Dragonfly Fi
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Here is my delivery story... from the scan to the labour ward.
I wrote this the morning after, I have had a shaky couple of days but i am glad i wrote this so soon, because it WAS how it felt for me. I hope it can maybe bring strength to others
The delivery of my baby girl.
I got pregnant 23 weeks ago, it wasnt planned. We hadnt expected to have another baby for a good while. I couldnt believe i was pregnant, it didnt feel real somehow but all the signs were there and we went in for our 12 week scan (at 9 weeks) and even on the way i told Liam that i thought something would be wrong, or i thought that we would get there and there wouldnt be a baby. I didnt think there was anything 'wrong' with the baby... just that the baby wasnt there.
It was confirmed that i was pregnant with a baby and i continued feeling not pregnant right up until our 18 week scan on the 19th of August. On the way there i still said to Liam 'are you sure i am pregnant' 'are you sure its a girl' 'i dont feel pregnant' liam go so bored of me asking these questions about the baby that he was quite exasperated by then. Still i continued, so clearly unsure about the baby in my belly. I would say to him 'do you remember when i was this pregnant with Jasper? It was very different wasnt it?'
With Jasper i can remember waking up in the morning and talking to him even before i knew he was a boy, i was so pleased when i found out his sex because i could talk to him as a boy rather than 'the baby'. Finding out the sex seemed to just solidify a bit of his personality, his character.
With this baby girl. Well i just think i never connected with her, it never felt real and then when i was told everything was okay... well i was willing to go along with it because i SO wanted a baby girl, it seemed SO perfect and right. I so wanted to meet my daughter.
But it is not time for us to meet her yet.
So when i went in for our 23 week scan (routine, just to check the babies heart, not because of a worry about any problems) I was not thinking for a second that there would be any problem.
That moment, when the radiographer held the ultrasound machine over the baby, and she was all squashed and there was no movement. Oh it was horrible. Mum burst into tears, no one could believe it. She said she would just check but i knew. I knew she was dead. She put her hand on my knee and just said 'i am so sorry'
'i need to phone Liam' i said, wiping the gel off my belly
'would you like some photos'
'No thanks, good for dead baby photos cheers'
'She has some of the baby before she died' said mum through her tears
i was already out the door, funny how quickly all the air can leave a room when you hear words like those, that airless, claustrophic room with a stranger, that picture still up on the screen of my dead child was too much for me. I needed to go outside quickly.
I went out the front, sat on a little bench and phoned Yeovil college to get hold of Liam. Finally managed to convince the air-head blonde on the phone that actually going to get liam from his class personally and getting him to a phone was exactly was what necessary after much 'oh but i can get him to call you within about half an hour' etc
Sat on the bench, watched the minutes tick by. 9 minutes. Mum appeared... without Jasper
'where is my baby?'
he was with the nurses having a whale of a time. She had come to make sure i was okay. Of course i wasnt okay but i only had one thought in my head. I Must Phone Liam.
10 minutes, Liam calls.
'Liam'
'Are you okay?'
'Liam our baby girl is dead'
'What! No, Fuck off!' tears etc
Liam comes home on the train. we go back into the airless, NHS building
find Jasper. Making everyone smile.
'Is everything alright'
Oh how you wish you could tell the truth when people ask you that... No, No everything is NOT alright, not only have i just found out my baby is dead and has been for some time, meaning my body has been hanging on to, and treating a little dead child as a live one. Not ONLY have i just found that out, i know that i have to birth this baby, that it is big enough that I will have to labour it and deliver it. I know that i have to do that and whats WORSE is that rather than you just TELLING me what it is i have to do, dosing me up with whatever drugs that you need me to take and then letting me go home for a bit, you are going to FANNY about asking me questions like 'is everything okay' and expecting me to break down in tears and require the paid-for-mental support of some overworked NHS nurser when ACTUALLY all i need is clinical support from you people and i can go and grieve with my family and friends.
'I'm coping, what happens now'
'well we need you to go to obs and gynea and speak to a consultant'
lovely, wonderful, fucking tip-top. Here we go on back to the room where all the pregnant women sit, wide eyed and hopeful, praying for a wee boy or a wee girl whilst clutching their maternity notes and clinging on to their nearest and dearest to share in the excitement
wonderful
So here i am in the obs and gynea waiting room, Oh look there is a girl i went to school with, who dated my brother once, FANTASTIC just whats needed. Trying not to make eye contact, trying not to cry, trying not to ming out all these lovely volumptious pregnant folk with my sad face and eyes that tell a different story to any they want reminding of at the moment
'Fiona Ryan'
Thank fuck for that... off we go then, into yet another Airless room (this one has a window that doesnt open and 'sensitive' purple chairs and wall decorations
Jasper runs around giggling. Midwife walks in
'How are you?'
ARGH!
'I'm coping, what happens next'
'do you need a minute?'
No i do not need a minute, i need the very opposite of a minute, i need to go back in time and not be in this situation, i need to have found this out at home or weeks ago or IT NOT TO HAPPEN AT ALL
'no i would like to know what happens next'
'right well we are going to give you this pill, its a hormone which will stop your body from thinking the baby is there. Then you will come back in in 48 hours (Saturday Morning) and we can start labour as we would if you were having a full term baby'
lovely
'so i have to go through a labour, a proper actual labour'
'its like a mini labour yes'
'i would like all the drugs please'
'okay i think we can arrange that'
good.
'now, how are you feeling mentally'
like i would rather be anywhere else in the world then right here in this purple room with you
'i'm okay, how long will it take'
'hopefully not too long, as its your second baby'
great, marvellous so no real answers there
'when can i go home'
'i need to go and get you the hormone from the labour room, that will take me around half an hour, you can wait here'
Great, i can sit in this room of death and pain for a whole half an hour, i dont even have enough battery on my phone to play solitaire. Nice. (i should probably add here that the midwife i dealt with was lovely, she obviously cared very much about my situation and about me, it is my lack of ablility to deal with such things that are making me seem like such a cynical twat, it was not her fault i felt like that, i just wanted her to give me a bullet point of information, whatever drugs i needed to take and let me go home. thats why i wasnt at all nasty to her, she was actually very very nice)
'can i sit outside?'
'yes there are two benches out there, go and sit outside'
then i had to phone Anna, it was nearly as hard as phoning Liam. She's such a good friend and has already had a shite week, telling her that her Godchild had passed was not great for either of us.
finally, midwife is back with the drugs
'now before you take this...'
what? what could you POSSIBLY want me to do, jump on my head? do a little dance? answer pointless questions about sod all so you can tick off a little form?
'...can you just confirm blah blah blah blah'
confirmed
'now i can see your the type of person who likes to get things done with and put away and not really think about them but you have to be nice to yourself'
okay midwife lady, lets try and say this as pleasantly as possible
'i am able to grieve, i am able to go home and sit with my family and my friends and cry and shake and sob, i am able to write poetry, talk about how i am feeling and if necessary go to a big hill and scream and scream until its all out, what i dont need is to do that here, this is the clinical bit, the grieving bit comes after this whole mingfest'
'okay dear, well take this pill and we will see you in 48 hours, if you have any cramping or contraction feelings then come in earlier or give me a call'
'thanks'
-----
Thursday was HORRIBLE, this all happened by sort of 11am, by 1pm i was contracting every half an hour or so with period type pains, nothing major just thought i would leave it. I was thinking about how i felt about everything and trying to understand why i felt so calm about it on a spiritual level.
well maybe its because these things happen in nature
maybe its because i never really felt the baby existed in the first place
i think its because this baby never really had a soul, my daughter, my Ivy-Mae never came into this body, this life. That little baby body in my belly was never inhabited. It grew for a while and when it was not entered into, it died. Its natural. It never was.
perhaps that makes me seem like a cold heartless bitch. Perhaps i should have felt more 'loss' from the situation but actually my overriding feeling was absolutely feeling sorry for myself.
I knew that 48hours after taking that pill, i would have to deliver a baby, i would have a labour and go through contractions and (this is the bit that terrified me) push out a baby with no life in it.
i didnt know what she would look like, she had been in there so long she had started to compact herself down.
took a dihydracodine, fell asleep at 10pm
I woke up at 4am on Friday morning, still contracting regularly (much more painfully now though) Anna was online, god shes amazing, chatted to her.
Went to sleep at 6am, slept til 8.30. Woke up
Major wincing contractions. Cant be bothered doing this for another whole day.
Phoned the midwife
'come in, the labour ward isnt busy'
cried all the way there, so so terrified of what was about to happen. Liam was great, mum concerned i hadnt eaten took us to waitrose for coffee and cakes, last thing on my mind was coffee and cakes, actually best thing ever coffee... needed it.
got to hospital in a blur, receptionist (perfect)
'hi i am here to give birth'
'well are you in labour'
'sort of, its a still birth'
'Oh, go and sit in the waiting room'
labour ward waiting room, yay and whoop, praying no one comes in
finally we are carted off. Room 9... will never forget it
'this is your midwife'
'hello'
'hello how are you?'
'Okay, we are obviously going to be spending some time together, i dont want you to ask me how i am, i am sorry if i seem cold but i feel like i am going through a clinical proceedure, i dont feel like i have lost a baby i dont feel like i am grieving a child. I would just like to get this over with as quickly as possible and on as many drugs as you are willing to give me'
'what drugs have you had so far'
'i had a dihydracodine at 8pm and 2 paracetamol at 8am'
'okay well it sounds like you could do with some more dihydracodine then, good choice'
i think i am going to like my midwife
'i would rather you just brought me drugs, dont wait for me to ask for them or ask me if i want them, just hand em over'
'no problem, i see you are allergic to Ora-Morphine'
'yes i am but i would like to make it very clear that i am NOT allergic to Morphine'
'very good, noted'
'excellent, could i have gas n air'
'yes as much as you would like, i will go and get you a tube now'
marvellous, after a DC and a swil of gas n air i felt much better
---
3 hours later
contractions ramping up a bit now, had an internal and some 'speed me up drugs'
more DC
injection in the arse, Morphine (But a bit stronger apparently)
hammered... properly hammered. me and Liam necking gas n air and giggling whilst the midwife and mum are out of the room. This went on for a few hours
at about 4pm the contractions were HARDCORE and very low (wont be long now)
more morphine, double dose...
7pm - me and Liam alone in the room, the contractions stopped, i assumed my cervix had dialted and i would get another contraction telling me to push, this was the bit i was most worried about because i didnt want to feel a tiny baby, i didnt want it to hurt, i didnt want to see it. i was so scared before hand but now it was here and it was So Calm.
I felt so rational
so at peace
for ten minutes i waited and then i realised what was going on
i called a midwife
i said goodbye to my little girl
i pushed her out of my body.
she was delivered at 19.10 in a calm room. She was born in her sack complete with placenta and waters. I just had a shower filled in some paperwork (fucking NHS) and went home.
It was peaceful, it was how it should have been and it was the end.
Do i feel like i gave birth? No, i can't call it that, i delievered a dead shell of a baby, i didnt birth a soul into the world, my daughter is still there waiting for her body, she never entered that one. Perhaps the post-mortem will tell us why on a clinical level that body never survived but i know what happened on a cosmic level, i could feel it and it was clear to me.
I am not sad or bereaved or angry or hurt, i dont blame myself or anybody else. It was a minging thing to go through but actually, at least it wasnt my first born or a much longed for, much planned for little baby, i havent wrote this so people will feel sorry for me, or wish things were different (though i totally do wish things were different) but because actually, it is one of the most horrible things i think a human can go through and actually it was 'okay' because its YOUR mind that dictates how these things affect you, its up to you wether to make the most out of horrid situations or not. I delivered a stillbirth baby girl, not many people have to go through that (thank God because it was a proper ming fest) but actually, it was spiritual, compassionate, gentle and loving because we chose it to be. Because I chose it to be.
that baby taught us that we have room in our hearts and our lives for another little person and that is a special lesson. We came together, me and Mum and Liam in our grief and dealt with it as we could I imagine i will have some more grief to deal with when my emotional self pops its head out of the fog and decides to start the 'what if' games, but blissfully, for now, while i deal with the here and now, my brain is stopping that emotional Fi from coming out so much. Right now i need to deal with WHAT is happening and when thats done i can start to pull her out of her hiding and comfort her.
Tomorrow we will bury some clothes in the forest and say goodbye to that body but i have not lost my daughter, she is still waiting somewhere to join us. it just wasnt time to meet her yet.
I wrote this the morning after, I have had a shaky couple of days but i am glad i wrote this so soon, because it WAS how it felt for me. I hope it can maybe bring strength to others
The delivery of my baby girl.
I got pregnant 23 weeks ago, it wasnt planned. We hadnt expected to have another baby for a good while. I couldnt believe i was pregnant, it didnt feel real somehow but all the signs were there and we went in for our 12 week scan (at 9 weeks) and even on the way i told Liam that i thought something would be wrong, or i thought that we would get there and there wouldnt be a baby. I didnt think there was anything 'wrong' with the baby... just that the baby wasnt there.
It was confirmed that i was pregnant with a baby and i continued feeling not pregnant right up until our 18 week scan on the 19th of August. On the way there i still said to Liam 'are you sure i am pregnant' 'are you sure its a girl' 'i dont feel pregnant' liam go so bored of me asking these questions about the baby that he was quite exasperated by then. Still i continued, so clearly unsure about the baby in my belly. I would say to him 'do you remember when i was this pregnant with Jasper? It was very different wasnt it?'
With Jasper i can remember waking up in the morning and talking to him even before i knew he was a boy, i was so pleased when i found out his sex because i could talk to him as a boy rather than 'the baby'. Finding out the sex seemed to just solidify a bit of his personality, his character.
With this baby girl. Well i just think i never connected with her, it never felt real and then when i was told everything was okay... well i was willing to go along with it because i SO wanted a baby girl, it seemed SO perfect and right. I so wanted to meet my daughter.
But it is not time for us to meet her yet.
So when i went in for our 23 week scan (routine, just to check the babies heart, not because of a worry about any problems) I was not thinking for a second that there would be any problem.
That moment, when the radiographer held the ultrasound machine over the baby, and she was all squashed and there was no movement. Oh it was horrible. Mum burst into tears, no one could believe it. She said she would just check but i knew. I knew she was dead. She put her hand on my knee and just said 'i am so sorry'
'i need to phone Liam' i said, wiping the gel off my belly
'would you like some photos'
'No thanks, good for dead baby photos cheers'
'She has some of the baby before she died' said mum through her tears
i was already out the door, funny how quickly all the air can leave a room when you hear words like those, that airless, claustrophic room with a stranger, that picture still up on the screen of my dead child was too much for me. I needed to go outside quickly.
I went out the front, sat on a little bench and phoned Yeovil college to get hold of Liam. Finally managed to convince the air-head blonde on the phone that actually going to get liam from his class personally and getting him to a phone was exactly was what necessary after much 'oh but i can get him to call you within about half an hour' etc
Sat on the bench, watched the minutes tick by. 9 minutes. Mum appeared... without Jasper
'where is my baby?'
he was with the nurses having a whale of a time. She had come to make sure i was okay. Of course i wasnt okay but i only had one thought in my head. I Must Phone Liam.
10 minutes, Liam calls.
'Liam'
'Are you okay?'
'Liam our baby girl is dead'
'What! No, Fuck off!' tears etc
Liam comes home on the train. we go back into the airless, NHS building
find Jasper. Making everyone smile.
'Is everything alright'
Oh how you wish you could tell the truth when people ask you that... No, No everything is NOT alright, not only have i just found out my baby is dead and has been for some time, meaning my body has been hanging on to, and treating a little dead child as a live one. Not ONLY have i just found that out, i know that i have to birth this baby, that it is big enough that I will have to labour it and deliver it. I know that i have to do that and whats WORSE is that rather than you just TELLING me what it is i have to do, dosing me up with whatever drugs that you need me to take and then letting me go home for a bit, you are going to FANNY about asking me questions like 'is everything okay' and expecting me to break down in tears and require the paid-for-mental support of some overworked NHS nurser when ACTUALLY all i need is clinical support from you people and i can go and grieve with my family and friends.
'I'm coping, what happens now'
'well we need you to go to obs and gynea and speak to a consultant'
lovely, wonderful, fucking tip-top. Here we go on back to the room where all the pregnant women sit, wide eyed and hopeful, praying for a wee boy or a wee girl whilst clutching their maternity notes and clinging on to their nearest and dearest to share in the excitement
wonderful
So here i am in the obs and gynea waiting room, Oh look there is a girl i went to school with, who dated my brother once, FANTASTIC just whats needed. Trying not to make eye contact, trying not to cry, trying not to ming out all these lovely volumptious pregnant folk with my sad face and eyes that tell a different story to any they want reminding of at the moment
'Fiona Ryan'
Thank fuck for that... off we go then, into yet another Airless room (this one has a window that doesnt open and 'sensitive' purple chairs and wall decorations
Jasper runs around giggling. Midwife walks in
'How are you?'
ARGH!
'I'm coping, what happens next'
'do you need a minute?'
No i do not need a minute, i need the very opposite of a minute, i need to go back in time and not be in this situation, i need to have found this out at home or weeks ago or IT NOT TO HAPPEN AT ALL
'no i would like to know what happens next'
'right well we are going to give you this pill, its a hormone which will stop your body from thinking the baby is there. Then you will come back in in 48 hours (Saturday Morning) and we can start labour as we would if you were having a full term baby'
lovely
'so i have to go through a labour, a proper actual labour'
'its like a mini labour yes'
'i would like all the drugs please'
'okay i think we can arrange that'
good.
'now, how are you feeling mentally'
like i would rather be anywhere else in the world then right here in this purple room with you
'i'm okay, how long will it take'
'hopefully not too long, as its your second baby'
great, marvellous so no real answers there
'when can i go home'
'i need to go and get you the hormone from the labour room, that will take me around half an hour, you can wait here'
Great, i can sit in this room of death and pain for a whole half an hour, i dont even have enough battery on my phone to play solitaire. Nice. (i should probably add here that the midwife i dealt with was lovely, she obviously cared very much about my situation and about me, it is my lack of ablility to deal with such things that are making me seem like such a cynical twat, it was not her fault i felt like that, i just wanted her to give me a bullet point of information, whatever drugs i needed to take and let me go home. thats why i wasnt at all nasty to her, she was actually very very nice)
'can i sit outside?'
'yes there are two benches out there, go and sit outside'
then i had to phone Anna, it was nearly as hard as phoning Liam. She's such a good friend and has already had a shite week, telling her that her Godchild had passed was not great for either of us.
finally, midwife is back with the drugs
'now before you take this...'
what? what could you POSSIBLY want me to do, jump on my head? do a little dance? answer pointless questions about sod all so you can tick off a little form?
'...can you just confirm blah blah blah blah'
confirmed
'now i can see your the type of person who likes to get things done with and put away and not really think about them but you have to be nice to yourself'
okay midwife lady, lets try and say this as pleasantly as possible
'i am able to grieve, i am able to go home and sit with my family and my friends and cry and shake and sob, i am able to write poetry, talk about how i am feeling and if necessary go to a big hill and scream and scream until its all out, what i dont need is to do that here, this is the clinical bit, the grieving bit comes after this whole mingfest'
'okay dear, well take this pill and we will see you in 48 hours, if you have any cramping or contraction feelings then come in earlier or give me a call'
'thanks'
-----
Thursday was HORRIBLE, this all happened by sort of 11am, by 1pm i was contracting every half an hour or so with period type pains, nothing major just thought i would leave it. I was thinking about how i felt about everything and trying to understand why i felt so calm about it on a spiritual level.
well maybe its because these things happen in nature
maybe its because i never really felt the baby existed in the first place
i think its because this baby never really had a soul, my daughter, my Ivy-Mae never came into this body, this life. That little baby body in my belly was never inhabited. It grew for a while and when it was not entered into, it died. Its natural. It never was.
perhaps that makes me seem like a cold heartless bitch. Perhaps i should have felt more 'loss' from the situation but actually my overriding feeling was absolutely feeling sorry for myself.
I knew that 48hours after taking that pill, i would have to deliver a baby, i would have a labour and go through contractions and (this is the bit that terrified me) push out a baby with no life in it.
i didnt know what she would look like, she had been in there so long she had started to compact herself down.
took a dihydracodine, fell asleep at 10pm
I woke up at 4am on Friday morning, still contracting regularly (much more painfully now though) Anna was online, god shes amazing, chatted to her.
Went to sleep at 6am, slept til 8.30. Woke up
Major wincing contractions. Cant be bothered doing this for another whole day.
Phoned the midwife
'come in, the labour ward isnt busy'
cried all the way there, so so terrified of what was about to happen. Liam was great, mum concerned i hadnt eaten took us to waitrose for coffee and cakes, last thing on my mind was coffee and cakes, actually best thing ever coffee... needed it.
got to hospital in a blur, receptionist (perfect)
'hi i am here to give birth'
'well are you in labour'
'sort of, its a still birth'
'Oh, go and sit in the waiting room'
labour ward waiting room, yay and whoop, praying no one comes in
finally we are carted off. Room 9... will never forget it
'this is your midwife'
'hello'
'hello how are you?'
'Okay, we are obviously going to be spending some time together, i dont want you to ask me how i am, i am sorry if i seem cold but i feel like i am going through a clinical proceedure, i dont feel like i have lost a baby i dont feel like i am grieving a child. I would just like to get this over with as quickly as possible and on as many drugs as you are willing to give me'
'what drugs have you had so far'
'i had a dihydracodine at 8pm and 2 paracetamol at 8am'
'okay well it sounds like you could do with some more dihydracodine then, good choice'
i think i am going to like my midwife
'i would rather you just brought me drugs, dont wait for me to ask for them or ask me if i want them, just hand em over'
'no problem, i see you are allergic to Ora-Morphine'
'yes i am but i would like to make it very clear that i am NOT allergic to Morphine'
'very good, noted'
'excellent, could i have gas n air'
'yes as much as you would like, i will go and get you a tube now'
marvellous, after a DC and a swil of gas n air i felt much better
---
3 hours later
contractions ramping up a bit now, had an internal and some 'speed me up drugs'
more DC
injection in the arse, Morphine (But a bit stronger apparently)
hammered... properly hammered. me and Liam necking gas n air and giggling whilst the midwife and mum are out of the room. This went on for a few hours
at about 4pm the contractions were HARDCORE and very low (wont be long now)
more morphine, double dose...
7pm - me and Liam alone in the room, the contractions stopped, i assumed my cervix had dialted and i would get another contraction telling me to push, this was the bit i was most worried about because i didnt want to feel a tiny baby, i didnt want it to hurt, i didnt want to see it. i was so scared before hand but now it was here and it was So Calm.
I felt so rational
so at peace
for ten minutes i waited and then i realised what was going on
i called a midwife
i said goodbye to my little girl
i pushed her out of my body.
she was delivered at 19.10 in a calm room. She was born in her sack complete with placenta and waters. I just had a shower filled in some paperwork (fucking NHS) and went home.
It was peaceful, it was how it should have been and it was the end.
Do i feel like i gave birth? No, i can't call it that, i delievered a dead shell of a baby, i didnt birth a soul into the world, my daughter is still there waiting for her body, she never entered that one. Perhaps the post-mortem will tell us why on a clinical level that body never survived but i know what happened on a cosmic level, i could feel it and it was clear to me.
I am not sad or bereaved or angry or hurt, i dont blame myself or anybody else. It was a minging thing to go through but actually, at least it wasnt my first born or a much longed for, much planned for little baby, i havent wrote this so people will feel sorry for me, or wish things were different (though i totally do wish things were different) but because actually, it is one of the most horrible things i think a human can go through and actually it was 'okay' because its YOUR mind that dictates how these things affect you, its up to you wether to make the most out of horrid situations or not. I delivered a stillbirth baby girl, not many people have to go through that (thank God because it was a proper ming fest) but actually, it was spiritual, compassionate, gentle and loving because we chose it to be. Because I chose it to be.
that baby taught us that we have room in our hearts and our lives for another little person and that is a special lesson. We came together, me and Mum and Liam in our grief and dealt with it as we could I imagine i will have some more grief to deal with when my emotional self pops its head out of the fog and decides to start the 'what if' games, but blissfully, for now, while i deal with the here and now, my brain is stopping that emotional Fi from coming out so much. Right now i need to deal with WHAT is happening and when thats done i can start to pull her out of her hiding and comfort her.
Tomorrow we will bury some clothes in the forest and say goodbye to that body but i have not lost my daughter, she is still waiting somewhere to join us. it just wasnt time to meet her yet.
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the tattoo sound like a lovely idea and I would love to see pictures. Xxxx
