Welcome to the Free Spirits website. My name is Glenn Ainsworth and I live at Peregian Beach on the beautiful Sunshine Coast of Queensland. I have created this website to help others who have shared the experience of walking this difficult path; those who have said goodbye to their children through stillbirth or early infant loss.

I hope the drawings I share can offer families a small piece of joy and love in their time of sadness.

about me

For some reason or another I have always been able to draw. It is something I have enjoyed sharing in a variety of ways for as long as I can remember. Whenever I have the opportunity outside of my work as an engineer, I spend time doing art or relaxing with my family on the beach. This is me with my beautiful wife Nik and our two dogs Locky and Pablo. Locky (white) is smart, Pablo (brown)… not so much.

OUR STORY

In February 2014 our son Baxter was stillborn.

We were two days overdue and the earth shattering silence of a foetal heart monitor told us we were living every parent’s worst nightmare. With this news, time somehow stood still and our lives dissolved into an ocean of unbearable heartache and grief.

There are events in your life that shape who you are and guide you down a path you would never have chosen. Our journey together with Baxter has taken us to the depths of sadness and despair. Yet somehow it has also taken us to amazing heights and allowed us to see things with a completely different view. We have been able to meet some amazing people and find a depth of courage, gratitude, strength and support that I never knew existed. These mirrored feelings of grief and love have brought incredible depth to our lives; and for that I am thankful.

Being a part of my son’s birth has been the most amazingly beautiful yet the most heart wrenching experience of my life. The contrasted joy of meeting him and the sadness of letting him go is by far the hardest thing I have been through.

I was able to draw this sketch of Baxter from the brief time we spent together after he was born. I honestly can't remember what it was like before Bax was in our lives, he is the most beautiful thing we have ever seen and we miss him every single day.