Amelia's Story

Taken from my blog post http://yourbriefmoment.blogspot.co.nz/2012/03/shes-been-gone-awhile-now.html

I miss her.

To remember what happen on those days when we found out our daughter had died is like a foggy dream and wonder if it was real.  But the details of those days are clear in their haze-like appearance - forever etched into my memory.

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Wednesday 21^st September 2011

Have I felt her move today?  I don’t think I have.  Surely she’s just running out of room – we’re due next Wednesday, that must be it.  Still poke, prod, push – wake up baby girl.

Thursday 22^nd September           

I wake with tears in my eyes.  I know something’s not right.  I try more things to get her to move – sugary food, cold drinks, warm bath, pleading.  Not one thump, push or kick, not one hiccup, not one single thing. 

I ring my midwife, trying to sound rational and calm.  “Meet me at the hospital” she says.

I say to my midwife as she arrives ‘I know I’m just being irrational and we’re just going to hear her heart beat and I’m going to feel really silly’.  The Doppler goes on.  It’s moved to the left.  It’s moved to the right.  My partner had been optimistic too but within a split second relocates from the end of the bed to my side.  Then those words ‘I’m sorry Diane.”  I knew. 

My eyes shut, my hands over them, shock. We’re shuffled off for an ultrasound through the waiting room full of expectant mothers – I couldn’t see their faces, everything was awash with white, a blur. Do you want to see the screen, no I don’t want to see my dead baby floating on the screen, please turn the monitor off.  Eyes closed, whispering ‘this doesn’t happen to me’. The technician chimes in with those words, ‘I’m sorry, there is no heartbeat’.  Ushered back into a room - sitting there, us two, not us three anymore.

We go home.  We needed time to comprehend, to understand (if we ever can), to cry, to talk, to let some of the shock wear off. 

At home we cry, we choose an outfit for our daughter to wear, we cry, we call people and tell them the devastating news, we discuss names, we mindlessly watch tv.  We are confused - this doesn’t happen, how does this happen, why does this happen.  I am one week from my due date, this isn’t how its meant to happen. 

Friday 23^rd September & Saturday 24^th September

I wake up numb.  Today I deliver my baby.  My baby who is not alive.  I am afraid, I am numb, I am in shock, I am on auto pilot.  I spend the last peaceful moments in the shower with just my baby and me.

We get a taxi to the hospital and sit in silence watching the world continue on around us.  People going to work, people unaware that our baby was dead.  The taxi driver dropping a pregnant lady off to the hospital, unaware that I was carrying a baby that no longer moved with life.  People watching us enter the hospital with bags thinking ‘there’s another happy couple about to have a baby, how nice’.

I want to get on with this quickly and urge for the induction to begin.  Prostaglandin is administered and then the waiting.

Those 2 days waiting were hard, so hard.  We talked, we cried, we waited for the labour to begin.  We listened to music that was far too sad and made us cry more.  I felt afraid.  What would happen once she was born, what do they do with her, what are we meant to do.  Do we see her, how will it be to look at a dead baby, I don’t want to hold her, I’m too scared.

On Saturday afternoon I am finally in active labour and they take me down to the birthing suite.  They hadn’t taken me down earlier to avoid seeing any other pregnant ladies in labour with living babies.  I know it was for my benefit, but it made me feel tragic - like I was something that needed to be hidden.

On Saturday 24^th September at 7.24pm - after many cursive words, no epidural (but entenox and Pethadine) and many points of just simply wanting to give up this futile exercise – I delivered our beautiful daughter, Amelia. 

Finally the moment I was frightened of arrived.  Seeing and holding my daughter.

The fear melted as soon as I held her, she was after all, my perfect, beautiful daughter.  She was mine.  I spent 9 months growing her so perfectly and here she was along with the instant love and pride of a new parent.  Finally being able to gaze upon her sweet face, feel the weight and warmth of her body, and cradle her in my arms was amazing and a moment I will treasure forever. 

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The moment I knew of you, I loved you Amelia.  I will continue to love you now and forever.  

“If there ever comes a time when we can’t be together, keep my in your heart, I’ll stay there forever.” Winnie-the-Pooh

Always in my heart - Amelia, 24 September 2011.