Losing an animal while you are pregnant, or in the first months with a newborn, produces a grief that nobody around you quite knows what to do with. Everyone is focused on the happy thing, and you are quietly devastated about the dog. Heavenly Pastures arranges pet cremations for families across Bamber Bridge and the villages nearby. On the practical point, we keep no premises in Bamber Bridge. Everything happens at a single crematorium at Burscough, near Ormskirk, and we come out to you.
Grief That Arrives at the Wrong Time
There is no good time, but this is a particularly awkward one. The household is already exhausted and emotional, everyone outside it is expecting joy, and admitting how hard you are finding the loss of a pet can feel almost indecent when there is a healthy baby in the room. People in this position often say the hardest part was having nobody to tell, because every conversation that week was supposed to be about something else.
Why It Often Hits Harder
The animal you are losing usually belonged to the version of your life that has just ended anyway. For a lot of couples the dog was the first thing they had together, the practice run, the one who was there through the years before. Losing them at exactly the point when everything else changes means grieving the animal and the era simultaneously, and people are frequently blindsided by the size of it. Where the animal was around before a partner was, or came through a difficult few years, that history does not simply transfer to the new arrangement, and it deserves to be grieved on its own terms.
Hormones, Exhaustion and Not Coping
Being wrecked by this while sleep-deprived and hormonally upended is not a sign that something is wrong with you. It is a fairly predictable outcome of two things happening at once. If it tips into something that is not lifting, or you are struggling more generally, tell your midwife, health visitor or doctor plainly rather than filing it under being silly about a pet. They are used to hearing about grief in this period and will not dismiss it.
When People Say the Wrong Thing
Somebody will observe that it is probably for the best with a baby in the house. Somebody else will say at least you have the baby to focus on. These land badly and they are usually meant well. You are allowed to be furious about them privately and to say nothing at all in the moment. Nobody is required to educate anybody about grief while they are in the middle of it, and the people who said those things will generally never realise.
If the Timing Was Not Coincidental
Some families are in this position because a decision was made about an animal ahead of a baby arriving, whether about behaviour, health, or simply capacity. That carries a guilt of its own and it is worth being fair to yourself about it. Decisions made responsibly, with a vet’s input, in the interests of everybody in a household, are not betrayals, whatever they feel like at three in the morning.
The Choice to Make
There are two options. An individual cremation service keeps your animal on their own throughout, and their ashes are returned to you afterwards. A communal cremation service means several animals together with nothing coming back to anyone. If the household is overwhelmed and nobody can face a decision, it is entirely acceptable to say so and take a day. The costs sit on the pet cremation price list so nobody has to discuss money while holding a baby.
Telling Older Children
Where there is already an older child, a new sibling and a dead pet in the same few weeks is a great deal to process, and it sometimes comes out sideways as behaviour rather than sadness. Plain words help. So does letting them keep something of the animal’s, and letting their grief have its own space rather than being folded into the general upheaval. A few minutes given only to the animal, without the baby present, is worth more to a child than any amount of explanation.
Photographs You Will Want Later
If your animal is still with you and a baby is on the way, take a photograph of them together when the time comes. Families who have one treasure it, and those who did not manage it are the ones who mention it years later. If your pet has already gone, the Remembrance section of this website is somewhere to put a photograph and a few words.
Collection Around Bamber Bridge
We collect from homes throughout the area and from your veterinary practice, arranged around a household that is probably not running to any normal schedule. Costs follow travel time out from Burscough, with the bands set out on the areas we cover page, and there is no need for anybody to be presentable when we arrive. Houses with a new baby in them look how they look, and nobody coming through the door will register it.
Ringing Us
Call 01704 776976 whenever there is a gap, including with a baby crying in the background, which happens frequently and bothers nobody. Where a dog is involved, our individual dog cremation service page covers more, and the contact form is there for the small hours.