I've already got a thread going that deals with the specific issue of how to explain her sister's death to our toddler, and I've also had a look at the bereaved parents thread, but I just wanted to start a new one here to work through some of what happened in the lead-up to my baby's death last week.
Last Monday, at 35 weeks pregnant, I had mild to moderate pains in my abdomen and lower back from about 8am onwards. I thought that these were just possible Braxton Hicks / ligaments stretching / the body practicing for labour in some way, took paracetamol and got on with the day. By about 5pm the pains had got worse, so I thought that I would phone Triage just to be on the safe side. No-one answered the phone, so I took some more paracetamol and had a warm bath which didn't help, so I called Triage again; someone finally answered and I was advised to go in.
I was seen at about 7.15; the baby's heartbeat was monitored from around 7.30 onwards; they said that it didn't show any accelerations, which was cause for slight concern, but they didn't seem majorly worried and just said that I would have to stay in overnight for more monitoring. I sent my DP home to put our toddler to bed. Just after 8pm the doctor tried scanning me to work out where the baby's head was; as she was doing this the pains changed from manageable to horrific and I felt a kind of fever fall over me. The baby's heart plummeted and the doctor started shouting that I had to go to theatre straight away. I was raced down a corridor on the trolley to a theatre full of people masked up and waiting, I was given an GA, and that's all I remember. I came round a few hours later to be told that the baby was very ill, had been born without a heart-rate and only responded to resuscitation after 21 minutes. I was told that it was unlikely she would live, and if she did she would be severely brain damaged.
I understand that I had a severe placental abruption. I think that this must have been going on most of Monday while I was feeling pains. I feel as if I failed to care for my little girl by not going in to Triage immediately first thing in the morning. I keep thinking that if we had gone in earlier they might have been able to do the section earlier, and she might have been saved. I realise that this line of thinking is potentially toxic since there is nothing I can do to change things now, but how do you ever get past thinking that you might have been able to stop something like this happening, but failed to do so?
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Bereavement
do you ever stop feeling guilty? (death of baby)
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BettyFriedansLoveChild · 13/05/2014 21:00
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