The baby formally known as "Jurgen" ...

I know Dave has already posted our wonderful, wonderful news on his blog (and has been very touched by all the lovely comments) but here it is from me:

Tobias Matthew (Toby) - 7 lb 9.5oz
Born at 11.37am, 19th January 2010
UTTERLY GORGEOUS!


***Warning: Entirely self indulgent bit of blogging to follow. Toby's birth story and lots of gratuitous shots of the little man.***

I wanted to write out Toby's birth story as soon as possible. I was pretty cranky a few posts back about his imminent arrival by c-section. I think I went a bit loopy from the pregnancy hormones and anxiety for a couple of weeks back there. This is where I eat humble pie and say that Toby's arrival in the world was beautiful and I want to honour it and remember it. Dave and I agree that, of the four births we have experienced, Toby's - despite taking place in a brightly lit, surgical environment - was the calmest and most gentle. I worried I'd never fully feel at peace about the way he needed to come earthside. I was wrong - I already do.

So here is our journey to meeting our second son:

Jurgen's last night in utero (38+2):


We arrived at the hospital on Tuesday morning at 8am to be booked in. We were met by the midwife, A, assigned to be our main carer and we warmed to her immediately. Because we were booked for surgery, her role was primarily to support us emotionally and help to advocate for us. Ordinarily, only one midwife would accompany us to theatre but we were asked if a student could come too - and our midwife's manager - as A. had just transferred to our hospital from a trust with different procedures. Our baby was certainly going to have quite an entourage!

We filled in forms. We met LOTS of different staff - who had all read our notes (not always a foregone conclusion) and were respectful and sympathetic about Emma's birth and death.
... and then we waited. An emergency had occurred. Of course it took precedence. The waiting was probably the hardest part of the whole day - we felt so close. And the fear of something going wrong again was palpable.

Finally, at 11, we set off to theatre and I said goodbye to Dave as he went off to make like George Clooney in his surgical scrubs. The atmosphere in the OR was really amazing. I could tell everyone in there was rooting for us (Dave said he heard one of the midwives in the seconds before Toby arrived say, "Please be okay baby.") It was SO very different from my experiences of birthing in an emergency. The pace was measured and everyone's professionalism really reassuring. It took quite a while to site my spinal but finally Dave was by my side and we were informed that our baby's birth was imminent. They lowered the screen and our very cross, pink, SCREAMING baby appeared over the top. A boy we discovered - I actually guessed right this time!! The next few minutes are - quite literally - a blur. They had taken my glasses away and I was crying so hard I couldn't see anything for quite a while. I did hear lots though - I heard the wonderful, wonderful midwives chatting away to our son, cooing over him and telling him how gorgeous he was - which I think are pretty good things to hear when you're minutes old! ... and then he was in Dave's arms. We had waited a lifetime for that moment and it was hard to believe that he was healthy and whole.
Emma - we miss you every single day. This week more than ever. So many mixed emotions, our sweet forever baby. We love you.

Toby - welcome. We are so grateful for your presence in our lives, our precious rainbow son.

A funeral, a birth and the bit that (hopefully) comes between.

Funeral

I've been trying to find a few minutes to get this post from brain to screen. Now that I've done so, I've discovered that Dave has been writing on the same topic.

Dave's family are lovely. They have been sensitive and compassionate and loving since Emma died. They all seemed genuinely pleased that, at 38 weeks pregnant, I had decided to accompany Dave to his aunt's funeral. I think the word "brave" was used at one point. I know it's a word that can sometimes be somewhat triggering for us all but in this context I was touched that people, in a roundabout way, thought about Emma and the way this funeral might affect me. Because it really wasn't about me. I have very, very fond memories of Dave's aunt - a vibrant lady with an amazing sense of fun and I wanted to do my little bit to honour her memory. I wanted to offer as much support and comfort to Dave as I could. It actually seemed like a very natural thing to throw my hospital bag and labour notes in the car, "just in case", and travel the couple of hours to the funeral. It didn't seem at all brave to me, really.

Although this was the first funeral I've attended since my daughter's, I have had a feeling throughout the last fifteen months that I will feel a lot more comfortable at funerals now than I will at other less sad family functions. I know how to be at a funeral. I can empathise with the gut wrenching grief. I honestly think I would have needed more more courage to have attended one of the four christenings we have been invited to this year. I've yet to find enough gumption for that.

Dave is right though. It's hard not to feel guilty when the tears fall and you know that you're not really crying for the person whose funeral you are at but for a tiny little girl who never got a chance to experience all this world has to offer. My tears now, no matter what the immediate cause, always have an element of Emma in them.

Birth

I had my pre-operative assessment today. It went well - the two midwives who were jabbing me with needles and forcing me onto their scales (something I have studiously avoided this pregnancy - with good reason I discovered today!) were thoughtful and compassionate and gentle with me. The senior midwife did my Glucose testing at 24 weeks and remembered me (and Emma and Jurgen). She asked how I'd found the remainder of the pregnancy and was genuinely sympathetic as I talked about the roller coaster of emotions these past months have been. It ended with her mentioning that she is on a late shift on the day that Jurgen will be born and she is going to make a special trip to the post natal ward to meet our baby. It's nice to leave a hospital appointment feeling just a little bit special! Anyway this will be my last post before Jurgen is born this week. I HOPE with every fibre of my being that very soon we'll be up our elbows in the bit that should come between a birth and a funeral: life - glorious, milky, sleep deprived life.

Seven Minutes.

Beth left a comment on my last post that got me thinking. She said that she hadn't realised that Emma had died SEVEN minutes before she was born. I'm not surprised. I talk a lot about how I plod my way through grief and I even wrote this post about the person I thought my daughter was or might have been. But I've been reticent about sharing the details of her birth - which was also her death. Partly because I've done pretty well at avoiding the attentions of the malevolent "anonymous" trolls who leave despicable and thoughtless comments on the blogs of grieving parents. I suspect a post about birth choices might draw some of them out of the woodwork. Mainly, however, it's because I'm frightened of being revealed as a fraud. I think all of us grieving parents recognise guilt as part of the grief process. We also understand that mostly the guilt is not based on reality. But, how do you process it when choices you made are implicated in your child's death?

In real life, I have worked hard on this. Mostly, I have made peace. My obstetrician assured me just hours after Emma's death that I would never know if she might have lived through an elective section. He was sure that arriving at the hospital sooner would not have changed the outcome. They were some of the kindest words I could have heard in the immediate aftermath of her death.

But, as I approach Jurgen's increasingly imminent arrival in this world and I feel the familiar dread of a surgical birth enfold me, I realise that this might be one part of my grief that I will never fully accept or "heal" from. I'm hoping writing here will release some of the panic I feel as I prepare for our fourth child. I will have the planned section because I am a mother and I want what is best for my child. It seems that operative deliveries are best for my children so, of course, I set aside my own preferences to hopefully obtain the best and safest outcome for my baby but I miss feeling joy and anticipation at the prospect of labouring and birthing my baby myself.

Emma will be my only vaginally birthed child. Her two older siblings were born by emergency section after long and difficult labours. I experienced some post-natal post traumatic stress disorder after the birth of her elder sister. It isn't nice - it isn't, of course, one billionth as painful as living for the rest of your life with babylost grief - but it isn't a pleasant or easy way to start mothering a child. I know that some babylost parents feel very frustrated by mothers who profess birth trauma after the birth of a living child - and I understand that entirely. I mention it here because it is part of the path that led to me making the decision to pursue a vaginal birth at home with Emma. NHS protocols here meant that I would have been offered a planned section at 39 weeks for her birth. Would I be here if I hadn't declined that path? What if ... what if... two horrible words to live with.

We don't know because we don't exactly know why Emma died. I went into labour spontaneously, my labour for the most part was straightforward. Emma, by every indication used to determine distress, was a perfectly happy baby for the duration of my labour. The last time we heard her heartbeat at 2.17am, just after we had transferred to the hospital so I could have a little bit of help with my second stage, it was well within the healthy range for a baby so close to birth (and we're pretty sure it was her heartbeat not mine, something I've been asked about when I share this part of the story). At 2.25am, I birthed a baby with no breath and no heartbeat. We didn't have an autopsy because it seemed so obvious to us that it was a "birth accident". Sometimes I wonder if a postmortem would have showed something more but I think that's because I want to believe that healthy babies being born to healthy mothers during healthy labours can't die. I'm proof to myself that they can. She was a good healthy size, her placenta and cord were healthy and revealed no clues. The best guess we can make is that her cord became pinched between me and her in those final minutes.

In the absence of any definite answers to her death, I have had to simply surrender to the course of action that will bring Jurgen into the world. I don't feel like I can make any choices for this little boy or little girl. I tried last time to make the choices that were "best" and safest for myself and my child. With the benefit of hindsight, it turned out they were neither.

Emma

Happy Birthday, sweetheart. We love you and we miss you.

A pregnancy post.

Where to start ... in a little over an hour, I will be 17 weeks pregnant. I have been feeling small amounts of fluttering from Jurgen for several weeks now and this past week they have turned into definite movements - not regular yet but there.

I am completely in love. Any idea I had that I might remain detached was a falsehood. I adore this little one, just as I adored each of his or her brother and sisters. I have survived (am surviving - I don't know when it gets to be past tense) babyloss once, I don't know how I would do it again. I am just hoping and hoping that I don't have to.

I have never had a distressing ultrasound. Emma died 7 minutes (7 stupid, tiny minutes) before I pushed her into this world so the first we knew of our descent into hell was the paediatrician turning away from her and saying "I'm sorry". Those sickening words. So, I shouldn't fear ultrasounds, right? Except losing Emma has brought me into a world where babies die at every possible gestation - and beyond. And losing one child does not exempt you from the possibility of losing another to completely random and different circumstances. So, as my "big" scan approaches I can feel myself tensing. I try to shrug it off. I try to focus on now. I cannot change anything that is happening within me. I simply have to surrender to it happening and love my baby with everything I have ... and I do. Sometimes I dare to hope. As one of my fellow posters on MDC said of her own new pregnancy, "Being hopeful is brave. Be brave."


I do manage sometimes. I dreamed I was holding a little dark haired newborn boy with startlingly blue eyes. I try to hold onto that dream. I bought a pair of maternity jeans today and a journal with enough space to include not only my diary of the pregnancy but of milestones beyond. I looked at the newborn clothes too but didn't buy - I'm not there yet. We've discussed names - since D. is the one who christened Jurgen, you can see why we might need to start the conversation for "real" names somewhat early. We've debated whether to find out Jurgen's gender or have a surprise (still undecided). Yet, it all feels a little bit surreal and "naughty" as if I shouldn't be doing those things.

At 14 weeks, my Obstetrician asked me if I was feeling anymore reassured yet after three "good" first trimester scans. He seemed surprised when I said that I wasn't. I was surprised he expected me to feel reassurance at any point in this pregnancy. I will never reach a safe milestone. Emma died at 40 weeks, this baby will come at 38 weeks. He or she will need to be in my arms before I can tell my OB I feel reassured and even then ...

All I can do is love and hope and be brave.

5 months ...

... since I held our long awaited third child in my arms. She was so, so beautiful - the image of her big sister. Sometimes it feels as though I blinked and woke up here. Other times it feels as though I've lived 5 lifetimes in these 5 months.

The hours leading to her birth seem dreamlike now - labouring at home in the birth pool, deciding to transfer because I was tired (but baby was fine); the registrar preparing the ventouse, my midwife laughing and saying "You don't need it clever girl, baby has turned. You can do it yourself"; the most triumphant moment of my life when I pushed our baby out and lifted it to my tummy, the shock and elation of finding out "Bobby" was a girl after all ... and then. Baby girl isn't breathing. She's taken from my chest to the resuscitaire, I can't see her because she's surrounded by doctors (I'm grateful. My husband could see and finds it hard to talk about even now). We agree her name is Emma (suggested by daddy just hours before) and I add Faith - trying to affirm I believe she'll be fine. I know she won't be. How? How do I know this? I just do. Her soul is already elsewhere.

Those words ... "I'm so sorry" and then she is back with us, warm and safe and perfect in my arms. We have photographs from these first moments - such precious treasures now. The first photograph we have is almost identical to the ones we have when our son and first daughter were born. Tiny baby wrapped in a towel, nestled in mama's arms. Daddy's arms around us both. We're smiling, tired but proud parents. I'm glad - glad the shock allowed us that moment of normality before we awoke to the fact that "normal" for us now is so very different from what it was before.

Normal, today, is allowing my 6 year old son to choose the flowers we will take to his sister's grave (yellow roses - he has excellent taste). It's hoping that I'll manage to avoid the 5 other mothers who gave birth to baby girls (not a single boy) between September & December 08 when I collect my daughter from nursery - and averting my eyes if I don't. It's feeling perpetual anger simmering beneath the surface. I was always so calm, so placid before - this rage frightens me. It's aimed at God mostly, as I wrestle with the tenets of a Christian faith I have cherished almost my whole life. I still believe, I want to find comfort but I cannot blindly accept this and the answers to the questions don't make sense to me yet - I'm uncertain whether they ever will. But I want them too. I am finding it hard enough to grieve my daughter. I don't want to grieve a loss of faith too. I call it "faith by my fingertips". Is it worth the effort? I have to believe so, most days. But that doesn't stop the anger or the anguish.

When I held my daughter in the quiet and stillness after her birth, I told my husband that I needed her death to mean something. I still do ... I know her death from a probable cord accident is senseless and horrific but I NEED good things to come from it. But I'm learning that I can't force those good things - they are aspirations right now, not reality. Some of the women walking this path ahead of me talk about the compassion they have now, the ability to appreciate life. I find it hard to accept that my child needed to die for me to become more compassionate. Current evidence suggests that I am less compassionate, less patient. My internal response to hearing bad news is almost always, "well, that's hardly as bad as a baby dying is it?" Some of my relationships have deepened and blossomed, many more are dying or have died. My joy in pregnant bellies and newborns is gone, perhaps for good. My daughter's 6 month old girl cousin, her shadow companion & bump mate, is a virtual stranger to me. I can look at pictures of dead babies and admire how perfect and beautiful they are. I can't be in the same room as a living one.

Perhaps for now, I shall hold on to the fact that my living children are the beneficiaries of my desire to find glimmers of hope in this morass of horror. I cherish them with a love that is strong and fierce and potent. Five months on, I get out of bed each day for them - and maybe that is enough for now.