7 September 2021 started as a normal day. My partner (Dennis) and I were at home with our 2 year old daughter. She was eating nutella toast, he was having his usual morning coffee. We were sitting around together laughing and enjoying the day. We were expecting to head out at lunch time for a shooting trip and possibly camping. I put our daughter in the shower when my belly went cement hard. There was no pain present so I went outside to Dennis and said “babe feel this”, he joked and laughed that our son may be ready to make his arrival (given I was over 36 weeks already). As I was putting a nappy on my daughter, I got this sudden excruciating pain in my lower abdomen. It was so sudden and so intense, I had to lay down straight away. I started sweating almost instantly and wasn’t able to talk due to the amount of pain I was in. Dennis thought something was off because our daughter went running to him with only a nappy on, so he came inside to check on me. It became quite obvious to him something was happening. We thought I was going into labor and was going to birth our son at home (because our daughter was born in a very short amount of time). He called my mum and told her to get ready to go to the hospital as I was about to give birth. Excitement ran through the air, today was going to be the day we meet our boy. Dennis organised our daughter to be picked up (all of this within minutes of me feeling the initial pain). He prepared the car for the quick hospital trip, only to be alerted to a big bang inside. I had lost consciousness as I tried walking to the car. As Dennis held me on the floor I started vomiting, he then rang the ambulance. I was in and out of consciousness and told Dennis I felt I needed to start pushing. The ambulance dispatch walked Dennis through the next few minutes in case I did give birth while we waited for the ambulance to arrive. He did such an amazing job. He even phoned my mum and let her listen to the ambulance call so she could know whats going on. The paramedics were there for what seemed like ages and all I was doing was panicking on he inside and wishing for some painkillers whenever I was conscious enough to know what was happening around me. It wasn’t until they got me into the ambulance when they realised something was very wrong. By this time my veins had collapsed and my obs were extremely unstable. The urgency of the situation started to become clearer, however, we could not know the heartache and literal fight for life we were about to endure.
Thirty plus doctors and nurses were awaiting our arrival at the Emergency Department. I was unconscious for most of this with only brief moments of memory. My first memory was a doctor performing an ultrasound – then blank. I heard another doctor say “Dad knows, mum doesn’t”. WHAT, what is it that Dennis knows that I don’t? Whats happening, where am I, where is Dennis, why can’t I hear him talking to me, why is there so much silence (amongst the chaos) – then blank. The OBGYN head doctor then presented his face to mine and said “You have lost your baby” – then blank. As I am about to be wheeled into theatre I turn to Dennis and ask “am I going to die”? “No”…… he had just lied to me. I watched him standing in the doorway whilst the doors closed on him like we were in some kind of movie. “I can’t breath” I said in terror – then blank.
As I open my eyes in the recovery room a nurse was sitting with me. My first question “where is my son” (with everything happening so fast I didn’t remember the Drs telling me in ER that he had passed away). Her eyes welled instantly and she began to cry as she gently replied “I’m sorry, your son didn’t make it”. It was at that time I literally felt my soul leave my body. I burst into tears continuously pleading “no, no, no, what, how could this happen, no”. I then asked where Dennis was, he was already on his way to the recovery room. Little did I know Dennis, my parents and our daughter had been with our baby boy since his birth some 4-5 hours earlier, whilst I was in theatre. They were waiting an excruciating 4-5 hours to know if I was going to live or not. I just cannot imagine how they must have been feeling. Dennis and I just cried together when he arrived to me in recovery. I was then taken to ICU where I got to meet my baby boy.
Medically my placenta had completely detached which is what caused the pain earlier in the day and stopped delivering oxygen to my son. This caused me to bleed internally, losing over 3 litres of blood causing my organs to start shutting down. My blood pressure was at the lowest it could be before a heart stops. The surgeons were emotional in the days after and were so shocked (in a good way), that I had survived. I am forever beyond grateful for them.
Angel Babies ~ No more silent stillbirths 