*TRIGGER WARNING* – this posts contains details of a miscarriage and baby loss.
2 years ago today I gave birth to a baby boy, who was simply too good for this world. We called him ‘Bean’ as at the time we had him, we did not know his gender – we found that out at a postmortem 7 months later, where I was 12 weeks pregnant with my rainbow baby boy.
No one can fully explain the feeling or experience of losing a child. It’s one of those ‘you won’t know until it happens to you’ scenarios. Now people do argue that miscarriages/ectopic pregnancies are not baby loss but they are. Life was still created and lost in those moments even if we don’t physically see it happen. I saw his heartbeat 4 times before that final scan to say he had gone.
What was frustrating for me was that we got past 12 weeks thinking it was ‘safe’ but we were far from it…
The problem is after that scan to say they’ve gone it’s not like they’ve just disappeared. You have that impending doom of having to birth them and there’s 2 ways in doing this – awake (natural) or asleep (surgically). I chose awake because I needed my brain to process what was happening, I had to make sure he was safe – as peculiar as that sounds.
Now I’ve given birth 4 times including this one and I can officially say that this birth was the most physically painful for me. It felt like throughout it that my body was constantly fighting to not let him go.
I’ll never forget the moment he arrived *skip this paragraph if you don’t want graphic detail*. It was 7:42am and I went for my ‘morning wee’ after being induced all that night on the maternity delivery suite and he silently came out into a bedpan inside his sac. The anti-climax of his arrival was baffling to me and he was taken to be ‘cleaned up’ and checked.
At first I wasn’t sure on properly meeting him. I felt so scared on what to expect him to look like, but my wonderful midwife reassured me after seeing him herself that he was okay so we went ahead and met him.
I have to mention that I am forever grateful that my husband stayed with me throughout this whole process and even now is supportive on the ‘bad days’ as I am with him. It’s so important men aren’t forgotten during these events as it’s their baby loss too.
He looked nothing like I had imagined in my head. Straight away I knew he was my baby and that he was now safe and at peace despite the circumstances. We spent some time with him before we said goodbye and got him blessed by the hospital chaplain.
Following this was the postpartum chaos that happens after every type of birth, which was another punch in the gut as there was no joy or endorphins of a new baby to help with that. There was just a silent missing piece to us all.
There was a funeral for him, which was beautifully done and his ashes have sat in an urn next to my bed ever since we brought him home. We also have a memorial leaf for him at the local crematorium gardens.
It has been bittersweet having this baby loss as without the loss we wouldn’t have our rainbow baby boy with us today – who we found out about around Bean’s due date.
Life has a funny way of letting these things happen, but I trust that it’s all for a reason even if we can’t fully understand it yet.
This post is in memory of our angel boy who is forever our brightest star in the sky.
New Mum Life 101 