my friend called? What did she look like? How did she get to heaven?
"Then he'd blow her a kiss," Lyndsay recalled. "The emotional intelligence for him as a three-year-old was really special. It made it a kind of lovely experience.
"Some people might not want to say, 'What does she look like?' They'd be like, 'You can't ask that'. But kids just say it how it is. He'll sometimes say, 'I wish she hadn't died'. And I'm like, 'I know, me too!'."
Six years later, nine-year-old Billy now has a little brother named Beau. The five-year-old is equally as curious about his older sister.
"How old would Summer be now?" Beau once asked his mum.
"He'll also correct me sometimes," Lyndsay laughed. "I'll say, 'Billy came first, and then you'. And Beau will say, 'No, then Summer!'."
The brothers also openly talk about Summer with their friends.
"Has Beau got a sister?" a family friend's daughter recently asked Lyndsay.
"I replied, 'Yeah he does, but she's in heaven'."
For Lyndsay, the acknowledgement is better than the alternative — that Summer's memory is forgotten. As a family, they make sure to honour Summer every day.
Along with a constellation of her time of birth hanging up in their family home — next to Billy and Beau's — Summer's birthday is celebrated every year.
"The first year I found the lead up to the day really difficult," Lyndsay shared.
Joined by her dad, the family drove to North Head, near the hospital where they lost Summer.
"We let the balloons up as if they were kind of going up to heaven, which was really sweet. And then we got more aware of the environmental impact, so now we take a bubble machine."
Sometimes close friends and family will remember the special day, and send flowers or messages. It's these types of gestures that move Lyndsay, who never wants her loved ones to feel like they can't talk about her little girl.
"I think the first time that people saw me afterwards it was probably a tricky one. I totally recognise that," Lyndsay said. "I do think with stillbirth, people don't know how to handle it.
"But it's not a taboo subject," she stresses.
"It's not something I would ever want anybody to apologise for. I think sometimes people think, 'Oh God, I can't say that, because that will upset her'. It's not like they're going to remind me that we don't have Summer, we all know that. Sometimes it's nice to talk about her, it's healthy to have that release.
"People that have touched me physically and said 'I'm so sorry', that's really powerful. That's what I would really encourage. Just acknowledge it, you don't have to ask lots of questions or anything but, I think, otherwise, it doesn't get acknowledged."
Lyndsay and her family continue to show their appreciation for two charities, Gidget House and Bears of Hope. Gidget House provided free, individual, psychological counselling and advice to the grieving parents. Bears of Hope provided cuddle cots that allowed Lyndsay and Liam to spend time with Summer in the days after losing her.
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