Our Stories
Oscar George
On the 2nd May this year my whole life changed forever. I was happily and blissfully laboring at home with my second son, Oscar. 41 weeks and 2 days pregnant, we’d packed George (our almost 3 year old son) off to nursery in the morning, telling him he’d likely come home to his new baby brother.
Things started to ramp up when he’d left and I spent the day in and out of the birthing pool, breathing through contractions and chatting away with the midwives in between. Myself and Oscar were monitored every 15mins or less and everybody was doing well... until we weren’t.
I’d been out of the pool doing some aided biomechanical exercises and using gravity to try and help things along after not progressing past 3cm for some hours. The hospital had been contacted, but as our vitals were all ticking along nicely there was no cause for concern and I was free to carry on and birth at home.
I felt a huge “flip” as Oscar moved down and I insisted on getting back into the pool to ease the discomfort. I was monitored before getting back in... all fine. I climb into the pool, monitored again 7mins later and... No heartbeat! (4:45pm 2nd May 2023) Everything happened so fast! The quickest a baby can be born via emergency C-section we’ve been told is 11 minutes, we had 7 plus we were at home.
I’m asked to get out of the pool and to lay on the sofa, which I do for more checks, still nothing, I’m still not even registering what’s happening. Then I hear the midwife say “ambulance is on the way I’ve called in a Cat 1” This I know to mean a life is in danger.
I begin to freak out but my midwife stays calm and reassures me that we’re going in to be checked over and for a scan. I climb into the ambulance with the midwife and I’m met with silence all the way to the hospital, she holds my hand as we race through traffic. I can hear the sirens as I lay there still contracting and breathing through the pain, holding my tummy and silently talking to Oscar to tell him mummy’s here and it’ll be ok.
I now know the silence and lack of activity in the back of the ambulance was due to the fact that the paramedic and my midwife knew that Oscar was gone, so in reality there was no ‘job’ for them to be getting on with. I still had no idea.
All this time, Oscar’s daddy is following behind in the car, not able to rush through red lights or speed as we were able to. I also now know that in actual fact, he could’ve travelled with me and the midwife in the back of the ambulance and the paramedic could’ve sat in the front due to the fact he wasn’t needed for anything.
Upon arrival at the hospital, I’m wheeled into the labor ward and I’m met with a reception area full of midwives and one surgeon who stands out like a sore thumb. I begin to think I’m dying and nobody’s told me. Not for a second did I consider it could be Oscar.
The faces of those people will stick in my mind forever. They knew, I didn’t.
I get wheeled into one of the delivery suites and there I’m met with a scan, still no sound. The screen is turned away from me and I ask what’s going on?! To which I’m told they need to get someone else to try and scan me, enter the surgeon. He moves the screen back to where I can see it and scans again. I see Oscar’s spine as he moves the wand up so bloody slowly, then I see it, the blackness, no white flicker as was there before...No sound.
Then he says those horrific 5 words, “I’m sorry, there’s no heartbeat” (6pm 2nd May 2023) I was on my own.
The sound I made in that moment I’ve never heard before and I hope I never hear again. I immediately left my body and began to see things from the outside looking in. I died in that moment and I’ll never get that person back.
I look to my left and see Oscar’s daddy rush in, he’s just arrived and all I can do is scream at him, “he’s dead!!” as everybody else in the room turned their backs to face away. This is the moment our lives changed irreparably forever.
I was then faced with the surgeon again, I scream at him repeatedly to “get him out!!”
Never for a second did I think I’d be giving birth naturally to my baby now. But he assured me that this is what would be best for recovery time, emotional stability later down the line, and to be as well as I could be physically for George. Oh god I thought, George. My poor boy, never getting to meet his brother, what do we do now? How on earth do you explain death to a 2 year old!?
I spent the next 10 hours laboring in near silence, now with the help of drugs, an epidural, gas and air and in a hospital bed (the complete opposite to the ‘plan’). It was dark, cold, quiet and surreal. I feel like I left my body and mind for those 10 hours, watching silently from elsewhere, but also being acutely aware of every tiny sound, smell, movement and sensation around me.
At 4:40am on Wednesday the 3rd May our beautiful baby boy, Oscar was born into my arms. So perfect, so beautiful, so big (8lb 7oz) But also so, so silent. Deafeningly so.
It’s crazy how something so traumatic can still be such a beautiful moment. Here he was, finally, I got to meet my gorgeous boy. Right up until he arrived I still had that tiny glimmer of hope that he’d cry, but no. It’s completely devastating.
The immense rush of love you feel for your child the first time you lay eyes on them does not diminish when they are born silent. If anything it’s magnified and it’s beautiful. There is no answer yet as to why Oscar is not with us today, only the presumption that he simply ran out of oxygen supply from nuchal chord x2, “extended cord compression” (a cord around the neck or body) as well as swallowed meconium, all of which most babies survive.
Immediately, the fantastic team around us began to make memories and keepsakes on our behalf, taking photos, still offering skin to skin, weighing and measuring, recording all of his little details, taking locks of his hair, casts of his hands and feet, making foot and handprint pictures, and providing him with toys and blankets, all kindly donated by 4Louis via the memory box, which we still cherish and utilize daily 3 months on.
I don’t remember who took him after he was born, nor do I know to where they took him. All I know is that I was wheeled into the ‘Butterfly Suite’ which is the bereavement suite on the labor ward in the hospital. It’s a room of three parts, 1. Where I was wheeled into on my hospital bed, wires and monitors etc. all around with a kind of day bed sofa next to it. 2. The bedroom which had a double bed, Tv, tea and coffee making facilities and 3. An En-Suite shower room. I don’t know how long we were in there for until somebody asked if we wanted to see Oscar again, but when asked we immediately said yes.
He was then wheeled into the room in what I can only describe as a chest freezer with no lid on wheels! (A cuddle / cold cot) Hands down one of the most traumatizing and horrific sights I’ve ever had to endure. No warning that this is how we would be seeing our son, (I almost expected someone to just carry him into the room in their arms) and I lost it.
I broke down and started shouting at the midwife that I didn’t want to see him like that and to get him out. This is the moment the horrendous reality of the situation hit me smack in between the eyes for the first time and the ‘journey’ (I hate that word) really began.
