I had a perfect pregnancy and gave birth to a perfectly formed son. Unfortunately he never cried out.
A stillborn to any parent is no different than the loss of any living child. Like all mothers know the connection to your child is unreal in how much love and joy he gives you, this does not change.
I still had a vaginal delivery, no different than a live birth. My son was bathed, weighed and measured. We held him and took many pictures. Relatives and friends came to hold our child. He was just perfect! He was everything we hoped for….we wanted him to have his daddy’s long fingers and toes and he did. He had my cute little ears; his father’s thin lips and my forehead and eye shape. We will never know the colour of his eyes. We diapered, dressed and swaddled him. Gave him toys and read him to him (Guess how much I love you”.
But no one ever asks how my labour, or birth experience was
We kissed and hugged our child countless times. The only difference was his skin, it was cold under my lips. He was just so remarkably perfect and everything we had dreamed of.
The wheel chair arrived for me to go home but rather then carrying my son to the car I left empty handed as the midwife walked to the morgue with my son.
We arrived home to no balloons or welcome banners just a cold dark home filled with sad people and two very numb new parents.
Nobody speaks to me as a mother or to DH as a father. Like all new parents we fall into bed each night exhausted and barely have the energy to face the day. We are tired, worn and in need of a shower too. Someone was telling DH how much they never realized how tiring being a new parent could be, I guess they don’t know how tiring saying goodbye can be. All the mothers and fathers nodded their head in agreement, DH sat still.
Seven hours after giving birth we were at the florist choosing funeral arrangements. Green mums and blue hydrangeas to match our wedding flowers , bright yellow lilies for him and soft pussy willows as it was spring. The florist never said sorry for your loss it was business as usual.
Thirty hours after giving birth DH and I are at the mall, seemingly to young people out for the evening. So little did they know we were shopping for new outfits to wear to our son’s funeral. DH wanted something to make his son proud, no expense to be spared on this occasion. A woman was upset at the counter over a return, how could she be mad and so worked up when my baby just died. How could I have let the small things bother me in the past?
Unfortunately no one ever told us that stillbirths existed. After the 12 week ultra sound and all the prenatal testing we thought we were in the clear. Stillbirths occur in greater than 1 in 200 (some say 1 in 150) births in Canada. Over 75% of these cases there is no medical reason as to how or why. It just happens. We had no warning signs, I had good blood pressure, avoided smokers, did not drink, exercised, ate well, slept, took it easy. Nothing would have lead us to believe this could happen to us.
Harrison was still born and lives on with us.
