Liam our personal loss

LIAM

Our personal loss

Coming to terms with losing a child has to be the hardest thing anyone will ever have to do.

It’s not something that life prepares you for; when you’re pregnant it doesn’t cross your mind that something could go wrong.

All you can think about is, is it a boy or is it a girl, what shall we call it, will it look like me?

It’s not wrong, that normal it’s exciting, and so should it be.

On 12^th May 1990 my wife (Caroline) and I lost our second child a son who was due to be called Liam. I was 24 years old and my wife was 23. We had no idea that this would happen to us and we were totally unprepared for it.

It all began with Caroline having stomach problems. To be honest I don’t really recall how long the stomach pains had been occurring but I know that they could not find out the reason. It must have been going on for some weeks as she was back and forth to the doctors and she had various tests.

Then finally we ended up in the hospital and the doctor was prodding and poking her.

He kept pushing her stomach in as if he was feeling for something inside but could not find it.

The problem was the pain was on the left side and so they did not think appendix until he did a push and release test. This is where they push their hand deep deep into your stomach and then release it really quickly.

Well Caroline must have gone three feet off of the bed when he released his hand in the fast upward motion!

And so it was then that we was informed that Appendix was the diagnosis. There was no option due to the pain levels and the risk of rupture the only thing to do was to remove them.

Caroline was approx. 22 weeks pregnant at this point. We already had a son (Bradley) and so with this pregnancy Caroline had become visibly pregnant earlier than before.

Caroline was beside herself with worry so much so that she had to be given something to calm her down. Once the form was signed we were then told that there was a possibility that the baby could abort itself during the operation! This was a risk! Caroline was distraught she fell to pieces so much so that she was refusing to have the operation. In the end they gave her a sedative to calm her down enough.

Obviously this was a massive concern but what could we say at this point? The doctor needed to do the operation and so we had to take the chance. I went home with Brad and sat by the phone waiting for news. I’m a glass is half full sort of person and so I was confident that all would be OK. It was late in the evening when I was finally aloud to talk to the ward and find out the outcome.

“All went well, the operation was a success and the appendix was removed”

“What about the baby?” I enquired

“Baby is fine no complications” those reassuring words rang in my ears.

I have always had a saying and have always lived by it that, it will all be alright in the end.

I was over the moon, Caroline was going to be OK and so was the baby. Caroline was kept in for a week (as I recall it) but seemed to be released very quickly. As she was still very weak and we had a toddler to contend with Caroline went to stay at her parents’ house in Billericay in Essex.

I was working and could not afford to take time off to look after her and Brad. I was gutted to have her go live 200 miles away but we had no choice, so off they went.

During the course of the week Caroline did not seem to get much better, she slept mostly being very tiered and very weak. Her family GP lived in the house next door to Caroline’s parents and so she came in everyday to check on her. She removed her stiches and gave her pain medication. The situation however came to a head on the Friday night into Saturday morning. Caroline felt really ill so much so that she went to her parent’s room. She was freezing cold with a temperature and she noticed that she had some blood. She knocked on the door but nobody answered. Not wanting to wake them and feeling very ill Caroline went back to bed and wrapped herself up in the bedding.

It came out later that Caroline’s dad did hear her faint knocking at the door but as he was dozing it didn’t register that help was required.

By the time the early morning came (around 0700) Caroline was in severe pain in her stomach, she also had chills and sweats and also still bleeding. This time she went into her parent’s room and told them what was happening.

Quickly her dad went to get help next door to the doctor’s house. Unfortunately the GPs mother in law came to the door, she was an elderly Indian lady of fairly limited English, she made it known that the doctor was still in bed with her children and not to be woken. She said she would come later

So the next option was to call Basildon hospital. Caroline’s dad phoned them and  explained that Caroline had undergone surgery in Bedford and was pregnant and staying with them. She was 200 miles from home and appeared to be in early labour.

The response from Basildon hospital (although not said) amounted to “not our problem”. Caroline would need to see her own doctor/midwfe!

“What do you want to do Babe?” her dad asked

“Take me home I need Lee”

It normally took two to two and a half hours to get from Caroline’s parents’ house in Essex to our house in Bedford but to her dads credit they was at the door in about one hour thirty minutes. He floored it the whole way.

I had been given the heads up earlier so I had already contacted the hospital and made arrangements to go straight there.

Caroline fell into my arms when she arrived; she was in floods of tears and in terrible pain.

There was no time to waste we went straight to the hospital.

The hospital in Bedford is not very far from our home so we were there in no time. They knew we were coming and so we were taken directly to a side room.

The room was flooded with nurses and doctors all running around doing what they had to do. As things progressed we was told that Caroline was in full blown labour, the plan was to give some drugs to slow the labour down in the hope that it would stop altogether.

The drip was put up and the drugs started, there seemed to be so many people in the room all doing something but all I could see was Caroline. We held hands the whole time. I could see in her eyes how desperate she was for this to work, even through her pain she could only think about the baby.

The reaction to the drugs came quickly and it wasn’t good. Caroline was on her back on the hospital bed but she began to shake! In the end the shakes were so violent that she was visibly lifting off of the bed, not just by a bit I’m talking 6 to 8 inches off of the bed! It was frightening.

The doctor stopped the drip, the inevitable was about to happen.

“The drugs are not working I’m afraid, there is nothing we can do to stop the labour. Baby is coming today” the doctor said.

“So what happens now? What are the chances for the baby” Caroline asked

“There is no chance for the baby, it is far too early to survive” he replied

Even then though even hearing those words, I didn’t believe him. It will be OK it’s gonna be OK. Doctors can be wrong.

I tried to reassure Caroline “we’ll be OK babe, it’s gonna be fine, we can try again” What a thing to say? Here is my wife going through this and I’m reassuring her that we can do it again like that was going to replace this child who we were going to lose!

The truth is I was falling to pieces, Caroline was being the strong one. I was no use to her to be fair.

Unknown to me at the time outside the room the doctor told Caroline’s parents that they would be lucky to only lose the grandchild, Caroline was “very Poorly”!

Back inside the room it had become less crowded; they believed that Caroline had severe blood poisoning. They also believed that the baby would also have severe blood poisoning as well and this would make his chance of survival even smaller.

Caroline had a monitor attached to her stomach not only did this record on a printout but it also meant we could hear the babies heartbeat the whole time.

For me (glass is half full) I kept thinking that this was good news he was still OK! For Caroline this must have been torture.

The labour lasted for 6 hours with Caroline giving birth naturally even though he was born breach!

Normally as babies are born they are placed straight onto the mothers belly for that first magical cuddle, a beautiful moment. But here given the situation he was taken to the end of the bed by a nurse to be checked over.

“It’s a boy the nurse said to Caroline do you want to hold him?”

Can you imagine?

Caroline was distraught inconsolable she did not know what to do, but bravely said yes, the nurse put him into her arms but Caroline could not cope.

“I can’t” she cried “I can’t” and so the nurse took him away.

I was not given the option of holding him; in fact I did not even see him, just a bundle.

We were never given the option of seeing him ever again. Little did we know at that time that was our only chance of ever holding our baby? He was taken away from us to another hospital building the other side of Bedford to have all the tests performed to enable them to show the cause of death. Even later when he was taken to the funeral directors because of the tests that had been performed we weren’t allowed to visit him in the chapel of rest. We later found out that he was perfect, he had no problems other than being very small due to how early he had been born.

We was later made aware that Caroline’s dad had held him and they took some Polaroid photos of him for us. Nowadays hospitals are far more caring taking hand prints and foot prints and so on, but at this time we had nothing.

As I said earlier I just fell apart I was no use to Caroline at all. She had gone through this difficult labour lost her baby and was extremely ill with blood poisoning but she still was comforting me.

Carline ended up staying in hospital for a couple of weeks she was so ill she had to have 7 pints of blood in blood transfusions. She was having drugs put into her as well as saline and the transfusions. Due to all of these lines being put in, Caroline’s veins kept closing up. The hospital had to keep finding new veins to use each time. The final straw came for Caroline when they wanted to put a line in her neck! She had, had them all over, her arms, hands groins, feet. In the end the nurse squeezed the bag of antibiotics through the vein in her hand even though it had given up! Caroline said it was like having burning liquid pushed in and flowing through your body!

Whilst in hospital Caroline was in a side room, however this was right next to the new baby ward, as she laid in her bed she could hear all the new babies crying! One day one of the nurses had a go at Caroline one morning because she wanted her food in her room.  Fortunately Caroline stood up for herself how could she be expected to sit with new mothers talking about their babies knowing hers had just died?

When you have a baby the registrar or births comes to the ward so you can register your baby even though he had died this still needed to be completed.

I was not with Caroline when this happened but Caroline was given a birth certificate and a death certificate. Caroline questioned this as with still births you only get one certificate.

The registrar informed Caroline that our baby was not sill born, he actually breathed on his own for 2 minutes!

For Caroline this meant that that magical moment when you first hold your baby could have happened! She could have held him and he could have died in her arms. It haunted her for years (I think it still does) the thought that he died on the end of her bed rather than in the comfort of his mother’s arms.

Eventually Caroline was able to leave the hospital to come home. It was a difficult moment as we left the hospital carrying a massive bunch of flowers instead of a baby!

I think we both felt the emotion of that moment.

Caroline’s dad took on board all the funeral arrangements for us; we had no money at all. We were barely covering our own bills and so he offered to sort it all out, and we could pay him back whenever we were able. We was massively grateful to him for that but to be honest I was also embarrassed at the same time.

The funeral was to take place in Essex, Caroline did not want Liam to be on his own so it was decided that he would be put with Caroline’s granddad in Upminster crematorium.

The whole day for me was and still is a blur. I have such little memory of it even now.

I remember that we did not want people to wear black or for there to be anyone other than family. I can remember Caroline having to be helped to the car as her legs just gave way beneath her.

I cannot remember the journey except for the final corner just as you come up to the crematorium, for some reason that bit sticks in my mind.

I don’t recall any of the service just that the vicar who married Caroline and I was the vicar who did Liam’s service.

My biggest regret however was that I did not carry the coffin. I wanted to, but I didn’t know I was allowed to. Nobody said that it was possible.

This sticks with me all the time, it’s a small thing but it is one of the things you cannot shake off. It one of those if only moments.

Liam was carried in by a funeral director in his small grey/white coffin, just cradled in his arms, it should have been me.

The loss of Liam was a massive situation in our lives. It is one of the things that will live with us forever.

We became very angry initially; we did try to find out the reason why what happened, happened. We did go to see the specialist and we was told that the blood poisoning was not due to burst appendix, it could have been due to intercourse however!

I was devastated to hear that! I was being blamed for killing my own baby! The truth is Caroline gets an infection after every operation (she has had several since) and each time she has an infection.

When Caroline was released after having her appendix removed, she was not even given a blood test, nor was she given any antibiotics.

There are lots of things which might have made a difference.

Should Caroline have had a blood test? Or antibiotics?

Should I have taken time off and kept Caroline in Bedford?

Should Caroline have made he parents wake up in the night?

Should Caroline’s dad have insisted that the GP got up and came?

Should Caroline have just been taken to Basildon hospital instead of phoning? (they had a special baby care unit there)

Should Bedford have transferred Caroline to Cambridge hospital? (they had a special baby care unit there)

There are so many should have or could have moments, none of us are to blame. We had never gone through a situation like this, How was we supposed to know how to act? We was young and inexperienced we didn’t argue with doctors, we did what we was told they knew what they was doing, didn’t they?