Print Page - Two Coins For The Ferryman.

Hi all, been away for a few weeks but am back now. We've had a bit of a rough time recently and whats coming isn't a story with a happy ending, so if you are having a bad day I'd suggest skipping reading it. I think I am writing this more to just put some thoughts down somewhere.

We had a bunch of friends from across Europe who all game online with us come visit for a long weekend. I'd booked two weeks off for that, and just to spend some time away from work. After a really good weekend where we taught them how to play Zombies!!! and Fluxx Monty Python, they all started to head home on Monday and Tuesday. Just a few days before that we'd been out at baby fairs buying a new pram and baby clothes. Life was feeling pretty damn good.

On Wednesday two weeks ago Kristi said she couldn't feel the baby moving so we went straight out to the local hospital. One of the nurses couldn't pick up any heartbeat from our baby. Our doctor was called in and a scan confirmed there was no movement and just a few days short of 24 weeks we'd lost our baby (Lillian Elizabeth Morgan Corbett, we nicknamed her Lilly-Beth). They gave Kristi some meds to start things off. They'd take a couple of days to start working, so we were to come back first thing on Friday and be prepared to spend a couple of days in the hospital. We walked into town just feeling numb and holding hands. Neither of us felt like eating, so we picked up something from a fast food place, each of us promising the other that if they ate something the other one would too. I can't really remember anything else about what we did that night, other than phoning around our families to tell them what had happened, and that each time I'd to tell someone it got that little bit harder, and then finally going over the road to my Warrent Officers house to let him know I'd need some more time off work (the poor guy was in the shower at the time and had to come to the door in his dressing gown (I am sure one day I'll find that funny), but we went to bed and held each other until at some point we both drifted off to sleep. We woke early, just as dawn was preparing to break. I suggested we both take a long walk along the beach together. For some reason it just felt incredibly important to me that we have a last walk along there, just the three of us. It looked dark and cloudy as we left the house, but by the time we reached the beach a mile or two away it had turned into a lovely morning.

We walked along it towards the lighthouse, going two or three miles along. When one of us felt the need to cry a bit we stopped and held the other. Eventually both of us decided we'd went far enough and both of us were ready to go home. The sun was still rising over the village and as we walked back we could hear a low moaning noise. It might have been some animal, or the wind on the beach. We go there a lot and I'd never heard a sound quite like that before. A couple of days later I recalled some fragments of an old story where the sea had sung to people who were truely in love and had lost something to ease their pain. I couldn't remember if it really was something I had read or if my mind was making it up. When I told Kristi about it she asked me if I'd look it up. I said no, I was happy to believe that was the old spirits singing to us and leave it at that. My mum travelled up that day. I can't remember if I went out to meet her at the train station or not. I had picked up a load of Mr Men books to read to Lilly-Beth, mostly ones I remembered having when I was young. One of them (Mr Clumsy), I had sat at Kristi's belly and read to Lilly-Beth after the nurse had told us she could here at that stage of development. I wrote a message to her telling her, her mummy and daddy loved her and missed her. I had picked out various things I wanted to be buried with her, so I put that book in, a torch so she never had be be afraid in the dark (every time I thought of her being afraid and a lone I'd start crying), a small teddy (Dennis The Menace for anyone who is familiar with the Beano comic) that had originally belonged to my gran, some socks and shoes and baby clothes and a bangle that had been my little sisters when she was born, as well as 2 gold coins. Kristi asked me to sort out everything for the funeral as she didn't think she could handle it, so some of the things were from her too.

The next morning my sister in law drove early from Aberdeen to take us to hospital. We got our room and the midwife came in and gave us the next set of meds, warning us not to expect Kristi to give birth that day. My mum and sister in law stayed with us for a while until the meds started to take effect. About half nine in the morning Kristi started shaking, and being sick. She wasn't reacting well to the morphine and the anti nausia stuff wasn't working. Four hours later they were able to give her a different medication and that settled things down a bit, but she was still in a lot of pain. For all the things I learned through my life and everything I have done all I could do was hold her hand and wish I could take the pain from her and feel it instead. They were giving her morphine injections, some other painkillers as pills and gas none of which seemed to do anything more than take the edge of the pain. I stayed with her for the next 12 hours. My mum and Dawn were waiting in the local town. At some point I told them it was ok, go home and wait and I'd call them as soon as I had any news. I lied to the nurses and told them I was taking breaks to go outside for fresh air, although I did leave for a couple of minutes to go put some more money on my phone. I was texting various friends and family in the UK and US answering what questions I could for them. Eventually the midwife came in and said that she'd try one last pill at half nine at night, then restart the pills in the morning. I wanted to beg her to let Kristi rest for a bit and just skip the last pills. On the way to the hospital I had thought when she goes to give you the pills I won't be able to let her give you them, but when she asked if we were ready I could only sit and squeeze Kristi's hand to show I supported her as she said yes.

About 9 Kristi said she could feel something wasn't normal and she thought the baby was coming. I got the midwife and half an hour later Lilly-Beth arrived. She was born at 21:36, weighing 460 grams, and was 28cm long. Her cord was wrapped around her shoulder, then around her neck three times. It wasn't tight around her neck so the nurse couldn't say if that was what had went wrong or not. Because of something that had happened when I was a teenager I hadn't wanted to cut the cord, but at some point during the night I'd had a talk with myself, told myself I could do that for my daughter and should man the f**k up. So I cut the cord and asked if I could wash her. The midwife said she was too fragile and it would be better if I didn't, but I could help dress her afterwards. She took her away and I cuddled Kristi. She seemed to shake off the effects of all the drugs pretty quickly. I contacted our families to let them know it had happened. My mum got a taxi while my brother and sister in law jumped in the car to come join us. We sorted out some injections I'd need to give Kristi, filled in the paperwork to give permission for an autopsy and then we went home.

When the nurse came back she said one of Lilly-Beth's arms was slightly shorter than the other and the hand was turned in a bit. I dunno, she looked perfect to me. The nurse offered to let us sleep in the room with her for the night if we wanted, but both of us decided we wanted to go home to our own house and come back out first thing in the morning to sort out what would happen next.

In the morning we headed back out. We ran into a couple of the missionaires from Kristi's church. We told them what had happened and they immediently organised to have meals dropped off at our house for the next week and offered any other help they could. She asked them to give her a blessing. We headed into the hospital. I asked to see Lilly-Beth. We had photos taken with her, but we were both feeling a bit shell shocked. I wanted nothing more than to hold her, but the nurse, trying hard not to cry said I wouldn't be able to. I went to see her, but didn't manage to say goodbye to her the way I'd wanted to. The funeral director arrived and went over options. He tried hard to steer us toward cremation since my job is likely to move us away from this area. I wanted her to be settled somewhere, and maybe I've just seen too many bad movies where ashes get mistaken for coffee or spilt. Kristi's religion while not outright against cremation prefers burial too.

Anyway, I just want to say to people if you have kids cherish every second you get with them, even the bad times. One day even without something bad happening there will come a time you can't just hold them. Right now, I'd given anything just to be able to do something as simple as change a dirty diaper. Make sure the people you love know it. Might sound silly, but the one piece of advice I've always been willing to give people is tell them your loved ones how you feel about them, because one day its too late and no holy man, scientist, god, politician or anyone else can change things to give you that chance. I just had never thought before about never having the chance to say that in the first place would ever happen.

Peace and love to everyone.

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