Here I sit on the eve of
Abigail's fourth birthday. I have just watched Jo my wife write Abigail’s
birthday cards whilst sobbing her heart out.
Why is Jo crying?
Jo is crying because Abigail was
stillborn at 41 weeks gestation on April 29th 2009. Jo was a perfect mum to be,
she ate all the right foods, never touched alcohol and never went anywhere
where there might be cigarette smoke. She took all the right vitamins that were
recommended, in short she did everything to protect and nurture her growing
daughter.
What went wrong? We don’t know is
the answer. Sunday 26th April started as any normal day, the sun was shining; I
put the car seat in the car knowing our daughter would be with us any time. We
went to friends for a barbeque that afternoon, nothing out of the ordinary, and
we went home fairly early and started watching a film.
Jo could not settle and asked if
we could go to the hospital as she had not felt Abigail move for a while. I was
not concerned as we had been to the hospital a few times previously to check on
Abigail and I expected this trip to be exactly the same as the previous visits.
We got to the hospital fairly
quickly and went up to the triage area on the delivery suite, an area we had
gotten to know well. The nurse tried to find Abigail’s heart beat but couldn’t.
Looking worried she went to find someone else. To be truthful with you I wasn’t
concerned, I guessed the nurse had made an error, or that the equipment was
faulty, anything but there being something wrong with Abigail.
The doctor finally arrived and
checked, and then confirmed that they could not locate a heartbeat either. That’s
when our world imploded; it seemed that we had entered a make believe world and
suddenly become the main storyline in one of the many soap operas that we
always try to avoid on the television.
Our story of the following days has
been written elsewhere, but in summary Jo was induced the following morning and
three days later delivered Abigail, a beautiful little girl who looked perfect
in every way. We were able to hold her and spend three precious hours with her
before saying goodbye.
We were discharged to go home
without Abigail. How many times had we watched parents proudly walking down the
hospital corridor with their new-born? Why were we going home empty handed,
what had we done wrong? It just wasn’t fair.
Arriving at the house without our
daughter and reality struck, it wasn’t a bad dream or nightmare, it was real
life. Despite our families best efforts there were reminders of Abigail
everywhere. It was just so unfair.
In the following days we finally arranged
Abigail’s funeral with our second choice of undertaker having nearly come to
blows with the first one who seemed not to have a sensitive bone in his body. Thankfully
this wasn’t the case when we went to register Abigail’s birth and death, when really
kind and understanding registrars went out of their way to protect us and look
after us.
The day of the funeral passed in
a blur many friends and colleagues come to pay their respects to a little girl
they had never met. I carried her little white coffin into the crematorium with
a mixture of immense sadness but also utter pride that I could at least do this
one thing for our little girl. We chose songs to be played that we have never listened
to since, and hearing even the first few bars of the song takes us back in time
to that moment.
So four years on, and as I have
been told many times that ‘time heals all wounds’. Well with the greatest of
respect no it doesn’t. Despite having
had two healthy children since Abigail we still mourn for her loss, as every
day we watch one of the other children do something that Abigail should have
already done. We recently built a slide and fort for our children, Jo burst
into tears as her first thought was that Abigail would never play on it. Parents who have never suffered a loss just don’t
get it. ‘You have had two healthy children, move on’, ‘appreciate what you have
got, not what you have lost’ and of course ‘time heals all wounds’. If only
life was that easy.
A book arrived at the house last
week. Called ‘How I came to hold you’ and written by Ben Wakling, the book
tells the real life stories of seventeen families each of whom has experienced
the heart breaking death of their child and then taken the step of becoming
pregnant again For those of you who do not understand the significance of the
number 17, unbelievably this is the number of babies that are stillborn or die
shortly after birth every day in the UK.
Family number twelve in this book
is our family. Jo, very bravely agreed to share our story with Ben last year,
and last week the end result arrived in our letter box at home. Now having
lived this story for the last four years I knew it inside out. Didn’t I?
Actually no I didn’t, not completely, as for the first time Jo truly opened up
and told Ben her feelings. Much of what I read I already knew, but the thought
that Jo felt guilty for what happened was heart breaking as she had done
absolutely nothing wrong. The same despair is felt by many others in the book,
and no matter how long a period of time that guilt is never going to diminish.
So tomorrow when we visit the crematorium
to lay flowers in the children’s garden for Abigail’s birthday are we going to
feel less sad then when we did four years ago? When we go to the cathedral to
say a prayer and light candles for Abigail are we going to feel less unhappy
than we did four years ago? Yes life does move on, and yes we should appreciate
all that we have, however please forgive us if we self- indulge about our
daughter Abigail who we have never been able to watch grow up. Time does not heal all wounds.
