My baby girl died - stillbirth at 40 weeks

[GrievingMummy]

This is still very fresh for me. My baby girl was due on 10 Feb. On 9 Feb I went to the maternity assessment unit regarding reduced movements. I didn’t think there would be anything wrong but I had been anxious all pregnancy and went in after I couldn’t get her to move in the evening.

Sadly they said they could not find a heartbeat.

I was given drugs to induce labour and gave birth in 13 February to a beautiful baby girl.

I had had no problems throughout the pregnancy, she seemed perfect otherwise and a good weight so it was a complete shock.

We have spent a few days in the hospital with her and came home today. It was very sad to leave her in the hospital and one minute I’m crying and the next I feel a bit numb as if none of it was real.

Interested in anyone having had similar experiences. Does it get better? So far it has got harder every day but I think that’s because we first got the news and I knew I still had her and would give birth and get the chance to see her and hold her. And then because she was with us in hospital and I could see her and hold her. I was not looking forward to coming home without her.

I feel so much loss. The loss of a baby and being a mother following a healthy pregnancy (and I loved being pregnant) and just feeling numb. We had so much planned. We are even moving house next month and she was a bit part of that. The loss of my little baby girl who was so beautiful and whom I already loved so much. I used to play with her and talk to her every day. The fear of never having a child of my own. I know it’s early days and I will never replace her but I am 35 next month and my biological clock was ticking when I got pregnant with her. I think over what could have caused it and whether I could have done more. I don’t think I could. I didn’t realise anything was wrong.

[Borntobeamum]

I'm so sorry 💐
How about going for a walk. You dont have to talk.
Be kind to yourself. Small steps.
Sending a virtual hug to you and your family x

[bobstersmum]

So very sorry and very sad to read about this, I have no idea what to say but your daughter sounds beautiful.

[mellongoose]

Hi @AliceRR

It's important that you and DH allow each other to grieve at different paces and in different ways. That's why it's really important that you both have good outside support.

It's such early days so please try to listen to your body. Go through the emotions when and how they come. Don't fight them or ignore them. The more you feel them the easier it gets. But don't rush it. Be gentle with yourself and your DH 💕

[GrievingMummy]

You are right that we need to look after each other and be kind to each other.

I have felt this week like we have been closer and, although what has happened this week had been heartbreaking, if it brings DH and I closer then that counts for something. I was upset the other night when we were arguing and it seemed liked maybe that wasn’t the case after all.

My family have been visiting me today and DH was in bed alone watching tv or on his phone. I was tempted to push him to go out to go shopping (as he’d said he was going to go shopping as we have no food and it was getting on to 4 pm on a Sunday) but I stopped myself as I know he is grieving too and he isn’t pushing me to do anything. I know he likes to be alone too and not necessarily be around my family.

He has taken the opportunity to visit his friend while my mum, brother, aunt and cousin sit with me.

I don’t really want to be alone, and didn’t know what to do with myself earlier, but then sitting here I kind of feel like I’d like to be alone to look at the photos of my baby. It’s weird. It’s very early days I know.

[Jallebi]

So sorry for your loss. Please take care of yourself xx

[tazzle22]

I am sorry that you and your family are experiencing the loss of your beautiful Ruby.

So glad you have your memory box and your photos .... and that theses days we are a lot more aware of the benefit of doing such things. My little sister Eleanor was not even afforded an official name and whisked away so my mum did not see her. I think acknowledgement by society that she existed as well as acknowledgement that you are a mum goes a long way to it being a litre easier to bear. Although some people might not know what to say or feel awkward or even be clumsy there sure will be many who will be there for you even if you have to let them know how.

Don't be afraid to say what you want... to ask someone to do something practical like get some shopping in or just sit quietly with you, whatever.... they will.be just glad to do what you need right then.

Even if it's months in the future.

Great advice on here about feeling guilty if you find something funny...or realising you are enjoying some
Thing.... just acknowledge it, it's normal, don't beat yourself. .... it's you surviving. If we permanently mourned any loss we would not survive.


Hugs for you all.

[GrievingMummy]

I was thinking the same thing about memory boxes. That I’m lucky to have it, that I got to and was encouraged to spend time with my little girl and told we could stay as long as we liked. The MW even said that if I do feel like I need to see her over the weekend I can call and go back.

They took photos of her, they made little cards with her hands and feet prints for us and copies for grandparents (or whatever we’d like to do with them), they gave us other things. It makes a huge difference. I love looking at her little face and her little hands. It makes me emotional of course but I love my little girl.

[AuntieOxident]

My Dear Alice, Your story is very similar to mine, I gave birth to a beautiful baby boy at exactly 40 weeks. I had felt reduced movement the day before but labour started the very next day - the due date - and we went into hospital around 1 pm, Sunday afternoon.
It was going OK although they were having trouble finding a consistent heartbeat but blamed the equipment. They thought he may be in distress so my waters were broken, and he was indeed in distress. He was born only an hour or so after, with forceps, around 7 in the evening and they worked on him for about an hour but could not resuscitate him.
I remember feeling totally numb, it was so hard to take in what had happened. Like your Ruby, he was absolutely beautiful, and perfect. We named him Peter after my late father.
It’s lovely that you have photos, I really wish I had. But they didn’t suggest it and I was too much in shock to think of it. Of course thinking of it is still so hard and brings tears to my eyes even now.
Two years later we had another beautiful boy which helped to heal the pain enormously, although it will always be there.
It helped us to think, in the immediate aftermath, that we were parents; we really felt like parents although we would never get to know our son.
For us, it did get easier as time passed and I hope it does for you too. But I know how you feel at the moment, lost and grieving for your beautiful daughter. You’ll always remember her.

[GrievingMummy]

@AuntieOxident Thank you for sharing your story with me. I am so sorry for your loss too. I will always remember her and I am lucky to have some momentos to help with that. I would like to have another child someday but the idea seems a bit odd at the moment and I can’t imagine loving another child when my heart is with Ruby but I’m sure when the time comes we will embrace it. And I do hope the time comes. It is hard to imagine that I might never have a child.

I feel a bit like a mother but then in a way I don’t. It feels odd that I just had a baby and I’m dealing with the post birth things like my post baby bod and pains etc but obviously my baby isn’t with us.

My husband has two sons (aged 14 and 15) and that makes it a bit worse in a way as HE IS A PARENT, no question, he doesn’t have to ask himself whether he is or not. And also he still has his boys. I feel like I have nothing and I’m slightly alone in that.

I wouldn’t change anything though. I mean obviously if I could change things so she lived then I would. But given the choice of having had what happened happen or never having had her (or the pain of losing her) I’d rather we had her for that short time.

[GrievingMummy]

I feel a little bit of guilt that I didn’t immediately embrace her. I have touched on this above. The midwives passed her to me and I held her. I remember thinking she didn’t looks as I had expected (I must have thought she would look more asleep and less lifeless) but also I think I was just so exhausted and not v with it after all the morphine etc. I held her for a bit and felt a bit numb, as I think I’ve said, and then I asked for her to be put back in her Moses basket, where she lay for a while in the room with us. I then barely moved after giving birth as I felt I wasn’t able to (physically). I found the birth really hard physically and I suffered from PGP during my pregnancy so I have got used to not being v mobile and I think mostly I was REALLY TIRED. Then later on I got up and went to the loo and had a quick bath and then came and dressed her. But I feel the need to share this because I feel like I almost didn’t “bond” with her immediately but I think I was just exhausted. Even when we dressed her I didn’t feel up to it, although I did want to do it. I slept that night with her next to me and I loved her so much. I hope that makes sense.

I loved holding her and talking to her in the hospital.

I’m looking at photos of her now and just love her so much and it made me think of those moments after she was born when maybe I should have held her more.

[Bobfossil2]

Please don’t feel guilty for how you felt after Ruby was born. You had just given birth! This sentence really stood out to me I slept that night with her next to me and I loved her so much
Such a beautiful way to talk about your daughter. She sounds so, so loved.

[GrievingMummy]

Thank you @Bobfossil2 She is very loved, by so many but especially by me. I’ve loved her so much from when she was “a line on a stick” as a friend of mine put it and love her more and more every day. She’s so beautiful. I’m so sad she can’t be with me.

[WatcherOfTheNight]

I'm so sorry to hear about your daughter ,no mother(or father )should ever have to deal with such pain .

I haven't read the thread properly as it's too painful but as a mum who understands I wanted to add my condolences.

Years ago I lost my middle child 2nd trimester ,then late 2017 unexpectedly & suddenly my eldest ,my DD died .
It is the worst thing you will ever go through ,you will be in shock still right now .
It may take a long ,long time before you experience your "new normal " and that's ok .
You do what you need to do

[GrievingMummy]

@WatcherOfTheNight I’m so sorry for your losses.

I think I may be in shock and as hard as it is now I worry it will be harder yet. I feel like I’m in limbo all the time. First because I found out my baby had died but still had to give birth so knew I’d see her. Then because I’d given birth but had her with me in the hospital and knew I would have to leave her. Now I’m home and I suddenly thought maybe it will be harder after the funeral (but not sure)

[MinesALargeGin]

I'm so sorry for your loss, it is unimaginable. I rarely post but I just wanted to say that your love for Ruby really shines through in your posts and that you have nothing at all to feel guilty about. Regarding the birth, you had just been through an incredibly physically and mentally traumatic experience and your body was telling you you needed to rest before facing the next phase. Whether you did or didn't immediately hold her is no reflection of your love for your daughter, which is absolutely and beautifully clear.
I believe that she will have felt and known that love as she grew inside you.


I haven't lost a child, but several years ago I lost a close family member and in addition to my sadness and grief, I experienced feelings of regret and concern that I could somehow have behaved differently/better at the time of their death (I should have talked to them more, I should have stayed awake for longer, I should have held their hand for longer, etc etc). I think now, with the passage of time, that I behaved the only way I could in the circumstances. There is no right way to behave. I think looking back that the feelings of guilt are probably part of the grieving process. That isn't to belittle what you're currently feeling, but please be good to yourself and see that you too behaved the only way you could have done in the circumstances. I hope you can get some sleep.

[tazzle22]

I hope you have managed to get some sleep Alice. There will be so many different emotions and physical, hormonal considerations to contend with. Nothing is right or wrong in your reactions, it is what it is. Do what you need to and have no regrets.

[WatcherOfTheNight]

It is limbo ,I think it's the minds way of trying to protect from the pain.
I found especially in the early weeks I felt numb a lot of the time ,i couldn't believe it ,if I wasn't numb I was in pieces.
You have to do what is right for you.
I hope you managed some sleep ,if your sleep patterns are off sleep whenever you can

[GrievingMummy]

I did get some sleep, thank you.

First thing in the morning shes the first thing I think of and and last thing at night she’s on my mind and in between too. I felt wide awake when I got into bed after midnight last night and was just thinking about her. I didn’t cry. I just lay in bed thinking about her.

This morning I woke up and have had a cry but it just feels pointless. I feel a bit empty and lost.

I know I shouldn’t feel guilty about how much I held her and I’m sure if someone else was saying this I’d say the same as you have but I could not help but think it as I looked at her photo. She was so perfect.

Overall though I feel I spent the right amount of time with her and holding her, because of course I couldn’t hold her all the time and to do so probably would have made it harder to leave. I also didn’t have her in the room with us constantly as the cold cot wasn’t quite cold enough I believe. It was just looking at her beautiful little face I couldn’t believe I didn’t hold her all night went she’d just entered this cold, cruel world.

[Bobfossil2]

Of course Ruby’s all you’re thinking of. It must be so hard to know what to do with yourself.
I’m so glad that you have some photographs to look at. Did she have any hair? Did you think she looked like you / your husband?

[GrievingMummy]

I think she looked a bit like me. My mother thinks so. I think she weighed exactly what I weighed too. I think she had DH nose and she had a good amount of dark hair.

She’s so beautiful. I could look at her all day.

I just love her so much, which is normal, I’m her mother. But I don’t know what to do with all this love. I look at her things and I talk to her and I talk about her and I think about her... I’m thinking of things we can do like I want to write her a letter to give to her, I want her to have a photo of me and her (my mum took a few photos of me holding her), she already has with her a blanket that my MiL gave to us, I’d like her to be buried in one of the many cardigans my mother knitted for her... that sort of thing is all I can do now. Maybe that’s what grief is, or part of it: having all this love for someone and there is no one there to receive it.

I believe she must have known, as much as she could, how much I loved her during her short life. I loved being pregnant and I talked to her every day. I said good morning and goodnight to her, I told her I loved her every day...

[ReaganSomerset]

I'm sure she felt loved. She would have felt safe and comforted by your presence all around her, soothed by your voice and heartbeat.

[Bobfossil2]

Absolutely. All she has known is love.
Maybe you could start to write a list of things you would like to do, as you said above. Then you can work your way through it, or not, whatever you feel like you can do.

[mommybear1]

I am so so sorry Alice your daughter sounds beautiful and she clearly has an amazing Mommy.

[Oddsocksandmeatballs]

She knew how much you loved her, your love shines through every word you write about her. I am so sorry for your loss .

[goodolddaze]

Thinking of you and your beautiful Ruby