I have decided to write this piece as have just read a post – My Baby Was Born Stillborn At 33 Weeks by a very brave mum. My experience isnt such a tragic story but something I still dont talk about to this day and find difficult to get my head around.
On 19th December 2009 I found out I was pregnant. It wasnt planned but still I was very excited at becoming a mummy for the first time. Very soon after the morning sickness started. After a few weeks of severe sickness and loosing a stone in weight my mum started to worry. She took me to the doctors where I was sent away due to it being “just a touch of morning sickness”. Over the next few weeks I became weaker and weaker due to the sickness but believed it was normal.
At my 12 week scan I saw my baby for the first time, nothing could describe the feeling, knowing that little baby was living inside me was the strangest thing. All was well and I was sure everything was going to be fine, I had no reason to doubt it.
I continued being very ill, was taken to A&E twice and turned away yet again. By this point I had lost 2 and a half stone and couldnt keep even water down.
When I was 14 weeks pregnant my mum had had enough, she took me to the doctors, demanded I peed in a cup and have them test it. The test showed 4+ keytones which indicated I was very malnurished. I was sent to hospital where I was admitted straight away.
A midwife came to take my bloods and put a drip in so they could rehydrate me, but the damage had already been done. 17 attempts to get blood from me due to my veins collapsing they said they would have to get an anethatist to try. Finally after alot of attempts leaving me very bruised and sore they managed to get a drip in and started to rehydrate me. They cheked the babys heartbeat and said all was fine. I was in the hope they could get me back to health and i would sail through the rest of my pregnancy.
Days later I was told I was having liver problems which they put down to colliestasis. This normally happens in the 3rd trimester of pregnancy and causes complications so they were very suprised it had happened so early in my pregnancy.
After a few days I had been on anti sickness drugs and slowly started keeping small bits of food down. I started to feel better and the colour started coming back to my face.
I went for a liver scan on the 22nd febuary as my liver was larger than it should have been. After the scan the woman asked if I wanted to see my baby so of course I said yes.
Then I got the most devastating news that the hear had stopped beating.
I felt my world crash around me. My mum, who was with me, was in pieces. We went back to the maternity ward where the midwives tried to comfort me. They talked me through my options but said they wanted me to stay in hospital due to my health problems. I refused, having a ward full of babies and new mums was too much.
They gave me 2 tablets that would start loosening my womb and sent me home. I was told to go back 2 days later where I would have an operation to remove my baby. At home I couldn’t get my head around the fact that my baby that I was still carrying, would never be in my arms.
Two days later I returned to hospital. Sat in the waiting area people asked why I was there, I just couldnt answer.
A short while later a nurse came to get me, she was 8 months pregnant. It felt like someone had kicked me in the gut.
I followed her to a side room to wait for the consultant. When he came in he sat down and started explaining what was going to happen. Though it wasnt how I had been told. The operation I was told I was having couldnt be performed due to being too far along in the pregnancy and I would have to have labour induced.
I was distraught, the thought of seeing my baby terrified me as I didnt have a clue what to expect. They made me deliver my dead baby.
I was put in my own room and started on a drip to induce my labour. It was agony. Dosed up on morphine I spent 8 hours in labour when my waters broke. I went into shock as I had no idea this would happen, I thought I would just bleed and miscarry, I was not prepared for any on this.
Two hours later I felt pressure and with a little push my baby was born. My mum and I were the only ones in the room so she pulled the emergancy cord. I refused to look afraid of what i would see. I was only 16 weeks so imagined the baby wouldnt be formed properly. A nurse came in and took the baby out of the room, when she returned she asked if I would like to see “him”.
I had had a little boy, and they could already tell he was a boy.
I was amazed. I said id like to see him and they bought him in in a tiny blanket. Considering I was so early in the pregnancy he was so perfecty formed, mouth, nose, eyelids, little fingers and toes. Just very tiny, he only need his bones to strengthen and put on weight and he would have been a healthy baby boy.
The nurse took a picture of him for me so i could keep it. Some people may think that slightly morbid but hes still my baby.
I was discharged the next day but told my little boy had to have an autopsy done. When i got home i was completely numb. It was heartbreaking telling my 6 year old brother what had happened to the baby he was so excited about. He just said “im still an uncle but the babys in the clouds”. My heart melted.
A month later the autopsy results were in. A blood clot had developed in the placenta which caused my little boy to die. They couldnt tell me wether it was down to my health problems or not.
We held his funeral on the 23rd March. Everyone cried as his tiny coffin was carried up the aisle with a teddy bear with his name on following behind. We named him Hayden Kai. We all walked out to “arms of an angel”. We then followed the herse with his tiny coffin to the cremetorium where we said our last goodbyes. No one can describe the pain i felt that day.
I still think of him every day. The pain never goes just gets a little easier to deal with. I now have a little girl, and she was no easy pregnancy either but someone up there was deffinately looking out for her and she made it here safely. When shes older she will know all about her big brother in the clouds but for now I just believe hes up the looking down on us. And I hope I make him proud.