My Sunshine Angel
It all started six years ago when I got married. Something we both wanted was a family. Six months later our wish came true when I found out I was pregnant. It was a rough pregnancy as I had constant sickness and I put on a lot of weight, which contributed to bad back pain. When I had the dating scan they put my dates on by five days which didn 't worry me, as I was sure they knew best. My due date by the scan was 31st Dec 2000.
My due day came and went and I was given an inducement date of 14th Jan 2001. On the 11th Jan I started to have contractions, went to our cottage hospital where the midwife said that the baby hadn 't engaged but it was best go to Hereford County hospital to be sure. An hour later we arrived at the hospital, where they checked the heartbeat and contractions. I had a long way to go, they said.
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Twelve hours later with no progression, the contractions stopped. They sent me home another six hours later, saying that if they start again I should straight to them; if not they would see me on the 14th for induction as planned.
I was glad to go home; I was still in pain from where I was having the contractions. Being naive I thought this was normal. The pain was in my gut area as if babe was pushing there instead of down in the pelvis. So going home to lick my wounds was what I needed. I had a full 24-hour reprieve.
Late on the evening of 13th Jan the contractions started again. This time they were different: as I now know, how they should be. We went to hospital and started the normal labour. At 10.30am on Sunday 14th January 2001 I was 3cm dilated. They decided to break my waters to speed things up. This is where most things become a blur and my husband had to tell me what happened.
There was meconium in my waters. I was told babe was in distress and an emergency Caesarean was needed. Obviously I agreed and within minutes I was prepped and on my way to surgery. I had to have a general, so I said "see you later" to my husband and into the op I went.
When I was coming round I could hear Tim there and I remember hearing a nurse say, "Does she know?" When Tim was told that I was coherent enough to talk he told me, "Hun, we had a baby girl, she didn 't make it".
What do you do? My emotions just went into overdrive. It wasn 't happening. What had we done to deserve this?
They took me back to a side ward for privacy and we talked and we saw our little girl. We named her Heulwen which means sunshine in Welsh. We spent a few hours with her to try and remember everything about her, her curly dark hair, round face, ten fingers, and ten toes. She weighed 10lbs 2oz so wasn 't a tiny baby but on that day she was so small. That night we tucked her into the Moses basket and said "goodnight angel and goodbye".
We buried Heulwen at our local church two weeks later with family only. Tim carried her coffin to the grave and her final resting-place.
The results of the post-mortem were inconclusive but we have been led to believe that she died from hypoxia whereby in the last few minutes of me going under, and my blood pressure going down, the placenta could not provide Heulwen with the oxygen she needed. She died minutes prior to delivery and was born still.
We now have two sons whom I am so proud of, but I will always be proud of my little girl and love her until the day we meet again.
I also wrote this poem within the first couple of weeks of Heulwen dying. Still to this day I think it expressed my feelings more than I was able to speak out loud.
Sometimes I feel lonely
Others I feel fine.
Sometimes I need comfort
Others I need time.
Our time was so limited
And with so much pain
For as I was holding you
Only your body remained.
You left us at birth
In more ways than one
To join our maker little angel
For he needed another one.
Your name stands for sunshine
And that is what you are,
For every time the sun shines
You will not be far.
Love always, Mummy
Heulwen 14th January 2001
© Shirley Gittoes
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