Loving and losing Leo

[LionsandBears]

This is a continuation of our birth story. Until L.eo was born, we had no idea anything was wrong with him.

I was lying on the table, aching legs still apart whilst my baby was being resuscitated. Someone gave me a syntocin shot and Dr J had her hand up trying to get the placenta. In all the birth, nothing was as painful as this. It’s the first time I screamed. She’s trying to deliver the placenta and I’m lying there looking at the clock straight ahead of me on the wall. I couldn’t see the baby. He was surrounded by doctors and someone called code blue and more doctors rushed in. DH went over to stand by. I saw a doctor’s arm moving up and down and knew it was CPR. There was no crying from the baby. The clock ticked over. Someone offered me gas for the pain. My midwife J told me I had to let go of the placenta and I pushed it out. I was asking “where’s my baby” over and over.

I think I knew by then that the baby had died, though no-one said those words. J sat beside me and told me he was gone. I couldn’t cry, but I screamed out “No!”. The head peaditrician came over. I told her I was groggy from the gas. I don’t remember it, but apparently she told us they’d tried to resuscitate him, but he’d died.

They brought our son back to me and lay him on my chest. Someone asked me his name. We named him L.eo Jam.es. He was so beautiful. Our precious little boy. My heart just opened wide in love with him. Then it just shattered. I call him L.eo the lion-hearted, because he was so strong right to the end. Our beautiful little boy looked perfect in every way. Of course at that stage I was wondering if we'd made a terrible mistake not having a c/s, but in hindsight, we did the very best thing.

We had a wonderful birth together. I like to think those last kicks as I was pushing him out was him saying goodbye. We now know that Leo died of a congenital problem that had not been detected. Basically L e o would never have been able to breathe on his own.

I am forever grateful that we were able to have the birth we did. L eo chose to come in his own time. He came early and he was breech and we were in the best hospital in the state to deal with that. His heartbeat was strong right up until he was born. I am so proud of him - he was so strong, it's just that his little body hadn't developed properly right from the start. If I'd had a c/s, I would have spent the next 4-5 days recovering in hospital in a maternity ward without a baby or my husband with me to hold at night. I don't know how we would have got through that week apart. It was the worse week of our lives. So that was Leo's gift to us - he came out to the world, little bum first and stayed alive until he finally tried to take his first breath and couldn't.

We spent as much time as we could loving him, cuddling him. J called my Mum and Dad and they and my Step-Dad came to the hospital to be with us and hold their grandchild. I washed his sweet face in my colostrum, DH gave him a bath and we dressed him and wrapped him up warm. We got his handprints and footprints and lots of photos. The following day a professional photographer came and took more photos. We stayed with him overnight in the birth suite and left the next afternoon. We spent the next week when we would have been with him learning to breastfeed etc planning his funeral, which happened 8 days after his birth. It was a beautiful send off for a baby boy, with blue and yellow balloons, but so hard for so many people. Since then I’ve just been trying to work out how to get through the days.

It's been a horrible time, but we treasure our memories and the photos we have all over the house. It's my hope that one day L eo will be a big brother. But not having L eo with us here breaks my heart every minute of the day. No child could ever be a replacement. I wouldn't wish this pain on anyone.