Through the death of Jaime,
I discovered more meaning to life.

This story was written by Tim Law, in response to a request for how we saw the reaction of others to our loss. It also might help non bereaved people understand those who have lost, and to work out how to respond.

Our Loss

Sunday December 8, 1991 was the black day. Kerry was a week overdue, the pregnancy had been normal with no apparent problems. She, reluctantly, was going to have a normal birth - a 'trial of scar' it was called. Kerry prefers caesareans - less pain she reckons, and more predictable. She'd had fetal heart monitoring done the previous morning on Saturday, and although the trace was not great, at the time it was acceptable. In hindsight, the trace showed evidence of problems, but at the time it appeared okay. It was planned for her to go to hospital on Sunday to be induced on Monday.On Sunday night as we were preparing to take Kerry in, she went into labour, with INTENSE contractions about two minutes apart right from the start. We rushed her in, and the decision was made to do a caesarean as the baby was distressed, and there was merconian (fecal matter from the baby and dangerous if inhaled) in the amniotic fluid. At 9.30 pm Jaime was born dead, and was not able to be revived. No reason was found for her death, some babies die and this time it was ours. We chose not to have an autopsy and do not regret this decision.The hospital staff were great, and also devastated. It was the first stillbirth attended by our trusted doctor and friend - she stopped practising medicine for a few months after Jaime's birth, and has since stopped delivering babies. In theatre, one of the nurses came to me as I sat on the floor in the corner, and said she'd also lost a child and knew how I felt. I hadn't spoken to anyone who had lost a child before and her simple comments helped.Over the next few days, we seem to have the undivided attention of one nurse each shift, and had a large room - the hospitals 'home birth' suite, to ourselves. The nurses would come in and sit and cry with us. Jaime was with us when we wanted her to be. We had the photos, the clip of hair, the hand and footprints, the SANDS (Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Support) leaflets. Teardrop stickers were placed on our door. As I would walk out of the room, groups of nurses would dissipate from their session of swapping stories of what had happened to us, and no doubt finding reason and possibly attributing blame. I was acutely aware this was a serious thing that everyone took very much to heart - I felt cared for and supported; lost, confused and sad, but not lonely. I also felt wrenched when I would walk past one of the rooms and hear a babies first cry - I wished I could have heard my own daughters first cry, how I wished.We had a few visitors, but many, many kind thoughts, messages and flowers. Some of our friends could look at Jaime and even hold her, some could not bear the pain for them and averted their eyes. That was okay by us, we were not offended.Nothing that happened in those first few days was bad for us and I cannot recommend any improvement. I knew the babies I could hear born alive weren't mine, it hurt hearing them cry. What was important was that we were still in the familiar surroundings of the labour ward, with staff that had been through the pain of it with us. If we had gone to the post natal ward, we might have had more difficulty coping with staff and other patients who didn't know us.

Siblings

It was very important for Jacob, who had just turned two, but was a very caring and sensitive child who figured out something was wrong, to be fully involved. I mean, every adult he saw was crying, naturally he figured out something bad had happened!

Over the years we have tried to keep the memory of Jaime alive for him, by including her in our conversations, by remembering her birthday, by placing flowers on her memorial in the cemetery. He talks about her at his school with his friends who accept it without problems, it's the adults who have problems.

Family and Friends

The important people in our lives, our families and close friends, had various reactions.

One of the most striking things about life after Jaime, is the smaller circle of friends we have, and how our contacts now include many other bereaved parents. We realise how for many of our friends, it was too painful for them to talk to us, both from the point of view of seeing friends cry and emotional, and also from the point of acknowledging the tragedy of the loss of a child. Reflecting four years later, we accept some of these friendships were just floating along anyway, and we were not particularly close to them. What the loss of Jaime did, was to show us who our close friends were.Losing a child is tough on everyone, no one wins, no one knows what to do or say. Some people don't know what to say so they say stupid things, or religious things. If you can't think of saying something supportive, it IS okay to not say anything. We found one of the most supportive things said to us was "I'm so sorry, I don't know what to say." That's fine, we didn't know what to say either, but at least it acknowledges the pain, the loss, Jaime, and lets us talk about it if we want to.And talk about we did want to. After a few months though, we were getting wise to what we said to people, close people got the truth, pushy people got pushed away with half truths. I can remember an instance after I returned to work. A colleague who I wasn't particularly close to, got me into her office on the first day back and grilled me about what had happened, wanting to know what we were "going to do about it" - suing for damages etc. This was insensitive and uncalled for, and is to be avoided. In the words of the 'Ghostbusters' - It was bad.

• First, she invaded my grief as someone who was not close to me. She asked very personal questions she had no mandate to.
• Second, she did it on the first day back at work, showing no sensitivity at all.
• Third, she made no effort to find out my feelings on the matter of 'responsibility' and 'blame', and then imposed her own view on a situation she knew nothing about.
• Fourth, I think she was caught up in her own grief and confused feelings as her daughter had had an abortion around the same time Jaime was born.! My poor other work colleagues had been through the mill too, dealing with Jaime's birth to parents who loved and wanted her, and the termination of a healthy fetus to parents who did not want it.

Whilst on termination, I am not against abortion itself, and see it as the women's choice. I am against women using termination as a form of contraception, which is irresponsible.

One hard thing was the reaction of my parents, my mother in particular. It was very clear my mother was devastated by Jaime's death. She wanted to share her feelings and be supportive of us. We'd never had a feelings based relationship, and it was foreign and new for this to 'demanded' of us. In the end, I said to her that I recognised she was really upset by the loss of Jaime, and so were we, and that she was looking for support, but we couldn1t give that to her, and that she needed to find that somewhere else. After that she got the message and we were free again to be together in our grief, and not have to support anyone else. I'm not sure what my mother did, but we still get on okay, and it didn't cause any new problems.True friends stay around, but other friends drop away as I've said above. If that is distressing to you, unfortunately it is generally up to the bereaved parents to do something about it. Friends don't know what to do, they don't know how to start conversations, whether to talk about the baby, how they'll cope when you cry, they don't want to be the cause of you crying, they feel guilty at avoiding you - remember, no one wins with the loss of a child. We chose carefully who we recontacted, and were conscious that we had to set the scene, the tone of the contact. We would casually bring up Jaime in the conversation, e.g. "We've not been out much since Jaime was born, but would like to see you sometime."

Christmas

Jaime was born on December 8, and we got many, many sympathy cards, but very, very few Christmas cards. We wanted to be normal, we didn't like being abnormal, special, we wanted to be boring and blend in to the background. We should have been getting Christmas cards.

There is no best way to handle this. Special events are ALWAYS difficult for bereaved parents, reminding them of their loss. Jaime's birth being so close to Christmas just made our first Christmas so much more unbearable.It surprised us who we got messages from. Some people we had met only briefly, or had some obscure contact with sent us cards; whilst we didn't hear from others who knew us well. Every day more sympathy cards would arrive, some we recognised as having a special message. Those were from parents who had also lost babies, through stillbirth and miscarriage. Their messages gave us comfort; acknowledging that we were not alone.Some messages of sympathy carried religious script. We had attended Church, but were not deeply religious, although Kerry's faith was stronger than mine. When you lose a child, you lose lots of other things as well. I've talked about the loss of friends. You also lose your innocence; your faith in the medical profession; your understanding of the rules of life - that bad things only happen to bad people; your faith in God and the Church. Why has God done this to us? Saying it was God's will does not help. Saying he has a spot in heaven for Jaime does not help. Those thoughts are as unhelpful as saying you're young enough to try again etc. etc. What we wanted was our girl, God doesn't make sense, God didn't help, what use is he?

Returning to work

I was employed as a Social Worker in a large Local Government providing services to assist keeping seniors living in their home as they become frailer. My manager was a Social Worker. Her reaction to my loss assisted me greatly in my return to work being the least traumatic experience possible. I had already arranged leave for a few weeks, and she found extra leave, like bereavement leave to add to it. I think it was about a month after Jaime's birth that I returned to work. I also had a job that could be separated into administration and casework. She employed someone to do the casework, and I recommenced on half time doing only administrative work. I didn't return to full time work for about three months, and I needed that. I thank her most sincerely.

Life after Jaime

When Jacob was 2 and a half, he went to hospital twice in a few months with stomach pain, vomiting, diarrhoea? etc. This was within six months of Jaime being born. The first tentative diagnosis was gastro-enteritis, but they weren't really satisfied with that diagnosis. The second episode resulted in him being sent to emergency surgery without knowing what the surgeons where going to find. "+++Stress Central." They found he had a 'second appendix' or Meckles Diverticulum. The specialist only expects to see about four or five Meckles in his career - very rare thing. The Meckles twisted his bowel and constricted it. They removed the Meckles and his appendix and he's been fine since.

In September 1992, a few months after the Meckles episode, he had to have another general anaesthetic to put caps on his teeth. Due to a virus Kerry had when she was twelve weeks pregnant with Jacob, just when the teeth are starting to form, his teeth had an inherent weakness and just fell apart. The caps will fall out with his milk teeth and he shouldn't have any further problems into adulthood.These episodes in hospital for Jacob were all within the first year after Jaime was born.In addition that year - yes there is more!! Kerry was trying to get pregnant, with the active assistance of Tim, but got a virus called CMV - Cito meglio virus, which many people have had and it is not terribly bad, with flu like symptoms, but always results in deformities or miscarriage if pregnant. So that meant Kerry couldn1t get pregnant whilst the virus was active.1992 was a horrible year, an emotional roller coaster.

Subsequent Pregnancies

Eventually, Kerry was cleared of CMV active virus and became pregnant. He was due to be born on October 16, 1993 in a planned caesarean, about two weeks before his due date. We used the same team of Doctors, Hospital etc as with Jaime. We even asked for one of 'our' midwifes that had been with us after Jaime's birth to be with us. We needed people who knew us, knew our history, and were going to be supportive and understand if we went a bit loopy in the process.  I knew I was very nervous about the impending birth of Christopher - (We knew he was a boy. We didn't want any surprises during birth this time.) - but didn't realise quite how stressed I was until I saw the first photos taken after his birth. I looked exactly the same as I did when Jaime was born; drawn, shocked, and very unhappy. I'd also not realised until Christopher's first sounds, that I'd been waiting two years to hear my baby's first cry.The joy that should be associated with a healthy contented new baby came slowly, but was tinged with sadness and probably some fears about getting too close. I was afraid he will always miss out on things I'd done for Jacob. For instance, I'd written a detailed diary of my feelings from the time we knew Kerry was pregnant with Jacob, right up until the birth of Jaime when Jacob was two. Now I've stopped recording those things, and Christopher will miss out as he grows up. I guess this is another way the loss of a child affects siblings.Older siblings are affected in ways we least expect. Jacob was two when Jaime was born. He was very sad with us, and we've kept his memories alive by talking about her and regularly taking him to place flowers on her memorial at the cemetery. During Kerry's pregnancy with Christopher, he saw a baby being born on TV. He said "The baby's born, now it's dead and people will cry." ..... Taken aback with his response, we gently introduced him to new healthy babies we knew, and also revisited the hospital nursery to show him how most babies survived. When Christopher arrived safely, he loved his new brother very much, and it was great to see; but always the 'What if' questions are there and remain unanswered.We wanted to keep trying to have another girl, and Kerry became pregnant in September 1994, and the new baby was due when Christopher was about 18 months old. At 12 weeks she had a miscarriage. The ultrasound showed an empty placenta; there never had been a baby. It was called a blighted ovum, and is caused when conception occurs, but the cells stop dividing successfully at an early stage. The mother1s body doesn1t know this until 12 weeks until it checks out how the fetus is going, and in the meantime is making placenta, and giving off all the 'pregnant' hormones. Losing that pregnancy was hard, but not as hard as losing Jaime. The fact that there was no baby, no heartbeat, made it a lot easier for me. What we lost was more the expectation and the relief that Kerry was pregnant. It took time to get over that, and to resurrect ones self esteem to try again.Finally, it all happened right and Kerry is due to have another girl in April 1996. It is all planned, again we don't want any surprises. As I write this she has 9 weeks to go, and all is well.  Our views have changed over the years. When Jaime died, we wanted to just keep on having children, and not wanting to miss out on any opportunity, after seeing how precious they are, how quickly things can go from hope to tragedy. This will be our last, whether or not she lives. People are very supportive and say things like - "I bet you're pleased it is a girl", without mentioning Jaime. Yes it is true, but our thoughts are more with how on earth are we going to cope with a new baby, when the two we've got now are a handful and we're getting too old to cope again. Our focus has changed from not wanting to miss out on any opportunity to have children, to accepting the reality that raising kids is hard work, and that we want to get something else out of life apart from the wonderful achievement of being parents to fine offspring.Having another child after losing Jaime helped the healing, and restore a little of our faith in ourselves, the medical profession, God, our true friends etc, but it is not without its own traumas, and shouldn't be entertained lightly by others who have lost a child. It does help to soften the memories, but nothing should be done to try to erase those memories. Learn to live with them and they WILL become less raw over time, but NEVER try to forget the child you've lost.

"How many Children have you?"

In the early days the answer definitely included Jaime. Now I think about the audience, if I want to tell them my story, when I respond to the question. Each time I am asked, I always think of her, so I am not forgetting, sometimes it is just easier not to tell others. I often say something like "We've got two at home", which of course leads to another question on where the others are. I just say we lost a child at birth and most people just say sorry and move on with the conversation.
 

Being a Social Worker

Experiencing this loss has made me more empathetic with the people I am trying to help, and I am a better helper. I would rather have my daughter, but there have been positive things to have happened as a result of her death.I have become more focused in my work, in my balancing home and family, in what I want to get out of life. I was able to leave the security of permanent work and do contract and locum consultancies, which is somewhat unusual in my industry. I did it because I wanted to refocus my life, to be more flexible.

Through the death of Jaime, I discovered more meaning to life.

UPDATE

April 11, 1996Our second child after Jaime was born today. It is another girl, and we named her Cassidy. She was born by elective cesarian 14 days early, and was born alive and healthy.The last few weeks have been quite miserable for me, her father, and in many ways worse than the first birth after Jaime. We have known we were having a girl from early in the pregnancy, and I realised during the birth that I had never really expected us to be having another girl - we'd lost one, and so we'd never have another.My tears started as the operation started, and didn't stop until well after she was born alive and all was okay. I didn't want to be there because I feared another stillbirth. I buried my head in the pillow beside Kerry and just sobbed. When the Doctors lifted her out and showed us over the top of the sheets, I only glanced and didn't believe what I was seeing; I was still expecting the worst.With the slow realisation of her life, her uniqueness, her beauty; I felt a great load slowly lifting - life had something to offer again.