I had a stillborn

[Mo819]

This thread is intended to encourage people to talk about the unthinkable. I won't mention names as it's outing but after years of therapy I am finally able to talk about this and hopefully provide advise and support anybody who has been through simaler and who is earlier in their journey . As well as answer questions .My stillbirth was in 2008 . Ask away and I will try to answer as honestly as I can. Ps forgive my spelling in dyslexic

@carltonscroop
Depending on the situation I normally say I have 3 but I had 4.

Do you have photos and do you share them on social media?

I do have photos but I don't share them on social media only with family and very close friends.

@SuperSange okay i think I can see what you mean. I didn’t mean to sound like it’s about me but wanted to explain where I was coming from and why I was asking the questions I did. I figured because the OP had said to ask anything and it was to talk about the unthinkable it would be okay to ask her my questions (which I wasn’t saying is there anything I can do to prevent having a stillborn etc. because i was wondering in general and in her particular situation).

@Mo819 thank you so much for your answer and sharing your experience. I can understand the not wanting an autopsy especially since (I don’t want to sound like me again but) I heard the autopsy doesn’t always come up with a reason so it can seem like you done it for no reason in a way.

In your situation they seemed to fob you off quite a bit, especially as you begged for a early delivery. Like you said it was lucky you survived yourself and sounds like what you hear about women not making it through childbirth.

I for sure am aware I am lucky right now and tell myself so every day. I am extremely apologetic if I offended you or anyone else here as I didn’t mean it, I genuinely had questions and in this case there were signs before it had happened and indeed does sound like every case is different even if the reasons behind it were similar to someone else. I looked up your condition after I you put it up and saw diagrams showing there is a chance depending on where the bleed is, it may not physically come out so have internal and then there is external. I learned quite a lot just from your individual situation and have continued to learn.

Thank you again for still answering me when it appears I asked in the wrong way. I also think the friend was just so far removed from the situation and his sister that the way he took in the situation was obviously very different to everyone else as I’m sure his sister was going through a lot and had her reasons to go about it as she did.

@Tropicaliyes you haven't offended me atall I am happy to answer I just wanted to explain how other people's situations can be and how different cultures can dictate what happens after.
My abruption was almost compleate so my son couldn't have survived I forgot to mention earlier I also had a extramly short umbilical cord at only 21 cm the doctors later told me that due to this the only way he could of survived birth was a section.

I’m so sorry OP. I also lost my first daughter at full term 9 years ago. I still miss her dreadfully every day. Thank you for starting this post, it’s incredibly important that people are aware of stillbirth. I felt like I must have been the only person ever that it happened to. And there should be better after care though to be honest I wouldn’t have engaged for a long time

@Beaglesonlyplease I'm so sorry to hear about your daughter . I agree the after care is awful .I joined a local sands group and they litrally saved my life. Although hearing there horror storys was heart breaking it was support from people who could understand and didn't judge. What was your daughters name ?

I don't have any questions but I'm sorry for your loss. My brother (who was in his 20s) is buried next to handful of baby/very young children's graves and it's very warming to see flowers on them, even 30 years after their passing. I always like to think my brother is guarding them and keeping them safe. 🙂

Hi OP, thank you for sharing, and sorry for what you went through.

My question is about the funeral- how much input were you allowed to have?

@Tropicaliyes , please talk to your health care team or a mental health charity about perinatal anxiety as it sounds like this is what you are experiencing, I also had it and was similarly fixated on the fear of still birth (which after she was born turned into postnatal anxiety and an obsession with SIDS where I was literally setting alarms to check her breathing). PNA can also go hand in hand with postnatal depression so please take care of your mental health early and make sure you have the support you need before the birth.

Searching through mumsnet to find old posts on stillbirth and thinking about it so frequently is more than just 'wanting to know' and seems like a sign you're not in a great headspace , please take care of yourself and I hope everything goes well for you and your new family ❤

@CandleInTheStorm I'm sorry your brother passed so young it's a nice thought that he's looking after all the young ones.

@smellyflowers thank you.
We had full controll over the service. I chose my family priest , Flowers ,music . Time .
The only thing you can't choose if you have a hospital funded funeral is a private grave but you can pay for this separately. Although this may of changed now .
Also you don't have a seperate hearse you carry your baby in the family car with you.

@kagerou but you don’t need to search stillborn in order for this to come up.🤔you can just be bored and scroll through peoples posts by choose if the next page in every category .. I have commented on all sorts of posts that way and this post last had a comment in January 9th this year.. It only March so when you say “searching through old threads” makes it sound like I have revived a thread from early last year or earlier.

Im not “fixated” on stillbirths and similar as I said in a previous post… It comes up quite frequently when your on pregnancy tracking apps and here on mums net.. One woman even said she doesn’t search anything like that on Tic Tok and yet almost all her videos she gets is about miscarriage and stillbirths and it’s something that she is anxious about anyway and many parents to be said they get the exact same thing due to algorithms. My midwife said it’s usual what I am feeling and my anxiety about it has gone done a lot more since I can feel the baby move now and there are more and more people willing to share their experiences.

I feel had I not of mentioned I was pregnant on this post, I wouldn’t be getting the backlash I am, because again as I mentioned before I researched all aspects of pregnancy way before I was pregnant and mainly because I wanted to be prepared for every encounter (and it turned out I still wasn’t prepared as there is a lot women don’t speak about when it comes to pregnancy in general).

when I saw this post saying OP was open to speaking about her experience and it was to encourage us to speak about the unthinkable I didn’t think it would be an issue and the OP has even said she was fine with my post so it’s very confusing to say the least when I’m being told to read the room and see people referring back to their own experiences but I’m being told my posts are all about me when I do similar and speak about my own experience also.. It’s okay I just won’t post again on here as it’s always the other readers that feel some time of way and not the one I directed my questions to. (This message isn’t just to you even though your tagged as the initial part is to you but it’s to most that have tagged me back regarding me being in the wrong basically).

Again thank you OP for being honest, as everyone can see I have not asked any further questions and will leave now OP has answered me.. I can also see just by me messaging it has opened the topic up for new people to ask OP questions which was her intentions in doing the post.

I'm sending you and your baby all the love in the world ❤
I don't know if this is too insensitive (Please tell me if it is) but did you know your baby had already passed before you gave birth or did you not know

@RupertOscar1999 sorry for the late reply I have not been on for a while . Yes I knew he had passed I found out a few hours before when I started bleeding.

@Mo819 I know this is a very old thread but I just wanted to reach out for advice on how to keep going after a stillbirth. I lost my son at 38+5 2 months ago and I'm struggling so much still, it takes all my strength just to get up each day. We have also been told we have to wait until November to try again with IVF and it feels like a lifetime away, I feel like I'll go insane before then.

@Hopefullyonedaysoon
I'm so sorry For the late reply I missed the notification. I'm also so very sorry for the loss of your precious son .
It's hard to say what will get.you through to be honest personally I.wemt back to work far to early and regretted that choice later. I think finding a safe space were you can talk openly about your son your feelings hope's and fears. This can be a local sands groups , family, friends or you can talk to me .
It's important not to get pregnant to quickly after because you need time to heel physically and mentally.although I know right now that feels like torture. At this point it really is all about open communication with your partner/family remembering your son.grieveing not just for your baby but also for hopes and.dreams you had for.him too.
One foot in front of the other, one hour, day at a time and remember.you are not alone.
Would you like to tell me about your son ?
Take care
Mo.xx

@Mo819 thanks so much for your response. We have joined the local sands and are having therapy as well which is definitely helping. I know logically it is best to wait both for my own health and to give our next embryo transfer the best chance at success, but the longing for a baby to bring home is so overwhelming at the same time. It took 5 years to conceive our son so losing him felt even more cruel. His name is August and he was 5 pounds 11 when he was born. We recently found out that after my waters broke (before contractions) both myself and him developed an infection and that is the suspected caused of death. It's so unfair to get all the way to giving birth and being in labour and something to just go wrong suddenly, it's just not something you even consider happening, even now I don't feel like it was real, it almost feels like I was never pregnant. x

@Hopefullyonedaysoon
I'm so glad tour intouch with sands they saved my life in the early darkest days.
Your sons name is beautiful. I know what you mean about it being so surreal like it never happened. Do you have pictures ,footprints of your son ?
Do you have family and friends that support you ?
It is so cruel to loose a baby the way you did and I'm glad that you got an explanation as to why, so many mothers and fathers never do sadly xx

@Mo819 yes we were very lucky the midwives and bereavement team were amazing, they got foot and hand prints, a locket of hair and umbilical cord, took lots of pictures and helped us bath and dress him which was such a precious experience. I do have family and friends but one sister lives in the states and my other sister is actually pregnant at the moment so I haven't been able to bring myself to see her.
Yes having a reason is helpful especially as we want to try again, but then it still brings up the what ifs, like what if I had gone for immediate induction rather than waiting for labour for 24 hours. We didn't actually get told about the risk of infection when we were sent home, I'm not sure if we would have waited had we known. The trouble with hindsight!

@Hopefullyonedaysoon
That's a difficult situation having your sister pregnant at the same time. Have you manage to speak to each other at all ?
One thing you must remember is that none of this is your fault and you will go through periods were you want / need somebody to blame . And every feeling that you have is compleatly ok and grief is a journey someday will be worse than others . But please don't ever go down the road of what if this and what if that because you will drive yourself mad and I'm talking from experience xx

@Mo819 yes we have spoken over text but not seen eachother, she is the in October and I almost feel like I won't be able to see her until she's no longer pregnant.
The guilt has been a huge thing for me, there were a couple of times when I felt he was a bit quiet in the last few weeks of pregnancy but he would move when prodded or later in the day so I never went in to be monitored. Now I wish I had as they might have picked up he was on the smaller size and induced me instead, I blame myself everyday for that. x

So sorry that you went through this. It happened to us many years ago. I watched her disintegrate and change forever. In those days I had to get on with it and it felt like it wasn’t my loss at all, I know I didn’t carry her but I felt devastated and had to carry on with everything. Looking back I don’t think I did very well and still after 40 odd years feel sad about it. I suppose the point of my rambling is go through the grief as a couple.

One of the hardest things about having a stillbirth is that there seems to be babies everywhere. My SIL was also pregnant when I lost my son.
The thing is babies do go through periods of being quiet and in reality you don't know for certain that they would have induced you hun. But that's the awful part of all this the not knowing ,I get it hun I really do xx

@Paulrn I'm so sorry for your loss. You're right about going through it as a couple, my husband has been my rock but I do worry about him getting a chance to grieve too.

@Mo819 I feel like wherever I look there are babies, I know I'm just hypersensitive but it feels like the world is pregnant or just had a baby. I know you're right and I will never know if it would have made a difference, I'm sure down the line I will come to accept that fact. Thank you for listening to my ramblings x