miscarriage – Townsend's Escape

Trigger Warning – This post contains details about miscarriage, grief and mental health. There are some graphic details. We both believe that if anybody can read our experience and change that “Should I contact the hospital?” to “I AM contacting the hospital”, then it is necessary.

Doll Parts

I had never really paid attention to the fact that several baby toy dolls have their size advertised on the box they come in. It’s almost like a selling point; “This doll is 30cm long.” Now, I find it hard to miss.

Shopping at a Smyths Toy Store, looking for presents for my eldest daughter’s birthday, we came to the toy dolls. Some of these dolls look almost real, such is the detail on them. My daughter loves playing with dolls, so it made sense to check the aisle.

It was at this moment that I noticed the sizes. The more realistic looking dolls all had sizes on the front of the box. 40cm, 36cm, 30cm…I found myself studying them all.

Then, I started to realise what I was actually doing. I started to well up. I turned to my fiancée and said, “Alfie was smaller than all of these.” I picked a box up. Was he really smaller than this?

The toy store suddenly felt empty.

I was no longer there.

Two Hours

I’d booked the week off work. Our youngest was having her first birthday on the Friday, and, the day before that, we were due the 20 week scan on our next baby, where we’d find out the gender.

We’d found out the gender of our first three babies and, without thought, knew we’d do the same this time. We like to be prepared and being told ahead of time whether you’re having a boy or a girl makes the preparation beforehand that little bit less stressful.

Due to appointment times and the two older kids being in school, we’d arranged for Lori’s sister to come and help out. Anybody with kids knows the impact they have on the home…so we spent a day doing housework, tidying up…all the fun jobs…before anyone came to the house.

Evening comes. Kids are in bed. We watch a bit of TV. During the evening, Lori goes to the toilet and notices some bleeding. We debate whether to call anyone but decide that rest will probably help and we’d see how it was in the morning…we’d done a lot of work, maybe pushed it a bit too much. Lori heads up to bed…and then begins the worst time of our lives.

I received a text from Lori at around 1am, simply reading, “Need you.” She’d woke up and gone to the toilet. The bleeding had become much heavier, and she could feel something between her legs. I got up to find blood on the floor, Lori stood in the bath. Within an hour, we had an ambulance crew in our house, ambulance outside with flashing lights, a paramedic with a thick Black Country accent putting his hand on my shoulder saying, “It’ll be ok, mate.” Lori gets taken away to the delivery ward. I’m left in the house with three kids, aged 6, 4 and nearly 1 all asleep, with no idea what to do. We don’t have family near us.

I called my Dad. It was about 2am. We stayed on the phone pretty much all night. Lori’s sister also spoke to me on the phone. She had called for a taxi and ended up taking a 50-60 mile taxi ride to get to our house. She arrived and I sped to the hospital. I don’t remember the journey. I got to Lori.

We are told that Lori is going through a miscarriage, but also told if she can hold the baby in for another 4 weeks, the baby may still survive. These are the slimmest of odds, but that slimmest of odds still gives us some kind of hope.

But the hope remained just that; a hope. It didn’t become anything more than that because the hope was lost. It was taken away when, at 1am on the day we were due to find out our babies gender, Alfie was born.

Alfie weighed 330g and measured at 24cm long. He was born alive, but we knew that would change. Despite his size and how premature he was, Alfie stayed with us for 2 hours before going to sleep.

I will always be grateful that we got to share some time with him. I’ll always be grateful that we were able to hold him. I’ll always be grateful that we felt him move. I’ll always be grateful that we were able to see his little movements. But, I’ll always hate that we didn’t get longer and that things weren’t different.

Broken

Nothing prepares you for the loss of a baby. It’s the sort of thing that you know happens, but you never truly believe it will ever happen to you.

I have been through grief before. Losing Mum was unbearably difficult…but this was something else. I can’t speak for Lori, but I know the word we both used a lot was ‘broken’. Even then, for both of us, ‘broken’ was a massive understatement.

Alfie was born in one of the delivery suites in the hospital. Every so often, while we sat there, you’d hear the sounds of birth. The screams. The first cry. As time went by, knowing what was to come for us, I grew to hate each and every one of those sounds. Why were we going through this? Why did we deserve this? Why were they getting their baby, but we weren’t getting ours?

Grief is selfish. It wasn’t fair to be thinking like that…but no matter how much you know that’s the case, no matter how much you know it’s not their fault you’re going through this pain…you can’t stop yourself feeling this anger.

After Alfie passed, we were put in to a Snowdrop Suite. The Snowdrop Suite, for those fortunate enough to have never been in or heard of one, is a bereavement room. We stayed in that room, away from the rest of the ward, for nearly 12 hours before going home. Alfie was in the room with us, in a special bed, to keep his body cool. It was impossible to not keep looking at him. We managed a few hours sleep. The hospital staff took pictures of Alfie for us. We cried. A lot.

I always used to watch news stories where parents would say they’d cried for so many days following the death of a child and think, “I doubt you did actually cry for so many days”, but then it happened to us and I did. We both did. It was a sorrow I’d never felt before, a pain I’d never felt before.

While we were in the Snowdrop Suite, we were given a memory box. Within the box, we were given the small woolly hats that the midwife had put on Alfie. There was also a copy of the book, Guess How Much I Love You. I read the book to Alfie. I broke down a few times doing so. But I read to him. I’ve read to him every night since, even to this day. I almost view Alfie as my Little Nutbrown Hare and me as Big Nutbrown Hare.

We opted to leave the hospital when we did because we didn’t want to miss the first birthday of our youngest daughter. We had to be there for her. But leaving Alfie was so hard. We both had a hard time deciding to go…there never felt like a right time. We gave Alfie a kiss on the head. We told him we loved him. We said goodbye.

As we left, we passed a man entering the ward with a baby carrier. An instant reminder that others were leaving the hospital with a baby, while we were leaving with nothing more than a box and some pictures. The anger returns, but brings with it guilt for having those feelings and then follows with complete and utter sadness.

If I’m honest, I don’t remember much about the days that followed. I don’t remember much about our daughter’s birthday. I don’t remember many conversations. I remember us telling the kids, who responded so well but, even at such a young age, were clearly affected. But, overall, I was vacant. I probably wasn’t a great partner. I probably wasn’t a great Dad. I’ll admit I had thoughts of self-harm. I was here in body, but, mentally, I was gone. I was lost. We were both lost.

To this day, I don’t honestly know how both Lori and myself would have coped were it not for our 3 kids. I fear what would have happened. They kept us going.

When Help Fails

Being at home and calling 999 to ask for an ambulance is very low on the list of things I want to be doing at any time. Unfortunately, we had no choice. The operative was brilliant (far better than me…I froze and Lori had to take over), the ambulance crew were brilliant. When you call for help, you expect it and you expect it to be good.

For the most part, the hospital were great. Lori was informed by a Doctor that she was having a miscarriage before I had arrived at the hospital. When I arrived, we had a different doctor attend and explain that the baby may survive if we can hold on for 4 weeks.

That moment gave us hope, but I don’t understand why it was said. We went from being understanding of our situation to having confusion over it. Was everything going to be OK? In these situations, it’s hard to think straight. We needed clarity. We needed honesty. But, instead, we were sat there feeling bad that we’d told close family we were losing our baby when we may actually not be in that position.

The original Doctor attended us later in the day and again said there was no chance. It hurt, but, mentally, we needed just that one message. That one thought, however sad, that we could start to try to get our heads around.

When you’re given hope and then have it snatched away from you, it hurts even more. Despite this, the midwives were very good with us, supported us and, when the time came, were extremely patient and kind when Alfie was with us.

We met the bereavement midwife when we were in the Snowdrop Suite. It was at this point that we were made aware that if a child dies in hospital before the age of 18, the hospital can and will help with funeral costs. Some pay a donation, some will pay and arrange entirely. Our hospital could pay and arrange entirely. We didn’t want added stress, so asked for this.

I also found out during our time in the delivery ward that the only reason we were able to have a funeral for Alfie was because he was born with a heartbeat. They had explained this to us beforehand, too. Had he been still born, due to being 20 weeks, we wouldn’t have been able to do a proper funeral. There’d be no register of birth or death. He, technically, legally, wouldn’t have existed. I can’t imagine how that would have felt and I’m so grateful I didn’t have to find out. I also can’t imagine how that would have felt for Lori, who gave a natural birth, to potentially be told your son doesn’t legally exist. My heart hurts when I think of the many women that have had that happen. The families that have been affected by that. I just think it’s bitterly cruel.

After we agreed to let the hospital arrange the funeral, we discussed post-mortem. Lori had blood tests. We agreed to a full post-mortem. We want to understand why this happened. Equally, if anything comes from this that could help research in to preventing it from happening again, it’s worth it. We were advised Alfie would be sent to Alder Hey and would return in 2 weeks. After that, a date could be set for the funeral and we would be allowed to visit Alfie again. We wanted to see Alfie again. He’s our son.

Time passes. We hear nothing from the bereavement midwife. Our usual midwife contacts us to send commiserations and asks if we’d like to see her to discuss any after care and any further support. I was struggling and asked Lori to say yes. We never heard back from her.

I discovered very quickly that support from the NHS for Dad’s following a miscarriage is severely lacking. I went to my GP to discuss my mental health – something I’ve never done before – and was, effectively, told that I’d be ok. I left with the feeling that the mentality was because I didn’t literally give birth, I would be able to get over it in a week or so. It just felt belittling. The midwife never got back to us. The hospital would only talk to Lori – and that was about anything to do with Alfie. I was left feeling invisible. Ultimately, that’s when I found that Sands and other charities were the only option for any professional support for fathers. Things should be better than that.

After a couple of weeks and still silence from the bereavement midwife, we try to contact her. I text her and call her a few times. No answers. Lori tries. No answer. In the end, Lori had to call PALS before we got any reply. At this point, the bereavement midwife says we can visit Alfie tomorrow but then asks if we’ve arranged the funeral yet.

I was gobsmacked. Just over two weeks have passed since we asked her and the hospital to arrange it…and she asks if we’d done it. Eventually, she admits that she forgot. She apologises but the damage is done. We’re in limbo. Our son had been back at the hospital, we could have seen him, nobody contacted us to let us know, nobody had started to arrange anything, we didn’t have any day where we could start to think, “That’s when we can begin to add closure.” We were stuck in limbo. The pain returns harder. The anger returns. The guilt returns. The utter sadness returns.

The bereavement midwife contacts the funeral directors and explains we’ll be called by them. There’s no call. We find out it’s because the bereavement midwife gave the funeral directors the wrong number.

At this point, it felt like the anger and frustration we felt was taking away from the grief we should have been feeling and, if anything, preventing us from grieving properly.

We then go to see Alfie. We were initially told that if we did see him, he’d be placed in a Chapel of Remembrance. He wasn’t. He was placed in the corner of the Snowdrop Suite. We ended up back in that room. All those memories. And, again, new borns around us.

We both expected Alfie to have deteriorated a fair bit in time. Nobody gave us any warning to how much he had deteriorated, however. Parts of his face were effectively gone. Parts had sunken. There was some scarring from the post-mortem. At birth, Alfie looked perfect. Seeing him as we were now was just so painful.

And then the smell. From birth, Alfie was freezing cold. On this day, he remained freezing cold…but there was this smell that wasn’t there before. When I think back, I can still smell it now. Clearly. We expected deterioration, even if not as bad as we found, but, perhaps naively, we didn’t expect the smell. It was more trauma for us. I still can’t believe nobody prepared us for it. No words given. No heads up. Nothing.

I don’t regret seeing Alfie at all. I’m glad we did. It was important to be able to say goodbye. It felt important to read to him again. But I do regret being unprepared. I do regret not asking about his condition. I do feel disappointed that nobody in the hospital thought against using a room just outside the delivery suite and I do feel disappointed that nobody in the hospital thought to speak to us properly beforehand.

Anybody that knows me will understand that I love the NHS. I don’t believe this is a reflection of the NHS. But I can’t defend them. We were both deeply hurt by the lies we were given by members of that team. We were both deeply hurt by how ignored we felt. As a father, I feel like the NHS isn’t prepared in any way to support me through this. I think their response to me asking for support shows why so many people with mental health struggle, particularly men. I think they let Lori down with a complete lack of after care. Lori went through all the same things any woman goes through after giving birth and they offered nothing.

In a time of need, we were left. I find that really hard to accept. We had to chase up Lori’s blood test results – we’d been told that these would reveal if it was something within Lori that had affected the birth. They came back all clear. The stress caused waiting has been so testing. We still have nothing from the post-mortem.

The only saving grace now is that the bereavement midwife now is different to who we had originally and, already, feels more caring.

Butterfly Wings

Once the funeral date had been set, we were informed Alfie would be going to the funeral directors. We were advised we could see him again once he’d moved to the funeral home.

We were contacted once Alfie was in the funeral home. We decided that we wanted to visit him again. The biggest difference here was that the funeral home immediately told us about the deterioration and explained they’d put him in the room inside his coffin with the lid on. We were fine with that, we wanted that. I think, for both of us, we wanted another chance to have time with him somewhere else. To share a room.

We sat in a room with Alfie in his coffin. The coffin itself was white with an engraved plaque on top with his name, date of birth and “Asleep” written on it. The coffin was small enough to fit on the centre of a coffee table. We were given time, given privacy and given a chance to just sit and talk to him.

I wrote a eulogy and a poem for Alfie. The funeral took place six weeks after Alfie had passed. Six weeks of no closure. Even then, funerals don’t necessarily give closure. I don’t feel like this did. It maybe started to allow for it, instead.

Lori and I sat in the limo with Alfie. Lori had Alfie sat on her legs. Our one and only car journey with him. I felt proud to carry him in. We opted for our other kids to not attend. We’ve never even discussed the funeral with them. Too young. I hope, as they get older, they understand.

Much of the funeral feels like a blur. It was hard to know how to be. I felt fortunate that our families could be there. I know I was as ok with how the funeral went as I could be, in the circumstances.

We went back to the crematorium a few days later to collect Alfie’s ashes. This was such an important day for us. We finally got to take Alfie home.

After Alfie passed, a butterfly landed on me in the garden. We saw a few butterflies every day following. I’ve become one for signs, we both have, and we connected butterflies to Alfie. We now have some of Alfie’s ashes in a butterfly shaped urn. We kiss him goodnight every night. I read to him every night. He is, he always will be, our son. And we love him.

Battling Emotion, Creating Legacy

Battles with mental health are not new to us. I can only really, fairly, talk about my own emotions and my own story.

For the longest time, I’ve struggled with low mood. It’s a constant battle for me, but one which, for the most part, I deal with. I’ve come to figure myself out a bit in that sense. Lori also has me totally figured out, which helps enormously.

After Mum passed, I struggled with anxiety attacks. It was, at that time, the biggest grief I’d felt. I had dark thoughts. I made mistakes. I try to book the anniversary of Mum’s passing off work each year because I know, mentally, I’ll face flashbacks and struggle to be ‘with it’. I’ll be doing the same with Alfie. This is how I manage myself. This is how I manage my mental health.

Each moment of grief brings its own emotions and it feels unfair to compare. You can’t. But I know that losing Alfie had such an incredible impact on me. I couldn’t really cope. I think having our daughters birthday the day after prevented immediate grieving. The issues with the hospital prevented grieving. Trying to be a parent…my favourite thing to be…almost prevented grieving because we didn’t want to appear much different to the kids. Our grieving was saved for evenings. Neither Lori or me slept all that much. We still don’t.

When I think of Alfie now, nearly 5 months on, I still hurt. I still have moments where I feel lost. I still have moments where I become a bit numb to everything around me. I think Lori feels the same. I often think Lori must feel worse. I then feel guilt for feeling as I do. This is grief. This is what grief does. Grief is selfish.

Thankfully, I don’t feel the anger over other people being pregnant anymore. I do, however, struggle to talk about pregnancy without the thought of Alfie. For that reason, I’ve tried to stay away from any pregnancy chat.

The worst times, I find, are the ‘good’ days. The days where I don’t think of Alfie as much…well, don’t think negatively. On those days, my acceptance turns in to guilt, which turns in to anger at myself, which turns in to sorrow.

One day, this will change. I’ll learn to deal with it better. I won’t heal.

I’ve found that losing a baby is a totally different grief to any faced before. When you lose someone older, you grieve them and you grieve their memories. You think about and you miss times and moments. When you have a baby, you have hopes and dreams. When you lose a baby, hopes die. Dreams die. You grieve for the baby, but you also grieve for what wasn’t there, what hasn’t been…what will never be.

My youngest has started to walk everywhere and has started to reach to hold our hands. There’s something about holding your kids hand that’s hard to explain, but means so much. That connection. When I think of Alfie, I think of that. I think of the fact I’ll never be able to hold his hand. Such a little thing, but such a big thing. These are the thoughts that hurt.

I’ve found that people don’t talk to us about Alfie. I understand it. I understand that people are uneasy with how to approach it with us. I understand that most, thankfully, don’t understand the pain we are going through. But he is still our boy, and I’d never stop anybody talking to me about him or wanting to talk about him.

We don’t want Alfie to be associated with pain. We don’t want Alfie to be associated with sadness. We want Alfie to have a positive legacy.

Since losing Alfie, the charities have been the ones that have made the difference. Sands, 4Louis and more…these groups keep people going. We decided, at the hospital, that we would raise money for charities in Alfie’s name. That can be his legacy. That can be his positivity. That can be how he impacts a positive change. That can be how people remember Alfie – the reason money was raised. This can be his legacy.

We had two hours with our little man. We got to hold him. We got to kiss his forehead. We got to tell him we loved him. In hindsight, he was so strong to survive for those two hours. But his impact – the positive impact we will make in his name – will last longer than two hours.

We won’t ever forget him. We won’t ever stop loving him. We will always feel proud about, and of, him. We will make sure we make him proud. We have to.

Alfie is our son. He is always with us.

The Smallest Hello

You are the smallest boy I’ve ever seen.
With the smallest fingers
And the smallest nose,
You gave us the smallest hello.

You are the smallest boy I’ve ever known.
With the smallest ears
And the smallest toes,
You gave us the smallest hello.

You are the smallest boy I’ve ever held.
With the smallest shoulders
And the smallest bones,
You gave us the smallest hello.

You are the smallest boy I’ve ever loved.
With the smallest time,
But the biggest glow.
I’ll always cherish the smallest hello.