Danielle explained that although we were free to spend as much time with Louis as we pleased, they would need to monitor our contact with him due to his deterioration. She explained that our little boy wouldn’t look as he did when we saw him earlier that day and that the more time we spent with him, the quicker the deterioration process would take effect – which could affect results of the autopsy.
This was evident when Louis was placed back into our arms as he was cold to touch and his skin colour had darkened, but he was still our little Louis.
He fitted perfectly into our arms and the weight of him will always pull at our hearts, for knowing we couldn’t take him home.
Not wanting to take too long, but also feeling at peace that our beautiful boy was destined for bigger things – we held you tight and said our goodbyes.
Charlie would never meet his brother – not in this form anyway, but we hoped they would meet in other ways, if they hadn’t already.
This was a tough decision to make, deciding to keep Charlie away from the hospital entirely, but we couldn’t bear the thought of exposing him to all this grief and loss. We felt we needed to protect him from this and we can only hope he understands why we chose it to be this way. As he gets older and begins to recognise the presence of his younger brother in our lives, we will be able to share more about our experience with him and hopefully one day celebrate the memory of him.
Coming into birth suit Dave and I were under the impression that no one would want to meet Louis, given that we both felt confronted by the situation. However, as circumstances changed and due to the fate of having a c-section, it was decided that limited family could come in and meet our beautiful boy.
My eldest sister, Alysha was the first to arrive and with her usual quirky ways, making us laugh with her sense of direction when she went to leave the room by opening the toilet door. She was meant to be guiding our sister, Ebony up onto the second floor by exiting the room and meeting her at the elevator, but before long she had made her way back to the room with a very saddened middle sister.
Mum and Dad weren’t far behind before Alysha and Ebony were led by Danielle into the room next door with the matching butterfly on the window.
These meetings were kept private, these were their stories with our baby boy and that is how they’ll stay.
Through all of this, we were able to share laughs, Ebony sharing she thought Grandad had died when Mum and Dad rocked up at her door on Thursday – Not exactly funny, but you had to be there, if we hadn’t laughed, we would have continued to cry.
While Mum and Dad were spending time with their sleeping grandson, Danielle appaired at the door. She wanted to ask if I would be ok for Dr Hannah and Jess the antsiest to come and say ‘Hi’ post-surgery. I was confused by the question and she must have read my face because she followed on by saying, “They just didn’t want to trigger you, if you weren’t ready to see them.” And thinking back I realised that it was Dr Hannah who first confirmed there was no heartbeat and had been with us throughout our journey ever since, including taking the lead with my c-section.
Hannah was a very quiet spoken women and I grew to respect her strength from this very moment. She exclaimed that today was her birthday and she felt privileged to share it with baby Louis. She then went on to discuss some details about my surgery, explaining that she made a smaller incision to help with my physical healing process.
Both Hannah and Jess continued to check in with my recovery for the remainder of our stay in hospital.
Dave needed Charlie, so we decided that he would return home overnight and Alysha would stay at the hospital so not to stay alone. It was also time to move across to the Maternity Ward. Danielle reassured us that Louis would move across with me, guarding me from one side of the room and the other side to the open common room, shielding me from others on the ward.
It seems silly to mention what I had for dinner that night, however it relates to a later story about a roast dinner and a pet cow. But when Danielle entered the room with a tray and a horrified look on her face before exclaiming “I don’t even want to give this to you!” I didn’t even pull the heat cover off when she told me it was scrambled eggs underneath, but admittedly I wasn’t very hungry anyway.
Alysha was in her element in the new room in the Maternity Ward – right above Emergency with a view of the front carpark. This brought endless hours of entertainment, commentating peoples parking skills and goring at the blood splattered injuries. What we didn’t expect to see was the Ambulances banked up in the waiting bay for hours on end, some leaving completely to seek help elsewhere. We also spent a lot of time learning the different codes and what each colour stood for and why so many codes were cancelled.
- Code Red – Fire/Smoke.
- Code Orange – Evacuation.
- Code Purple – Bomb threat.
- Code Black – Personal threat by a member of the public.
- Code Grey – Personal threat by a patient.
- Code Blue – Medical emergency.
- Code Yellow – Internal emergency.
- Code Brown – External disaster.
The most common codes called were “Code Grey – Emergency or Social Work” we also heard “Code Stroke,” often too.
Our first night in Maternity was rough, partly to Alysha’s sleep-apnoea and loud snoring, but mainly to my heartbreak that was adamantly worse at night. Particularly between the hours of two and four in the morning – witching hour.
Alysha woke to the sound of my crying and we ended up sitting up for several hours, chatting about the past and raiding the communal kitchen for sandwiches and coffee. We spoke about growing up at home with Mum and Dad, and how Alysha left for university when I was only eight years old. This opened up my memories of what felt like constantly moving rooms and never feeling like any were really my own for the next few years – that being something I never wanted for my own children. This then lead to me opening up about the potential of having a third child and what our future would look like if we were to take that road.
It was four in the morning before we drifted back to sleep.
The morning that followed was slow and the emotions from the past few days were starting to take their toll, but physically I was feeling pretty good and able to move independently. Alysha continued to guide me through the ups and downs, even ‘vandalising’ the nurses communication board, stating ‘No more scrambled eggs please, roast requested.’ She also guided me through the Bears of Hope bag that the Midwives had brought across from Birth Suite, containing a number of different resources for bereaved parents. One of which was the ‘Hope Bear’ – a bear donated on behalf of a family who too had lost their newborn. This family had lost twins Lillian and Thomas. This was the first time I heard about Bears of Hope and before I realised it would become a very big part of my grief support.
Dave made his way back to the hospital, where Alysha and I were able to guide him from our front row window, through the carpark to a free space – a key resource that we continued to use for the remainder of our stay.
This was also the day we met Midwife Emily. Emily was an interesting character and the poor girl was very confused by Alysha’s message on the communications board.
“How am I going to organise a roast dinner?” she questioned.
So, she needed some reassuring that it was a joke, and we didn’t actually expect the cooks to deliver on the request.
While Alysha got some rest, Dave and I got stuck into the mountain of paperwork that had already started to build up – Centrelink being first on the list to tackle. Unknown to us, we were still entitled to the 18 weeks of ‘Paid Parental Leave’. This was a huge relief which we were incredibly thankful for, and it was the first time we felt that our loss had been recognised. Ticking the box stated our baby had been ‘stillborn’ certainly made things feel very final.
What else made things feel very real at this moment was facing the other parents and their new babies in the common room. All I wanted to say was, ‘congratulations’, to the new family’s but I couldn’t find the words. We later learnt this experience would be referred to as ‘Standing Still’.
When Alysha finally set eyes on Emily, her politeness was quickly interrupted by a memory of another meeting. Turns out the two shared a close mutual friend and had met in 2022.
Our story continued with Emily into the night when she came back to check on how I was feeling about my quiche dinner, but I hadn’t been given a quiche, I had been given a ROAST! Now poor Emily was really confused, “No you didn’t, you’re having me on, everyone had quiche, there was no roast on the menu” she said.
“No, I had a roast and I ate the whole thing!” I replied.
Alysha had to show Emily the snapchat video that she had taken earlier as evidence.
Clearly someone had either seen Alysha’s message on the board and pulled some strings or the Midwives from Birth Suite had decided to provide me with some comfort food.
But we would never know. We never found out.
However, the confusion with Emily and the roast continued when we mentioned that Tammy (Head of NICU) was a relation. And the only way to understandthe story that followed is to give an insight into Emily’s personality. She literally blurted out the words “Elicious is delicious.” And Alysha and I were so confused! “What?” I asked.
“Tammy’s pet cow, he broke his leg, so she had him for dinner,” Emily said.
I started to put the pieces together. “OH MY GOD! Is that what I ate for dinner too?” I yelled. Surely not!
Tammy had seen my name on the patients board days ago, but had respectfully kept her distance. But now I needed her reassurance that I hadn’t just eaten her pet cow! However as mentioned earlier, we would never find out who was behind the mystery roast, so no, I thankfully had not eaten Tammy’s precious “Elicious.”
Our second night in Maternity played out much the same as the first, tears, lack of sleep, followed by shift changes and witching hour. The new Midwife didn’t know our story and when she entered a dark room with two people in the one bed, she was understandably confused. Alysha had heard my cries and decided to comfort me, literally shushing me to sleep when they barged in. At this point I knew it was time to return home the following day.
'Our Little Louis' 