You and Your New Baby. Anna McGrail

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СКАЧАТЬ this book before your baby arrives will turn past these pages, not wanting to read them. ‘It doesn’t bear thinking about.’ That would have been my reaction, too. But for some parents, they have to think about it, the hardest thing of all: a death in a place where there is no place for it, in a room where we give birth.

      It is beyond the scope of this book to support families through the loss of their baby. Only talking and specialised support can do that, and for this reason we include the names and addresses of specific organisations that can help in the Directory.

      What we can also do here is to let parents think in advance of how they might cope with the loss of their baby, and to let you know some positive ways in which you can help each other through such a difficult and distressing time.

      George speaks for many other grieving fathers: ‘People somehow expected me to be affected less than Anita. I was the one making the funeral arrangements, going to see the Registrar, all of that. It was as if I just had to get all that done and then I could go back to work and forget about it.’

      Anita expresses her own anguish: ‘I was going to be a mother…and then I wasn’t… and then I realised I was a mother, and always would be, even if I didn’t have my baby with me any more.’

      THERE ARE MANY local support groups run by and for parents who suffer a bereavement. They will allow you and your partner the opportunity to talk about how you both feel, express your feelings and grief and to share ways of coping.

      REASONS

      If you and your partner suffer a bereavement:

       Find out as much information as you want and need as to the causes. This will help you to understand and to come to terms with what has happened

       Do talk about the baby to each other. One of the saddest things about losing a baby near the time of birth is that no one else has had the chance to get to know this new little person. You know her better than anyone and can share your knowledge with each other

       Give yourself plenty of time to grieve. Do not expect to pick up the threads of life again as if nothing had happened

       Give your baby a name. This will help you to talk about her and see her as a person in her own right

       Ask for a photograph of your baby. This will help you to remember her

       Don’t blame each other – you are both angry: you have a right to be angry, but you need to find other ways of expressing that anger

       Support each other – remember that your partner has also lost a child.

TRANSITION

      IF YOUR BABY has been born in a hospital, you may find that leaving what feels like absolute safety, where there are experts and paediatricians on call 24 hours a day, and returning home, is a daunting experience. Parents whose baby has been born at home often feel something similar when the last of the midwives finally leaves and they are on their own – at last, with their new arrival. Although there is a physical journey involved in the transition from hospital to home, for all parents there is an emotional journey to be made. When you left, there were two of you, now there are three.

      The reality may not hit you until you are actually back at home, as it did Kay: ‘I was in hospital for a week and all that time I kept thinking at the back of my mind that they’d never really let me leave with this baby because he wasn’t really mine. Of course, I’m saying all this, I knew he was mine, I knew it rationally, but deep down … I just kept having this niggling doubt that I’d have to hand him hack before I got in the lift to go home. It was a bit of a shock that I didn’t!’

      Darren thought going home would be a time of rest and peaceful ‘daddyhood’: ‘Even before we left the hospital, on our way down in the lift, the nurse who was carrying the baby down for us was saying to Maureen, “Oh, it’s lucky you’ve got your husband at home for a few days, that’ll be a help,” and I was thinking, “What can I possibly do to help?” I had no idea of the work involved. I imagined that Maureen would breastfeed, the baby would sleep a lot, smile at me from time to time … and I would help, I’d change the odd nappy or two. But that was all. I had no idea.’

      HOME MAY be the place you most want to be in the first few days, but even so, it can take some getting used to.

      Naomi had been in hospital for quite a long time: ‘Although there are compensations, like you get your medicines brought round, and the meals just appear, there are still so many constraints; like, if your baby’s crying when the meal arrives, your dinner just goes cold – no one’s going to pop it in the oven for you because there isn’t an oven.’

      Rowena’s husband began to long for some privacy, even at home: ‘People were in and out all those first few days and it seemed like we’d never get any peace and quiet. People kept saying things like, “Oh it’s so lucky you’ve got Peter here to help for a bit”, and I was getting cross because all I was doing to help was making them tea.’

      David found himself impressed by Tina’s growing knowledge and let himself be guided by her: ‘We’d been living with Tina’s parents and had only moved into our own flat three or four weeks before and there were still things in boxes that we hadn’t got round to unpacking. We’d borrowed a cot from Tina’s sister and put it up in the bedroom, next to our bed, and Tina put the baby in there when we got back from the hospital because the baby was asleep, and he looked so small and lost in there I wanted to take him straight out again. But Tina had put him in, so I didn’t. She already seemed to know what was best because she’d been with him all the time in the hospital and I hadn’t.’

      First days

      YOU MAY BE new to the job and feel that you’re dependent on ‘experts’ but no one knows your baby as well as you already do. It is surprising how quickly we learn to read our baby’s signals, even when we may have had little to do with babies before. It is astonishing how much our instincts are right, and perhaps in itself this may give us confidence.

      Philippa’s baby’s umbilical cord hadn’t quite healed properly: ‘So the midwife didn’t discharge us at ten days like she was supposed to and I was really disappointed by that. I wanted to move on, and I felt this was holding us back in some way. I wanted the reassurance that everything would be alright, but I also wanted to take on the responsibilities myself.’

      With that responsibility, though, however much it is wanted and welcomed, can come uncertainty, as Sally clearly knows: ‘My brain has gone. It sometimes feels like a big empty space in my head where I used to do thinking. I don’t even look at newspapers any more because they don’t make sense. Or if I do pick up a newspaper, I always seem to find things in there that upset me, and more and more things upset me now. I end up crying over news stories. It feels much safer, in a way, just having me and Kevin in our little world.’

      Umbilical clip.

      THIS INSTINCT to nurture and protect, almost to make a ‘nest’, is very strong in many parents in the first weeks of their baby’s life. For some people, this ‘nesting’ instinct began to manifest itself in late pregnancy with an urge to repaint the spare bedroom. If, during late pregnancy, your nesting instinct prompted you to do something slightly more practical, like freeze a month’s worth СКАЧАТЬ