Nothing can prepare you for the death of your child.  When you read the pregnancy books, and do all the research, and talk to all of your friends, nobody ever mentions the possibility of stillbirth.  For us it became a horrible reality.

We had gone through a high risk pregnancy due to my heart condition, and it was recommended that this be our only pregnancy due to the higher risk of maternal death due to my aortic aneurysm if we tried for a second pregnancy.  We knew this may be our only child, so he was even more precious to us.

I was getting extra checks and tests and was being followed very closely.  The plan was to have an amniocentesis at 36 weeks to check that Joshua’s lungs were mature enough, and if so, deliver him that same day by cesarean section.

On Saturday, September 1st we had our baby shower, and on Monday the 3rd we went to Babies R Us to get the last few things we needed for Joshua’s room.  We now had everything and in exactly 2 weeks time, I should have been delivering our first child.

We went to dinner with friends that evening, and I had a sugary drink which normally got Joshua kicking me like mad.  It didn’t though, but it was an exciting movie, and I didn’t think anything of getting a break from the kicks.  By the time we got home, I was exhausted, and pretty much went straight to bed, and fell asleep instantly.

I woke up about 2am on the 4th, which I would occasionally do from Joshua’s activity.  I thought that’s why I’d woken up, but it hit me almost immediately that he hadn’t kicked during the movie, and I hadn’t felt him kicking when I went to bed, which is when our little soccer player was at his most active.  I started fretting straight away, and knew something was wrong.  I tried poking at him to get him to move and nothing.  I went downstairs for a cold glass of water, then a sugary drink, and still no movement.  By this time I was panicking and woke Andrew and asked if he remembered feeling Joshua moving before he went to sleep.  He said no, and I started freaking out completely.  Andrew said we should just call the hospital, and I said no, that I’m sure he would move very soon, I just wanted to try one more thing.   I tried putting music on my belly, and still no movement.

Andrew called the hospital and they told us to come straight in.  I knew something was wrong, but I was refusing to believe what I knew in the back of my mind.  I was sure that any moment he was going to kick, and I was going to feel silly for making such a fuss.

It was getting close to 4:30am by the time we got to hospital, and they took me straight in with the ultrasound wand attached to a speaker to try to find his heart beat.  Those moments of trying to find the heart beat but getting nothing were gut wrenching.  It was beginning to sink in.  The nurse said sometimes the heartbeat was just hard to find, and they’d bring in an ultrasound machine.  They did an ultrasound, and there in the chest cavity where there should be a heart beat, was a black, empty space.  There was no movement anywhere.  Every check up, the doctors and nurses had commented about how active a boy Joshua was.

That moment of realisation that our baby had died will never leave me.  To be so close to the end, and have no idea that a healthy person getting so many checks could lose a baby left us in shock.  We were comforted that the resident on duty that night was the Doctor who had been following our pregnancy the entire way through, who we really liked.  Having her there for us, and having someone else familiar who we knew cared about us really helped. 

Later that morning I delivered our angel, Joshua by cesarean section.  Going through the c section was a very unpleasant experience, and I never wanted to have to have a c section in the first place, but I no longer care about the method of delivery, as long as I get a healthy baby.  The surgery itself was pretty horrific for me - I had to have an arterial line which was horribly painful (especially with a student doctor who kept missing the artery), the epidural was horrible going in and gave me horrendous shakes to the point where I was almost convulsing, the morphine made me itch horribly and I threw up on the operating table.  Despite all that, I will have no problem with having another c section, as long as it has a better outcome.

It seemed as though Joshua had died from a cord accident.  When he was delivered, he had his umbilical cord wrapped tightly around his neck twice, and his body once.  Poor little guy was too active for his own good.

Andrew was able to accompany the nurse after Joshua was delivered to weigh him, measure him and take his hand and foot prints.  It really helped Andrew to be able to do that.  During our time in hospital, Andrew was devastated whereas I was still in shock, and it hadn’t really sunk in still, so I could comfort him.  It wasn’t until we got home that it really sunk in for me, at which point Andrew was dealing with it better and was able to comfort me.  We’d seen Joshua twice in hospital, but the first time I was pretty doped out from the surgery still, and the second time we had a friend and my mum there (who’d just arrived from Australia to be with us), so I didn’t feel as though I had any good one on one time with Joshua.

I got discharged from hospital on Friday morning, and on Sunday I realised I had to see him one more time, and hold him one more time with Andrew to get closure.  Lucky, they still had him in the morgue, so were able to bring him out for us.  I felt much more calm after I was able to spend some time properly saying good-bye. 

For anyone else who has the misfortune to have to go through the same I recommend spending one on one time with the baby, and also allow your family to see and hold the baby if they wish to and get photos.  It helps with closure and to be able to remember what the baby looked like.  Also, when the baby is first delivered, it won’t look very nice.  Joshua was grey, his eyes were sunken in, and it was heartbreaking to look at.  The next time we saw him, he’d been in the morgue for a few days, and I was bracing myself for how he was going to look.  This time, he had pink, rosy cheeks, a more normal looking skin colour, and his eyes no longer looked so sunken in.  It was much better to see him this way, and remember him looking like this.  He actually looked like he was just sleeping, which was a much more peaceful look.

Having to go to the funeral home to choose an urn and sort out those details was horrible.  I still couldn’t believe that we had to do this.  It seemed so unjust.

Having my mum staying with us was just what we needed.  We get on really well, and she is the perfect houseguest, especially in this sort of situation.  She would help out around the house, give us space when she thought we needed it, could happily amuse herself, and just make us smile.  I know it would have been a lot more difficult without her.

How did we cope?  We just did.  On the night before he was supposed to be born we went and stayed at a B & B near Half Moon Bay on the coast and had a relaxing evening, then on what should have been his birthday, we went to the cliffs at Half Moon Bay and released a couple of helium balloons with his photo on it in his memory.  We took comfort knowing that it was a freak accident and shouldn’t happen again, there was nothing we did wrong, and nothing we could have done.  I know that if I had have picked up a little earlier that he hadn’t been moving, he probably would have still have died, and if he didn’t die, he may very well have been brain damaged, which would be so much worse.

We cried in each others arms, we cried on our friends shoulders, and we took any help that was offered to us.  We had a fabulous network of friends who were so caring and compassionate, which also made a huge difference.  Everyone was hurting with us, and we are an open couple, so we would talk to our friends about Joshua and share our grief.  I think talking about it rather than bottling it up really helped.  Whenever I felt myself feeling down, I would allow myself to have a cry, then find something to cheer me up.  One of our neighbours is a stay at home mum of a then 5 month old, and a very close friend.  Her baby is absolutely gorgeous, and fun to be around, so whenever I was down, I would hang out with them for a while, or go for a walk with them, and feel much better for it.  Recognising when I was down and doing something about it before it spiralled into something worse also made a difference.

It had been confirmed at this point that my aortic aneurysm had gotten worse and I would need to get open heart surgery to fix it.  Rather than letting this bring me down, we saw it as a positive thing.  It was something in the future to look towards rather than dwelling on the past, it was an opportunity to get my life back which has been hampered because of my heart condition for the last few years, and it meant the restrictions on how many children we could have was lifted.

I generally think that things happen for a reason, but I would get so angry when people said to me “everything happens for a reason” after we lost Joshua. What could POSSIBLY be the reason for a baby dying??  Then I discovered the reason.  If we hadn’t have lost Joshua, I most probably wouldn’t have had the heart surgery for a while, if ever, and as it turned out, the sinuses of valsalva were very thin and not in very good condition - worse than they expected.  I am now glad that I’ve had my heart surgery before we have children, as it would have been so much harder with a child to look after at the same time.  I’m glad I got the surgery done, and can now have multiple children, and be able to run around after them and with them without the fear that my heart may not hold up.  I, of course, would much prefer to have our baby, and no heart surgery, but it’s a huge relief to have my heart fixed, and can see the benefit of having it done with no little tykes to worry about.

So for anyone else going through this - take the help where it’s offered, know that every person deals with things differently, so learn what you need to do to be able to cope with the grief, and don’t let anyone tell you how you should feel.  Know that the pain will lessen over time, but you will never forget your baby, and there will always be heartache there.  I still feel there’s a big, empty hole in my heart, where Joshua should be.  Try to look to something in the future to help focus on something other than the loss and the past.  You will get through it, so don’t let it take over your life completely.

After we lost Joshua, we were told how rare it was to have a stillborn baby, but then so many people told us how they were telling other people about it, and the people they were telling would say that they had a stillborn baby as well.  Everyone seemed to know someone who it had happened to, and it was nowhere near as uncommon as we thought - it just doesn’t get talked about.  It was almost a relief to hear that so many other people have gone through it and gotten through it, made us feel a bit less alone.  While it’s not common, I certainly know more people who have had a stillborn baby than I do with aortic aneurysms!

We can’t believe the run of bad luck we’ve had with the loss of our baby, and needing cardiac surgery, but unfortunately that’s just how life is sometimes.  We’re still here and we’re still smiling, we have each other, and we’re probably stronger for it all.  Hopefully, in the not too distant future we’ll be able to put up photos of another healthy, bouncing baby.