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| Balaraman / FreeDigitalPhotos.net |
I read enough to realise that women often take photos of their dead babies. Something that I don't think we tend to do when an adult dies. Presumably because adults already have lots of photos taken throughout their life but a stillborn baby has never had any photos?
After Orson was stillborn the midwives took some photos for us. It is a standard thing in our hospital, maybe a standard thing in most hospitals? If you don't want the photos then they keep them in your records in case you change your mind. They gave us four photos. S also took a few photos on his phone, as did I, my favourite was one of me holding Orson. It was the last time I held him when I was saying good bye. Of course I was crying uncontrollably so thankfully S took the photo so you just see Orson and my arms holding him whilst he is wrapped in blankets. I like it because it shows how big he was.
We thought at the time it seemed a bit morbid to take photos and I suppose it is. But I am glad I have those photos. Admittedly I would never put them on display and the only people who have ever seen them are me, S and Orson's grandparents. I don't look at them very often but when I need to I do. I find myself gazing at the photos trying to see a resemblance to M, S or me.
I imagine that a lot of people don't even realise we have photos. Why would they even think about it? Until you have been in that situation why would you think about such things?
I know there are whole businesses out there which can help take photos for parents who have just lost their baby. They take professional photos so you end up with great photos which will be much better than the regular hospital ones. Sometimes the photos will have both parents in too and look much like any other family photo. It never occurred to me to see if there was such a company where I live. I do not regret that, I like how our photos are personal.
There are other companies and people that offer services you can use weeks, months or even years after your photos were taken. They will do pencil drawings of your baby photos, or paintings, or engravings. You can even have your baby's image on a necklace. I would never want to wear a necklace like that, what if a complete stranger saw it and asked about my baby? I really am not that comfortable talking about Orson. Maybe as time goes by I will change my mind, we will see. Right now I am just happy we have a few photos to look at when we want to.
Just after Christmas in 2007 I was driving home from visiting S's parents when I noticed I hadn't felt M move, once we got home I still couldn't feel him move. So we called the hospital that evening. I was 35 weeks pregnant. They told me to come into the Labour and Delivery Suite immediately. We walked to the hospital. At no point did I think there was a big problem. In retrospect considering all the stories I have heard since losing Orson I cannot believe I waited a whole day without feeling movements before calling the hospital. And how could I not have been petrified that we had lost him?
As soon as we arrived at the hospital the staff ushered us into a private room. Within minutes a doctor was in the room with us. She immediately started to scan me. A midwife was also present. Now that I think about it the situation is so similar to that when we were told Orson's heart had stopped but at the time I did not think there was a problem with M. I was of course correct. I recall the midwife saying to S "you can hold her hand if you want" I think they were thinking it was bad news.
M was fine, but he didn't move at all on the scan. They scanned me for a long time and gave me ice cold water to drink in the hope he would move but he was having a lazy time and wouldn't move for them. After the scan they monitored him using a ctg machine, he finally moved and they were less concerned. They let me home.
What followed was two weeks of hospital appointments almost every day. The next day I spent most of the day at the hospital, monitoring M's heart, growth scans, AFI checks, chord blood flow checks... They booked me in for an appointment with a consultant for two weeks later. They told me that I was probably not feeling movements because my placenta was anterior. Whilst waiting for my consultant appointment a few times a week I had ctgs of M's heart at the hospital.
Again knowing what I know now I cannot believe I did not worry about my treatment. I was feeling about one movement from M a day. That was not right but I just did not worry.
Finally the day of consultant appointment came around. It was also my last day of work. I was about to go on maternity leave. The consultant insisted on repeating every test I had already had, I am so glad she did because the growth scan showed that M had not grown in the last two weeks. She immediately booked me in for an induction.
Just before the induction was started I was still not convinced there was a problem with M. I was concerned I was being delivered too early. I even asked for a second doctor to come and explain why I needed to be induced. It was only when she mentioned stillbirth that I suddenly realised that I was happy to be induced that day.
The day before M was born the induction started at about 11 in the morning. I had been told that because M was my first baby and because I was being induced early the induction would most likely take days. I was convinced I had about 4 days before he would make an appearance.
I had a gel pessary and had to wait hours before they examined me to see if it had started working. During this time I felt perfectly normal. I even popped out of the hospital to go to a coffee shop for lunch. Because I had felt nothing the midwife who examined me thought nothing had happened yet - until she checked. I had painlessly dilated enough to allow them to break my waters (ironic?).
I will spare you the next few hours in detail. To be honest I do not remember them that well, isn't amazing how we forget these things? I was on a drip with continuous monitoring of M's heart. He was eventually delivered with the help of a ventouse at 6 minutes past 1 in the morning. He weighed 5lb 10 oz.
I am incredibly grateful he is here. I cannot believe he will be three years old. The time has gone so quickly.
Happy Birthday M.
I have come a long way in six months. The time has flown by compared to the weeks before his death which were extremely slow. I am in a much better place than I was however I still have my moments.
I was looking at photos of my partner S with his older brother taken when they were young children. I found myself trying to see if M looked like S. And then enevatably I found myself wondering about Orson. S's mother was here and when we were looking at one of the photos she even said "two little brothers."
I can't help but feel that we should already have photos of M and his brother. Instead M doesn't know about Orson. He was only two when he died and we felt he was too young to understand. We will tell him one day when he is a little older and show him photos.
And then I found myself wondering if we will ever have photos of M and a younger brother or sister. If you had asked me a year ago I would have said yes, now I really don't know. I hope so.
One or two of the bloggers mentioned they were worried about upsetting their readers. I have always loved finding out about pregnancies after pPROM. It has always - even from quite early on after my loss - given me hope.
So big congratulations and good luck to:
Lara at http://babyhtaketwo.blogspot.com/
Amanda at http://thisgirl-amanda.blogspot.com/
and Emily at http://aidanbabyofmine.blogspot.com/
Whilst my Christmas was surprisingly happy the lead up to the new year has been surprisingly sad. Nothing bad actually happened but I have been feeling a little lower than usual.
A year ago on New Year's Eve I found out I was pregnant with Orson. The new year started off with lots of hope. I knew that there was a chance of miscarriage but I thought if it was to happen it would be early. If it happened I thought we would be fine and move on quickly. I was hopeful that by now we would either have a baby brother or sister for M or I would be heavily pregnant. I never ever even for a second thought we would be where we are right now; parents to a stillborn baby boy.
A few days ago I found myself looking through photos of Orson, something I don't do often. Generally I only look through the photos when I am feeling sad. I found myself trying hard to imagine how Orson would have looked had he lived, how he would have moved...
I can review my feelings on 2010 in a few simple words; sad, unfair, a nightmare... I could go on so maybe a few words aren't enough after all. Those words really don't do 2010 justice, they don't describe how bad it was. Thinking about it this whole blog to date covers my thoughts on 2010 and there is still a lot more I want to write.
I do not know if I will ever completely get over 2010. It has already got easier to cope and I know it will continue to get easier to cope. I will continue to hope that 2011 will be fabulous. Please, please can it be a fabulous year?
