Rebeccas Story - Afterwards (Day 1 and 2)
June 22, 2007 - 4:00 pm
Here for those interested is the final part to Rebecca’s story, this was both difficult and rewarding for me to write. Getting it down brought back so many memories and i honestly believed helped me. I try to say the situation is nothing - forgotten about and over with now. I have friends both online and off who have lost children, friends who have children who will have illnesses they will never get better from and i feel terrible to complain. I have my happy healthy two year old and what more could i want or need? Its long and alot of details are left out , but its good to finally have the whole story down there to look back on before the details fade any further.
Day 1 and 2 - As any mother can tell you the moment after giving birth is a wonderful experience, the pain just fades away and you finally get to meet the child you have been carrying inside for months. Rebecca was placed on my belly and I was immediately memorized, she had a head full of dark wavy hair and these wide dark eyes that seemed to stare so intensely.
Im not sure how long it lasted, seconds I guess before she was lifted off. The midwife cut the cord – I did ask for DH to do it but was told there was not time and Rebecca was taken to the corner of the room. The room seemed to burst in activity at this point, doctors, midwives – I think I counted around 12 people - while I was helpless in the bed delivering the placenta. I asked over and over again if something was wrong but was told everything was fine (by DH) and to relax by the midwife. I never realized to later that Rebecca was not crying. Im not sure how long passed before the room was emptyed and just DH, My mum, one midwife and I were left, Rebecca was taken along to the special care unit and I had no idea what was going on.
I was given some toast and tea and left to let the rest of the epidural effects ware off before been taken over to see her.
I wish I could now go into a description of how it felt to see her, touch her and maybe even hold her but my memory of that first meeting is completely blank , the only thing I do remember is looking at the weight conversion chart on the door and being completely shocked as she was only 6lbs 13oz – we were told to expect a big baby of at least 8lbs (Its kinda ironic actually we expected Rebecca to be big but she wasn’t, and as she was small we expected Eilidh to be a similar size but she was 8lbs 10oz). She was in an incubator with breathing tubes, she was being fed by tube with combination breastmilk and formula, I was expressing as much as I could.
We spent as much time as we could with her over these days, touching and stroking her and holding her when we could. Her cry was the saddest thing and reminded me so much of a kitten mewing; you could really see her struggling to breathe especially when she got upset. We still had no idea what was really going on and naively thought it was just something silly and she would be fine and out in a few days.
