Women's Options in Maternity Care & Birth

Informed choice for every woman's birth!

Dedicated to Angel babies & those they left behind

Fly, fly little wing
Fly beyond imagining
The softest cloud, the whitest dove
Upon the wind of Heaven's love
Past the planets and the stars
Leave this lonely world of ours
Escape the sorrow and the pain
And fly again

Fly, fly precious one
Your endless journey has begun
Take your gentle happiness
Far too beautiful for this
Cross over to the other shore
There is peace forever more
But hold this memory bittersweet
Until we meet

Fly, fly do not fear
Don't waste a breath, don't shed a tear
Your heart is pure, your soul is free
Be on your way, don't wait for me
Above the universe you'll climb
On beyond the hands of time
The moon will rise, the sun will set
But I won't forget

Fly, fly little wing
Fly where only angels sing
Fly away, the time is right
Go now, find the light

From the song "Fly" (Celine Dion)

Life After a Loss

 

When I gave birth to my fourth child, Ayla, I was so happy. I felt that my family was finally complete. I had 2 boys close in age and now I had 2 little girls close in age. I wanted my girls to be as close as my boys were. My boys are the best of friends, they always play together. This is what I wanted for my daughters. I wanted them to share that special bond that only sisters can.

 

While I was still pregnant with Ayla, I had ordered the girls matching spring dresses from the Sears Catalog. I ordered the boys matching outfits as well. I was going to get their photos taken all together in the outfits.

 

After Ayla was born, we stayed in the hospital for two weeks because she was premature. The stay in the hospital was a roller coaster ride. I was torn because on the one hand I had a sick baby that needed me and on the other hand I had three small children under five years old that needed me at home. My mother in law was taking care of my older three children. I knew they were safe but I also knew that she wasn’t used to taking care of three small children.

 

We got out of the hospital on a Saturday. When I got home with the baby, I felt things were going to go great! I finally had all my kids and my family together as one. This was the day I had dreamed of for so long.

 

I spent the days cherishing my children. We didn’t go out much because it was January and it was cold. All I wanted to do was stay home and hibernate with my baby. This was not normal for me. Normally when the kids’ were babies, I would be out doing my normal things in the community, within days of giving birth.

 

The health nurse came out on the Tuesday. She was a friend of mine so she came more for a visit with me than anything. She weighed Ayla and told me how well she was doing. She held her and told me how beautiful she was, I was so happy to have her share my baby with me. When Ayla was born she weighed four pounds, eight ounces. When the health nurse came she weighed five pounds already. I was so proud that she was growing and getting more alert with every passing day.

 

On the Thursday, I got a call from a friend, she called to invite us to her son’s third birthday party. I told her that I just brought the baby home from the hospital. She was shocked to hear that I had already had the baby! She was there when my older daughter was born two years before. We decided to go to the birthday party. There weren’t that many people at the party. Another family that we knew and our family were all that was at the house.

 

When we got to the party, the two women were so admiring Ayla. They were shocked at how tiny she was. They both held her and admired her for the entire afternoon while we were there.

 

On the night of the February 7th, I sat up with Ayla, breastfeeding her. I remember thinking “WOW! You’re a month old already!” I did what always did with the other kids when they had a monthly anniversary, I held her hands while she laid on my legs and I raised her hands over head and said “Hurray! Hurray! Ayla’s one month today!”

 

I woke up to very full breasts. I felt proud that my baby had slept thru the night. I took her into the bathroom to wake her up by turning on the light and I didn’t want to disturb my husband. When I took her in the bathroom, I was suddenly very scared. My baby was limp, she had foam coming out of her mouth and she had bruising around her mouth and tiny face. I shook her a little to wake her up. I was crying so hard. I screamed for her Dad to come. He came running and when he saw her said “Oh my God! She’s dead isn’t she?” He called the ambulance. I tried breathing life into my baby but nothing worked. After a while, I just sat and held her against my chest, while I looked out the window waiting for the ambulance to come.

 

When the ambulance came, they asked if they could look at her. I handed her over to them. The guy that took her was so gentle. He said “Don’t worry we won’t hurt her” They took her into the kitchen and laid her gently on a kitchen chair. They brought their stuff in and tried some stuff. I sat crying with my husband in the dining room. I couldn’t watch them working on my lifeless child.

 

After a while the other ambulance attendant came to me and put his arms around me and with tears in his eyes told me “I’m so sorry, there is nothing else we can do for her” I cried so hard when he said that. All my life I had believed, no matter what, the medical professionals could fix it. If anything happened and you called the ambulance, they would come and fix it. Now we had called them in our darkest hour and they weren’t able to fix my baby. I couldn’t believe that I only had a month to spend with my tiny baby.

 

The RCMP took two hours to get to the house. The dispatchers in Edmonton had messed up and sent a request for a car in Grande Prairie, our farm was no where near Grand Prairie. Once Grande Prairie RCMP realized the mistake, they called the Mayerthorpe RCMP and someone was sent out.

 

In the mean time, Ayla couldn’t be moved until the RCMP got there. So she laid on a kitchen chair covered to her chest with her blanket because I couldn’t bear to have the ambulance attendants to cover her face. My boys came upstairs and had to go past the kitchen to get upstairs from their bedroom. They saw her laying there and knew something was seriously wrong. By the time the kids got up, a friend of mine had already come over. She took the boys into the living room, and put on television for them. She made them breakfast and got them dressed.

 

The next few days were a daze to me. I was a mess. All I did all day was cry. For the first while after Ayla died, all I did was cry “I want my Mom” Someone called my Mom and she left BC on the next plane. She was at my house by supper time that day. When my Mom got there, I was sure she was going to fix this. I was upset when I realized the reality of the fact. My Mom, who could fix anything when I was a child, couldn’t fix this for me, no matter how much she wanted to.

 

Our house was full of people for days. All I wanted was to be alone with my children. I even considered how much it would cost for me to have Ayla mummified with wax, like I had seen on a television show a week or so earlier.

 

The hardest thing was planning her memorial. I had never considered what I would want for a memorial for my child before. With a grandparent, you have time to think of these things, with a young baby, you don’t have time to think about these things. The funeral director, calmly walked us over to the one child’s coffin they had. He said they didn’t have any coffins for a baby as little as Ayla. He suggested we go to True Value Hardware Store and get a Styrofoam cooler and he would decorate that as a casket for her. I couldn’t bear to have my child laid in the ground with the bugs and in a decorated cooler that most people use to keep their beer cold on a weekend camping trip and then throw in the trash. My child was not trash!

 

My husband told me that whatever I wanted he was ok with. I think he just wanted me to stop crying and go back to being the strong woman that I was before. He needed me to be there for him and I needed him to be there for me.

 

We decided to have our daughter cremated. I got a silver mini urn pendant for me to wear around my neck all the time. I chose a marble urn with a teddy bear on it. I couldn’t have what I truly wanted in my heart, which was to have her mummified with wax. I wanted to keep her with me forever.

 

The five years since Ayla’s death have been an awakening for myself and my children. A time for me to grow and gain more spirituality. Two years after Ayla died, I left my husband. I took with me, my three older children and my son that I had given birth to 14 months after Ayla was born.

 

I have relaxed as a parent. I now realize that I don’t know when will be my last day with my children, so I better take advantage of every day. Instead of worrying about whether the kids are wearing matching clothes, or if they have socks on their feet, I worry about things like did I tell them I loved them today? Did I show them that I loved them today? Did I teach them anything special today?

 

We often talk about Ayla and how she blessed our family while she was here for such a short time. I have photos of Ayla and the kids all over the house. All my children are important the ones that are here to share the days with me and the ones that are here in spirit only. I still sometimes find myself crying for the child that I long to hold just one more time in my arms. The child that I didn’t get to know as much as I wanted to. I find myself smiling as well sometimes, thinking about something that I know Ayla would like to be doing with her sister.

 

Sometimes I wonder if Ayla would have been a prissy girl like her sister or a tomboy like I was as a child? Would she look like her younger brother does with curls?  I have often thought of getting an artist to do an age progressed portrait of Ayla for me, but then I don’t want to change the picture that I have etched in my mind of what she would look like….perfect.

 

Every year our family, has a big party. No one else knows what the party is for but our family. Before the guests get here, we send up helium balloons with Birthday wishes for Ayla. The kids cut out pictures from catalogs and clue them on the cards of things that they think their sister would have liked to get for her birthday that year. We have cake and we have fun. Something that we would have done had their sister lived.

 

Losing a child has changed me forever. I am no longer the invincible parent anymore, living the blissful life with my perfect husband and kids. I know that at any given moment I could lose one of my children in the blink of an eye. I know the pain that only a parent who has lost a child can know. I know the ache in your heart that doesn’t go away no matter how hard you try to make it go away. I know that no matter how many children I have, I can never get back the one child that I am missing the most. I know that no matter how much you are hurting and you want to lock yourself up in a hole, you can’t because you have other children that need you every minute of every day. I know that in order for a mother to grieve when she has other kids, she must do it very carefully. She must think about how her incessant crying will affect her children. For as much as she is aching for the lost child, she is aching to be the mother that she used to be for her living children.

 

A special thank you to Christie, for sharing your story.

Support following loss

For Professionals

Medicine Hat

Parent to Parent Support Group of Southeastern Alberta    529-9175     #2, 2470 - 15 Ave. SE, Medicine Hat, AB T1A 3S4

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PLEASE NOTE:  All information expressed on the WOMB website and in our workshops, sessions, and/or consultations is to be used for informational purposes only.  We are not providing medical advice as we are not licensed medical professionals.  Therefore, we cannot be held liable for unforseen outcomes.