Florence’s Story – Three Point Five

A year ago today, we heard the words that our baby daughter had died. I had just reached 37 weeks’ pregnant and we’d only put the cot up earlier that week because we thought it was safe to assume all would be well.

As the news sunk in, the wonderful lady who became our consultant needed to discuss with us what happened next. It was quite late on Sunday evening and induction wasn’t an option, but the situation wasn’t an emergency as nothing more could be done, so didn’t warrant a caesarean there and then. So, after some deliberation, we decided that we would rather go home and come back in the morning. The problem was, we were both so shaken up that they didn’t want me to drive home again so we were stranded quite a distance from home. Thankfully, my husband’s best friend arrived within the hour and rescued us – and the first thing she did was throw her arms around us both as she met us in the car park. It was so utterly brave of her to walk into that situation and remain calm; I have no idea if she cried when she left us, but she never faltered as she drove us home, offered to make us tea or something to eat and checked that we would be ok before she made her way home.

Once she’d gone, neither of us could face sleeping in our bedroom where the cot and all the baby things were laid out so we took a sofa each and dozed in and out of sleep, listening to the tick, tick, tick of the mantelpiece clock until 7am came around. My older brother, Matt, came to collect us and drove us back to the hospital where we were settled into the bereavement suite we’d briefly visited the night before.

The hours that followed are a blur with midwives, an anesthetist and the consultant visiting, together with the bereavement midwife – who handed us a memory box for use once our daughter had been born. It was a gift I didn’t want to accept; as if accepting the box was tantamount to accepting that there was no coming back from this. Instead of our baby, the box would be the only thing we would be taking home.

I had pleaded for a general anesthetic because I couldn’t face the thought of the deafening silence in the operating theatre as they delivered our girl. When my son had been born seven years previously, there had been happy voices and my favourite music playing as he was laid next to me on the bed – blinking and gazing dozily into my eyes.  A stillbirth robs you of all that joy – there is nothing to look forward to – the delivery is a functional operation – not the celebration you had envisaged only days before.

Florence Frances arrived into the world at 11:58am on Monday 3 August weighing a very normal 7lb 2oz. I was out cold and didn’t get to see her for a couple hours but in that time, the midwife did as I asked – washing and dressing her, wrapping her in the blanket I’d bought and settling her in a specially-chilled moses basket. My first hazy recollection was of coming round and asking to see her. Through the fog of anesthetic and morphine, I looked down at the baby in my arms and none of it seemed real. I don’t know what I had expected in my mind’s eye – perhaps that she would be a carbon copy of her big brother – but I was struck by her thick, dark curly hair – she was the absolute spitting image of her daddy.

Of course, many people forget the father in all this. I may have been the one undergoing the surgery, but I am so sad that we weren’t together when he held her for the first time. I am thankful that my brother stayed with him so he wasn’t alone, but the whole situation was not in the natural order of things – you shouldn’t welcome your child into the world only to have to say goodbye. It was utterly unfair. Why us? Why our daughter?

Florence’s Story – Three Point Four

It’s taken me some time – close to a year now – to sit down and tell this story. It’s one I know all too well because it runs around in my head most days to some extent. Don’t get me wrong: I’ve come a long way since those dark days in Aug 2015 and I’ve received excellent physical and mental health care from the NHS – but the reminders are always there. That said, it’s not that I choose to remember or forget; it’s often said that parents who have lost a child never forget – talking about it doesn’t remind me because it is always there. It’s not a scar I wear with pride or relish, but still it’s there. Unchanged by the passing of time.

Following our 36 week scan, I’d felt a little unwell over the next couple of days. It was nothing more than niggling late pregnancy stuff, but a tiny voice at the back of my head made me wonder if all was ok. I went for a lie down on the Saturday and downloaded an app on my phone that listens to your baby’s heartbeat. I was certain I’d found it but later on asked my husband to talk to my bump with the silly voice he’d taken to using and say ‘boo’ to try and make her jump. She’d always been quite jumpy; the sound of the washing up clattering often set her off and as she’d been breech for quite some time, made her presence felt by dancing on my bladder. There is nothing quite as surreal as feeling a tiny pair of feet pushing down into your groin and her time of choice was often around 10pm when I was winding down for bed.

Crucially, I’d googled ‘reduced movement at 37 weeks’ and there a multitude of people were saying that babies often slow down towards the end of pregnancy as they have less room. As I know now; this is one of the most misleading and dangerous myths that is out there and it is completely false. But as I thought we’d got her moving, I put my worries to one side for the night.

It had been an extremely warm July and we spent the Saturday with family celebrating my dad’s birthday with lunch at one of our favourite local pubs. I felt pretty normal for someone approaching 37 weeks pregnant. I remember sitting look at my two year old niece munching on her usual pesto pasta and imagined the little cousins playing with her in a year’s time.

On the Sunday, we were invited to a barbeque at our friends’ house. It was a gorgeous afternoon and as my son played in the sunshine with their little girl, we commented on how he was going to be a fantastic big brother. The conversation also turned to how we’d been concerned about her movements and my husband asked if I’d felt her move today. Sudddenly it dawned on me that no, I hadn’t, and our friends suggested we go to the hospital for a check up. It seems insane now, but I was actually grumpy about it – it was late on Sunday afternoon, I was tired and it felt like a waste of time driving all the way to the hospital. Our nearest unit is now midwife-led so I knew that they would have to refer me on to the city hospital 17 miles away if there was a problem and this was something I didn’t relish on a Sunday evening.

I called maternity triage and was asked to head in to see them which we did, packing my son off to his honorary grandma’s. He was just excited about going for a holidays sleepover and we didn’t make a big deal out of where we were going. On arrival at the hospital, we were met by a midwife who got me to lie down (no mean feat at 37 weeks, I can tell you) and she hooked me up to the heartbeat monitor. We thought she’d found it momentarily – a racing heartbeat much faster than my own – but she seemed to be fussing and muttered about getting a colleague to check as she was having trouble. Her colleague returned with her and she too seemed to struggle. All the while, I was getting more angry and anxious because she’d always been elusive and moved away from the Doppler during check ups and I thought this was nothing unusual.

In all honesty, it’s a bit of a blur, but they muttered about the city hospital having better machines and that they would have more success, so we were asked to make the 8 mile journey on to there. As I drove us there, I reassured my husband that I was sure everything was fine and that the midwives were just being a bit useless. We parked up at the hospital and headed into the Women’s Centre – and – as we reached the door – we were met by the consultant who immediately took us in for an ultrasound. As I lay on the bed, staring at those weird suspended ceiling tiles they have in hospitals and offices, I noticed a treasury tag hanging down. I have no idea why it was there, but as I lay there, holding my breath, I suddenly had a terrible feeling that it was something I was going to remember.

The consultant was calm and lovely, but she too needed a colleague to come in and check. And then she turned, put her hand on mine and said gently; “I’m so sorry love, but I’m afraid that your baby has died.” And so our world came crashing in. 

The Ramsays: Losing a child is devastating at any age

 I was truly saddened by the news today that celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay and his wife Tana have lost their baby son at 5 months into her pregnancy. 

I would hope that anyone seeing the news would feel nothing but heartache for them but I know that there will also be a few people - surprised by the late addition to their family - who will dismiss the experience as simply being 'one of those things'. Sadly, miscarriage (any birth before 24 weeks) and stillbirth is frighteningly common. Statistics show that 1 in 4 pregnancies will end in loss and there are more than 3,600 stillbirths a year in the UK alone. 

Loss at any stage of a pregnancy is a bereavement for a parent - it is not diminished by 'how many weeks' you were or whether you had already packed your hospital bag. Nor is it lessened by already having living children. When your baby dies, you lose a whole lifetime of hopes and dreams for the child that you expected to meet. I know that Gordon, Tana and their children will be grieving for the brother they have lost and will need time to come to terms with the trauma.

For the next few months, in the run up to the anniversary of the loss of our own daughter on 3 August last year, we are running the #footprintsforflorence campaign in aid of the charities SANDS (Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Charity), Cruse Bereavement Care and Footsteps Counselling & Care who support parents and their extended family, regardless of their social or economic background, in coming to terms with their loss. The idea of the campaign is that people can do something to make their 'mark', their 'footprint' - be it a random act of kindness, planting wild flowers or making a difference in some way. And, if they wish, make a donation to these charities too. 

If you'd like to get involved, you'll find the link below. 

Donate

Florence’s Story – Three Point Three

Today, as I write, I’m anxious. Not just because it was on my mind that I needed to continue to tell this story, but also because our girl has been on my mind a lot this last week or so. There are so many triggers – but one of them has been those ‘motherhood photo challenge’ posts doing the rounds on Facebook. I trust that those who know me well know that I try not to attach enormous significance to social media – yes, I enjoy it, and it’s sometimes part of what I do for work – but it’s not real life. So I say this without prejudice and with the caveat that it shouldn’t matter – but my lack of nomination was notable by its absence. The silence almost deafening. If someone had nominated me to post a photo which ‘makes me proud to be a mum’; I would have been torn because I don’t have any photos of my children together. I would have had to post two and most people – whoever they are, and myself included – find photos of stillborn babies uncomfortable so it offered an excruciating dilemma. It’s testament to the fact that my virtual and real life friends didn’t want to upset or remind me of my loss, but as I’ve said before; I’ve never forgotten. It’s forever a double-edged sword.

I was now around 22 weeks pregnant – too early to go on maternity leave, but noticeably ‘bumpy’ which frightened employment agencies when I walked through the door ‘just looking for temp work’. They didn’t know what to do with me; I was a walking health and safety risk with two versions of my CV, but the dumbing down didn’t seem to wash. I know they wanted me to go away because in their position, I probably would have wanted that too. The figures speak for themselves; Jobseeker’s Allowance is apparently £72.40 – I think it must have gone up very slightly since I last claimed – but still. Statutory Maternity Allowance is £139.58 but is only payable for a maximum of 39 weeks. I didn’t want to admit defeat and claim too early as this would have detracted from the time I would have at home with my daughter once she’d arrived. So I persisted, but in six weeks of searching for work, I got exactly two days temp admin work. It was now pretty much high summer and I was getting very uncomfortable, so I finally admitted defeat and filled in the terrifyingly complicated form to claim SMP.

In the meantime, I had the ludicrous situation of continuing to sign on. Once a fortnight, I had to wait on a phone call from a work advisor who would ask me what I had done to seek work. It turns out that the DWP were in the process of making redundancies so the guarantee of these calls was patchy at best, but I couldn’t go into the Jobcentre on the Monday and physically sign to receive my money on the Thursday until I’d received this call. And then, having waited in all day, the 5 minute appointment was usually just before school pick up when the Jobcentre was a 20 minute drive away. Frustrating doesn’t even cover it.To his initial credit, the chap who finally got tasked with speaking to me understood the irony of the situation – that I was doing everything I could to seek work but nobody wanted to employ me. And the Richard Whiteley lookalike in the Jobcentre itself was cynical about how well the system was working for people in my situation and always had an encouraging demeanour. I could almost hear the ‘Countdown’ music in my ear as I scribbled on his electronic signature pad…

The summer holidays began and my then 6 year old son was quickly getting fed up with his weeble-esque mum who couldn’t keep up and had to have a lie down even after a walk to the shops. I reassured him that things would improve once his sister had arrived and that we would be out and about with the pram on trips to the park and so on. A small part of me feared my recollections of the dark days of sleep deprivation and how that might impact on my parenting style for a while, but I was sure it was a period of adjustment that we’d just have to weather with the support of playdates and grandparents.

And so, the end of July came around and we were booked in for a 36 week growth scan and appointment with the consultant to discuss delivery. It seems irrelevant now but I was fretting about her due date of 24 August because of where the school year cut off dates fell. I didn’t want her to be at a disadvantage further down the line and wanted a reasonable say in where her birthday might fall. Also, my son’s birth six years previously had been traumatic; he was 15 days overdue by the time he arrived following a failed 4 day induction and emergency caesarean at 3am on Christmas Day. It had been long, painful and frustrating trying to have him naturally, only for it to end in surgery anyway. I’ve since learned that, as I have a tilted pelvis, that it was an improbable task attempting to deliver him ‘normally’ lying on my back on a bed. My mother’s words about ‘upright and mobile’ had rang in my head, but through the fog of gas and air and the monitoring which wasn’t mobile back then, I remained static for 9 hours – no wonder we struggled.

But I didn’t want history to repeat – I wanted to feel in control of how this birth would take place. What would be the point of another failed labour only for it to end in a c-section anyway? With all that in mind, I was resolved to have a planned c-section at 38 weeks and it was booked for two weeks’ time. We’d seen our little lady on the screen and she was measuring normally for dates; we could see her heart beating and her lungs practicing for the job they would do in the outside world. This was on the Thursday and as far as we were concerned, we were about to meet our little girl. The sonographer was happy, the midwife and consultant were happy and I was to all intents and purposes, having a healthy and low-risk pregnancy. It would be fair to say that at this point, we felt pretty certain that all was well. The cot was up, I had stocked up on nappies and arranged all her things and I just needed to pack my hospital bag. Nothing, absolutely nothing, could prepare us for what actually lay ahead. 

Our Story – Two

Without wishing to sound ridiculously melodramatic (as if a blog isn’t self-indulgent in itself, eh?), much of my healing from my brother’s death was down to my then boyfriend, G. I say then, of course, because he’s now my husband. We’d been together for just over a year when I lost my brother and I know as relationship goals go, holding your sobbing grieving partner isn’t right up there with introducing them to your friends or moving in together. He did later point out that he’d have to have been ‘a bit of a bastard’ to have even contemplated walking away at that point, but still, as if I didn’t already know; it just served to showed me another facet of what a brilliant person he really was – and still is.

G and my brother had only met a handful of times, but they’d shared a beer, had a similar sense of humour and got on. I’d had a series of boyfriends who hadn’t quite clicked up to that point, but I can safely say that from what little they knew, they approved of each other. It even transpired that they’d both briefly worked in the same office although never met save for the odd inter-departmental phone call. They both meant the world to me, so it was vital that they had connected and I’m so glad they did albeit for that brief moment in time.

Grief isn’t pretty. It doesn’t wear black, send flowers and sit in a corner. Grief is an unrelenting pressure in your chest, it’s crying yourself to sleep at 1am realising everything has changed. It’s sympathetic nods on the school run or awkward silences in the local shop. 

When you’re in your thirties, bereavement is meant to be about losing your elderly relatives, not writing a eulogy for your little brother or explaining to your four year old why their uncle won’t be coming over anymore.

Grief is a raw, physical heartache. It’s a tsunami of tears and snot, a ball in the pit of your stomach which resets all your points of reference from what has gone before. And to face that – pouring out from someone you love – is a daunting prospect.  But he met the challenge, stared it down and clung to me for dear life. And, because of that, when he got down on one knee at Glastonbury in 2013, I didn’t hesitate for second. (In truth, I knew full well he was about to propose due to some drunken ramblings the night before, but my mind was already made up long before that).

Our wedding – accidentally over two days (don’t ask – it wasn’t as ‘look at me’ as that – it just sort of happened that way with logistics and budget) – felt like such an achievement for us. It was testament to how far we’d come – the obstacles we’d overcome together and as a family – to be standing there that day. 

I think in any other situation, it might have been odd to admit that you were thinking about your brother as you said your vows, but I did. I thought how chuffed he would have been and how it was a day he would have enjoyed. His photo sat behind us in the ceremony – and at the bar during the party afterwards – which is exactly where he’d have been in life – surrounded by our cousins and joining in with the chorus of ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’ on the karaoke.

I miss him. Every day. But I am relieved that I met my husband when I did, because it would have been hopelessly unbearable without him here to pick up the pieces. And,for that, I am very lucky. 

Starting Over - One

When my brother died suddenly in 2013, he donated his kidneys and I found promoting organ donation as an outlet for my grief. I met donor families, living donors and recipients and wrote a few blog entries, talking openly about bereavement on social media. It felt like a positive way to process what had happened but I admit that, as a copywriter, it had shades of bus-man's holiday and I neglected to write as often as I would have liked. So I decided to start over.

Perhaps it had served its purpose; I had said everything that I needed to say – it was all ‘out there’. People knew my story and had fatigue about my feelings on the matter.

As I’ve often said, the world moves on and people forget. It’s a coping mechanism – we learn to adapt and survive or we’d sink under the weight of everything that has gone before. I could spout cod philosophy all day long, but the obvious truth of it all is that it bloody hurt. I don’t claim that my relationship with my ‘little’ brother was exceptional or special – but we were close. We got on each other’s nerves, undoubtedly moaned about one another in private but he was also one of my best friends. He was the person I wanted to tell when stuff happened; even if his reaction wasn’t always going to be the most positive. And we laughed – a lot. We had so many in-jokes. I’m so glad that I can still just about imagine his voice and Gromit-esque face-pulling.

It’s no secret that my relationship with his wife was rocky at best; we didn’t approve of each other. She thought I have a superiority complex and I thought she was immature. But I never would have wished the loss of my brother on her, particularly at such a young age. I wanted to help her in the wake of his death and maintain a relationship with my nephew and then unborn niece. Somehow that all got lost in translation, I was painted as the villain and she cut off contact. It was the final straw and I suffered a nervous breakdown, complete with suicidal feelings that required intervention from the mental health team. Those who knew the depths of my despair rallied and I got through it. Friends and family helped. Cruse counselling and Prozac helped. I pieced together a new normal where my nephew and niece weren’t going to figure and so life went on. I know it’s most definitely not what my brother would have wanted, but I don’t believe in life after death, so I had no delusions that he might come back and make his feelings known.  

And so there came a time when I could mention him without breaking down. I can’t remember when that point came but I found that I could talk about him in a more matter of fact way – it was now others who felt uncomfortable – what if she starts bawling on me? I think I’ll change the subject… so it goes on. We all carry our losses and tragedies. Some more than others; it’s not a competition as to who has suffered – or lost – or grieved – the most. There are no bragging rights to be earned. However, I never expected two significant losses in three years and so I came to this point where I had to write again. And this time, it’s for my girl, our Florence.