The goodbye that will haunt me for a lifetime

Nothing, and I mean nothing could have prepared me for the night I had to leave the hospital without my son. Day 4, and he was no longer able to stay with us. They wanted me to stay in hospital given my health was not improving – my straight answer every time was “NO, not without my son”. I couldn’t bare the thought of staying in a room I had spent 4 of the most glorious yet heartbreaking days of my life with my son – without him. As the evening drew on Dennis, myself and our daughter spent our last few hours with baby Dennis together, alone as a family. We played our favourite songs, we laughed, we cried, took photos and videos, cuddled, kissed and relived happy memories of us as a family while I was still pregnant, and we spoke about all the dreams and hopes we had for our family if he had survived. I changed his nappy for the final time and we dressed him together. I used every excuse to stall this inevitable goodbye. I needed my son, I needed to walk out of that hospital with my partner and 2 living children the way it was supposed to be. It was 10pm by the time I had no more stall tactics left. We made the long, silent, heartbreaking journey from our room to the car with our daughter excitedly pushing her baby brother in his crib to our final goodbye. On the way out a man rushed past us on his phone with so much excitement congratulating us on our new arrival saying his baby had just been born too. I managed a half smile as Dennis congratulated him. He was not to know we were on our way to our hardest goodbye. My chest tightened and I tried to hold back the tears as they forced their way down my face.

We showed baby Dennis our family car and reminded our daughter that her baby brother had to stay and wasn’t able to come home with us – so she showered him with cuddles and kisses and a nose “boop” with a giggle. Dennis held our son, admiring him, kissing him and spoke his last words from a father to a son before passing him to me. I stood their rocking my baby boy backwards and forwards as if he were alive and I was making sure he didn’t wake. I squeezed him tight and kissed his little nose and lips more times then I could even remember. My tears fell on his precious little porcelain face as I thought to myself “I can’t do this”. It’s unnatural for a mother to be leaving her newborn alone, at the hospital while she leaves with the rest of the family. I looked at Dennis and said the words out aloud “I can’t do this” with a deep groan of complete agony in my soul. “Please, please, I can’t do this”, I begged to him as if begging for my own life, knowing I had no choice but to put him back in his crib for the midwife to take him to the morgue. I held him in my arms staring at him, adoring everything about him, remembering everything about this beautiful boy that was mine. Dennis reminded me it was time to go, we had been in the car park for about half an hour. To be honest if he hadn’t supported me in uttering this final goodbye, I would probably still be sitting in the car park with him to this day. I gave him a final kiss and put him back in his crib with Dennis holding me and reassuring me that it had to be done. My tears leaked onto his face and cheeks. I smelt him and kissed him again, and again until I said “ok just one more”. The midwife gave us a nod with a caring smile and started to walk him away. The further he got from us the more my heart broke which I didn’t think there was any more heart left to break at that time. I sat in the car with silent tears streaming down my face, no energy to make noise, just completely broken, completely incomplete, and feeling complete despair.

This goodbye haunts me often. I think to myself what parent just leaves their newborn, how did I fail him as a mother so early on, why didn’t I just live in the car park with him, was he looking for me after we left, was he wondering why we were leaving him. I know all of these thoughts are outlandish, I know he couldn’t stay with us and in his infinite wisdom chose this outcome before arriving here on earth – It’s just the grief and parental guilt that so many grieving parents feel. I know we had no other choice and we did everything we needed to do and we did everything right – its only on my bad days the negative self-talk and doubts creep in. While it was a goodbye that will haunt me for my life time, I know it is one of the most purest experiences Dennis, myself, our daughter and our son have had and we will treasure our last couple of hours together as a family for the rest of our lives.