Stillbirth at 28 weeks - why?

This baby was our third son. I was over the moon when I found out he was a boy.

As one of seven siblings, the first four of them girls, I loved the idea of a same-sex sibling group. Our other boys were three years old and six years old at the time and our three year old was particularly excited to be getting a little brother.

Our eldest was busy with his first year of school and just took the whole 'another brother' thing in his stride without any fanfare.

It was a smooth pregnancy. Around 19 weeks we had a scan which showed all was well and around 21 weeks I saw the first really good poke, the sort where you actually see your belly move as a small body part pushes against you. Very, very cool.

At 23 weeks I was still waiting to receive another good jab. Nothing really came. I remember thinking 'gee, this baby is not a mover and shaker like his brothers'. I even thought at the time, maybe I should go and get checked. But it was Easter, we had extended family visiting and I just didn't want to unnecessarily upset the apple cart.

I didn't want to be a paranoid mum, I'd been told by my midwife that for some reason women are more inclined to have a 'freak out' with their third baby than with their first or second. And I'd already been crying over the phone to them once, convinced by I-cant-remember-what that something was wrong. They were very understanding and kind and checked the heartbeat for me that time.

So I didn't want to race up to the hospital at Easter with another false alarm.

It's just my imagination getting the better of me, I thought.

The pregnancy continued with no more big movements. Small ones perhaps, but no more big pokes. And I was freezing, whereas with my other boys I remember being so hot all the time.

I was starting to think maybe my dates were out, even though I knew they weren't. Maybe the pregnancy wasn't as far along as I thought, although I knew it was. I asked other pregnant ladies about the movements their babies were making and they convinced me I just had a quiet one in there.

I allowed myself to be convinced.

At 28 weeks I was due to take a glucose tolerance test, and the hospital was just across the road from the lab where I was doing the test. I made the decision to go and get checked at the hospital afterwards, just to put my mind at ease.

The midwives were lovely as always. After asking why I was concerned, they asked if there had been a cessation of movement. I replied that there had been no build up of movements, therefore no, there had been no cessation. They seemed unconcerned but got me in right away.

First up, the midwife tried the doppler. After getting no result after a few tries, she said "we won't chase him round with that, he's still so little" and brought out the portable ultrasound machine. After a couple of tries with that, she told me she was no expert and the machine was very old and lets go round to fetal monitoring to get a really good look.

Don't panic, she said, smiling. We'll find him.

Outwardly I was calm and smiling, inside, I now knew something was very wrong. It had never been this hard to locate the heartbeat in this pregnancy before, nor in my other pregnancies either.

In fetal monitoring, she brought in another midwife. They started an ultrasound and both the midwives examined the screen.

I couldn't look at the screen. Maybe if I didn't look, everything would be okay.

There was silence. They kept looking.

I asked God to help me through this. More silence. I didn't ask questions. I couldn't. I wanted to freeze time right there, so they couldn't tell what I now knew in my heart.

Eventually they both turned to me and gently told me, with tears in their eyes, they hadn't been able to find our baby's heartbeat. I just nodded, unable to say anything.

It was the worst feeling in the world, having my deepest fears confirmed.

After contacting my husband, together we went through the options with our midwife. We decided to come in the next morning for an induction, which we did.

Our baby boy was born at 9pm that night, on May 20th 2011, a VBA2C. He weighed a tiny 320 grams, which is 11.3 ounces. We held him and cried over him, the midwives made hand and footprints for us. We took photos and cried some more. We named him.

We named our third son Lightning Thunder.

It still makes me smile, even to write it. Our other boys you see, were convinced we should name their newest brother after a super hero. The names on their list were Lightning Strike, Thunderhead and Silver bolt. When talking about their brother, or to him, through my belly, they referred to him as baby Lightning. And I had started doing the same.

So, seeing as my husband and I hadn't settled on a name yet, and our boys were convinced we would be calling the baby Lightning, we did.

Lightning Thunder.

I knew he would never be tormented about his name in school, or ridiculed because of it in the business world. Our other boys would always know who we were talking about, because to them, that had been his name all along.

We had a wee service for our boy, not even that actually, just a priest there to give a blessing and say a few words.

That tiny, white casket is the saddest thing I have ever, ever seen. Something I never thought we'd see in our little family.

We each laid a flower on top and our three year old a drawing also. It was a drawing of inventions, he said, and he will give it to the postie to bring to baby Lightning in heaven so he could make the inventions.

It was a really tough goodbye. I didn't want to leave the little casket there, I wanted to gather it up in my arms and carry it away. Somewhere.

That's my baby in there, my littlest boy.

I miss him so much.

Once back at home, real life set in. We hadn't yet set up the crib, so there was no glaring visual reminder in that way. Just a drawer with some bibs, some soft little baby slippers I'd picked up and the brand new modern cloth nappies I'd ordered off the internet.

All the rest was still in boxes, waiting till closer to the birth to be washed and put away.

As I had been warned, my milk came in. A reminder of the baby I didn't have, all this milk, with no one to give it to. Practical advice came from one of my sisters, who is herself a midwife: wear a tight fitting bra and put cold cabbage leaves in it. Thankfully, that worked and milk production subsided after a few days.

I didn't sleep well. I was waking every few hours during the night. I think my body was waking me up to feed our baby.

Then I started nesting.

At least, that's what I thought at first. I had the urge to cook, to bake, to fill the cupboards and the freezer with all manner of homemade food. Every night after my boys were in bed I would be in the kitchen, baking cookies, making curries, boiling up my own chocolate syrup, making lemon butter, meatballs, graham crackers, broccoli soup, fruit leather, chicken stock, bread rolls, gingerbread, peppermint candy, pizza, raw caramels.

Eventually, it became clear to me that this was a way of dealing with stress. An odd way perhaps, but it got me through. What made this so clear was the day before our six week appointment at the hospital to find out test results.

I was inwardly just a little bit worried about the appointment. Nothing I'd really thought about deeply though, or voiced to my husband. I knew it would not be an easy day, and it would be my first time back to the hospital after the birth. The cooking compulsion had worn off by now, and I was just back to doing my usual food preparation for the family.

But the day before the appointment I found myself making some cinnamon rolls, two batches of cookies and some lemonade syrup. Then that night I made another curry, some ice cream, custard, a big pot of soup and more fruit leather. One random comment from my husband later, and I had stormed off, a tearful mess. Then my husband twigged: I was stressed out thinking about the impending hospital appointment and cooking was the way my stress manifested itself. He didn't even realise it was weighing so heavily on my mind, and to be honest, neither did I.

It was actually somewhat of a relief to realise this, it wasn't just that I was going crazy.

Why did it happen?

We don't know. They don't know. No one could tell us why our baby boy was stillborn at 28 weeks.

I found this poem floating round the internet, it seemed so perfect that I posted it on my blog and would like to share it here.



My Stillborn Baby Son

I once had a son who now lives with God above,
I never got to know him and I never knew his love,
I once had a son whose heart beat close to mine,
I never knew his beauty for I never got the time,
For my son he was taken before the dawn could break,
He's now sleeping in my heart where his share of love he takes.
When I see my children who now walk here by my side,
There's a sweet image of my son mirrored in their eyes,
When I see a rose bud dropped to the ground too soon,
It reminds me of my baby who was gone before he bloomed,
If God should stand before me and grant me one last wish,
I'd wish my baby in my arms to on his head bestow a kiss.
I know I have my children who to me are very dear,
But there's an empty place within my life for which I shed a tear,
So I question God each day as to why he couldn't stay,
Why my son was given to me then silently taken away,
But I know I have to be patient and wait till I go home,
Then within the grounds of God's heavenly home my son and I will roam

by Heather Pauwels of Calvary Chapel Perth

This all happened five months ago, at the time of writing this page.

I now walk with my head up again.

For weeks afterwards I would walk with my head down, not wanting to meet anyone's eyes, not wishing to see babies or pregnant women.

For two weeks my husband did the school run for me, the gymnastics run with our three year old, and came to the farmer's market with me. We needed food, obviously, but I wasn't ready to talk to all the friendly stall holders, so I directed from the sidelines.

For the first month afterwards, I would stay outside the circles of mums waiting in front of the classroom to pick up their children. I'd hang out with my three year old, just far enough away to dissuade most people from coming over to talk. I had support among them, but I just didn't want to talk about what had happened at school pick-up time.

Now, life is normal again. But a different kind of normal.

I still do the school run, the shopping, clean the house and take the boys swimming. But a part of me is missing. Someone is missing. There is sadness carried much closer to the surface than it ever was before. My arms are empty, when they are meant to be carrying someone very small.

Life is normal again, thanks in part to these two.



But I am different.