We meet at last – I love you!!

This time, there was no hanging around waiting for a room. We now found out that the hospital had a suite set aside for situations such as ourselves, and my husband could at least stay with me as there was a sofa for him to sleep on. Also, there was no hanging around in inducing me, and despite that it was almost 11pm, I was induced almost immediately. Thankfully, my body responded quickly to the medication, and the contractions started fairly swiftly. I was again hooked up to a morphine pump, and at 6am, thanks to a wonderful midwife, I had our little boy. I know this should have been the saddest moment, but instead I was elated. I was so relieved to finally meet him at last, the love I felt for him was overwhelming. He weighed just shy of 4lbs, but to me he was huge. How do women do it when babies are 9lbs?!!! He looked perfect in every way. He even had dark hair like me, but the rest of him was all daddy – the arms, the feet. But I knew when I held the back of his head that it felt like a water-filled balloon. The horrifying thought occurred to me, thankfully for only a brief moment,that perhaps his head would burst if we weren’t careful. Thankfully that didn’t happen.  We dressed him in a little babygrow and hat I’d bought in Mothercare the day before and we cuddled him. And my initial elation turned into sheer sobbing desolation.

My parents came to see him and so did my sister. My husband’s parents also came to see him. I didn’t want him to be thought of as a pregnancy that didn’t work out. He was a little baby, a real human being, even if his brain was in a very bad way, and I needed them to realise that he existed and that he wasn’t a figment of our imagination.

The hospital chaplain came to see us, even though it was his day off, and I realised that he was the same chaplain who’d written me that kind note two years previously for our other baby. We both knew that we were going to have a funeral, and that it would be for both boys, and he would be the one to conduct it.

We spent the rest of the day cuddling our boy and taking pictures. But we knew we’d have to leave him with the hospital. We kissed him for the last time and returned home.