Mum who found baby lying dead next to twin brother keeps his memory alive by helping bereaved despite ‘stabbing pain’

A mother who found her baby son dead in his cot lying alongside his identical twin has described the “stabbing pain” she still experiences from her grief, but after processing the shock and trauma is keeping her late son’s memory alive by offering award-winning help for the bereaved.

Harley Cunningham, 39, a network operation planning manager at Virgin Media O2, who lives in Woking with her husband Peter, 40, an IT consultant, and their sons, Edward, four, and John, 10 months, lost Edward’s twin, James, when he was just 21 months old.

In the early hours of a morning in February 2020, Harley screamed when she found James “lifeless and a little bit grey” in his cot after a night of coughing.

Peter performed CPR and paramedics spent half an hour trying to resuscitate James without success.

James had often been in and out of hospital whenever he had a cold, but the postmortem revealed that he had bronchopneumonia.

Harley said the whole experience “felt like a dream” and it was not until she had a miscarriage a few months after James’ death that she fully began to process her grief – the pain of which still rears its head when she gets “unexpected flashbacks” at times from the sight of James’ identical twin Edward.

When Harley rang her employer the morning her son died, her manager “didn’t know what to say” or how to immediately support her – she thought it felt more like an “admin conversation”.

So, she set up a hug in a box – a gift box to send to bereaved employees – and has helped Virgin Media O2 give staff a further five compassionate days of paid leave.

Harley has recently given birth to another boy, John, and is also training to be a bereavement counsellor to help colleagues, and would like to one day open up her own business, in James’ memory.

Harley told PA Real Life: “Edward and James were 99.9% identical, and every so often, when Edward’s hair is all wet and across the other side of his face, he looks exactly like James, and I get unexpected flashbacks, which is hard – it’s like a stabbing pain in the heart.

“The shock and trauma of my son passing away and having to still get up every day and function as a mum to his twin brother, Edward, was the toughest situation I’ve ever had to deal with.”

Harley gave birth to her three-and-a-half-pound identical twin boys, Edward and James, who were six weeks’ premature, in May 2019.

She said: “We felt really lucky and I felt like a supermum breastfeeding both of them until nine months.”

In September 2019, James contracted a viral infection which gave him cold symptoms and he was coughing and wheezing.

From then on, around every three months, James was taken to hospital or accident and emergency, and given steroids or an inhaler.

In February 2020, at 21 months old, James appeared to have another round of cold symptoms.

Harley explained: “I came home from work and James was on the sofa with my husband and he was very tired – he had been a lot worse in the past so it didn’t ring alarm bells.”

James continued coughing overnight and sadly passed away in his cot next to his twin brother.

Harley said: “At around midnight, I checked on the twins, and again at 4am, and James was coughing so I gave him some water in a sippy cup.

“Really bizarrely, he didn’t give me the cup back, and normally he would, but I went back to bed.

“When I woke up to go to the toilet, I could hear James coughing, and I went back into the room, but two minutes later, I couldn’t hear James at all.

“I grabbed Edward and moved him into my bedroom because I didn’t want him to see anything.

“James was lifeless and a little bit grey, and I screamed – he was dead.”

Peter, Harley’s husband, came into the room and performed CPR, and Harley called an ambulance.

Paramedics spent half an hour trying to resuscitate him, but could not, and he was taken into hospital and officially pronounced dead.

Harley said: “It felt like a dream, and I felt so numb, it was like walking on air but in such a bad way.”

In the postmortem, it was discovered that James’ symptoms were a sign of bronchopneumonia.

In March, the family had James’ funeral, but because of Covid, they were not able to hug their loved ones, which Harley thinks “prolonged their grieving process”.

Just a few months later, Harley had a miscarriage, and this additional grief made James’ death, “really hit home” and she contacted Twins Trust Bereavement Service.

Harley said: “Twins Trust was amazing, I had a befriender in the early days who spoke to me as and when I needed support.

“Sometimes I couldn’t speak and I didn’t want to speak.

“I remember crying on the sofa for an hour with my befriender and she listened to me.”

This made Harley go back over everything that had happened, and she realised that her work’s response to her baby dying was not as sympathetic as she would have liked.

She explained: “When I phoned my boss about James’ death, he didn’t know what to say, and he eventually said that he’d speak to HR – it was very much an admin conversation.

“My employers are amazing, but I don’t think my manager, or many people in general, knew what to do.”

Harley also found that colleagues were not sure how to approach the subject and it made her realise that she wanted to help provide more support for the bereaved in the workplace.

So, Harley created a hug in a box, a gift box packed with food vouchers, a book about grief, seed packets, a mindfulness colouring book and her own personal story, for managers to send to their bereaved employees.

Her workplace has also improved its bereavement policy by launching a further five compassionate days of paid leave.

Since then, Harley has received two awards for her work – she was named Best Returner at the Women in Tech Excellence Awards in 2022, and in June 2023, she was presented with the It Can Happen Founders’ Choice Award for outstanding service to mental health.

“I have mixed feelings about (the awards),” Harley said.

“I felt sad I had to get the awards as James had died, but I was really happy that all the work I had done was helping other people in James’s honour.”

In January 2023, Harley welcomed another baby, John, into her family.

She said: “I had a second miscarriage the year before, so I was worried and had a bit of anxiety around sleeping.

“But now he is older, I feel a lot better, especially because he hasn’t had any of James’ cold symptoms.”

She is now doing bereavement counsellor training to set up workshops and drop-ins with her colleagues who have experienced bereavement, and has become a Twins Trust befriender.

“I meet all these mums who have had losses similar to mine… the strength of these mums is amazing, you don’t know how strong you are until something like this happens to you,” she said.

Looking to the future, she said: “I want to keep James’ memory alive – we have pictures of him all throughout the house, and talk about him whenever we can.”

Baby Loss Awareness Week runs from October 9 to 15, for support go to babyloss-awareness.org or contact twinstrust.org