Anger, Fire and a Holiday to escape it all
Liam’s death for the next few weeks consumed my soul, I was so angry, I wanted revenge, I wanted someone to say sorry, I wanted to know where exactly in his birth things had broken down, I wanted to understand why he wasn’t here today, like I said in a previous post I was a very angry person, my anger consumed nearly all my thoughts, I had been angry for around 6 weeks already and except for small reprieves here and there my anger lasted about another 6 weeks, but around this time it was at its height. On my days “off” when Alethea went to day care I would spend my time calling or emailing different NUMs (nursing unit managers) of different delivery suites at maternity hospitals around NSW. Maybe it was because I could talk a little medical to them, maybe they were just lovely ladies, or maybe it was the story that I told them, but each one gave me their time, talked to me with empathy and shared with me their hospital’s policy on emergency Cat 1 or code critical C sections Continue reading
A Father without his Son
So it is slightly later than my promised post of mid January! I had planned to write on my break, but we had so much fun, so much family time together that I didn’t. I do hope that in the next few weeks I can bring you all up to speed on everything that has happened, and then I can continue from the here and now! Here is my request from you, from anyone who has read our blog and gained a greater insight into what parents like us go through….that you share our initial post with your friends/neighbours your facebook friends or other social network friends, you may just help someone in the most unknown way, maybe it informs them on organisations like Heartfelt, Bears of Hope, Pillars of Strength (which I will get to soon) or gives them Debs/Belinda’s name so that they can contact them, maybe it lets others know that they are not quite so alone and that the emotions that they feel are normal, people have been writing to me over the holidays requesting that I get my blog even more “out there” and I am not quite sure how else to do it, so maybe with all your help I can. Continue reading
My First Bereavement Group…and Merry Christmas to Every One x
Around 25th August I was able to go to my first bereaved parents groups, held by two wonderful social workers Deb De Wilde and Belinda Power. These ladies have helped countless people like myself process thoughts, emotions and that feeling of isolation that many of us have by bringing together other parents who know exactly what you are going through Continue reading
Parties, Fun and Sadness
Alethea had been invited to a couple of birthday parties around this time, I had of course said that she could go, because when you are 3yrs and 10months birthday parties are one of the most important things in your life Continue reading
A Cake, A Wish, but No Liam
I’m pretty sure it was around the second week in August that I met Deb De Wilde. We had decided to meet at the Mater Hospital where Deb works, she was so kind on the phone to me when we were planning our meeting saying that if I thought that meeting in a hospital was going to be too hard that we could potentially meet somewhere else (that is if I had been so adversely affected by Liam dying in a hospital that I could not step into one again we could go elsewhere). I met Deb in the foyer and we walked around to a beautiful little court yard to sit at one of the tables there. Continue reading
A Theatre not Staffed to attend 24hr a day Emergencies
About 5 weeks after Liam died my obstetrician obtained a copy of my notes and rang me to ask me to come in and discuss them with him, I told him that I knew exactly what was in my notes and that I didn’t need to come in, so unless he was going to tell me something that I didn’t know, or something that wasn’t in the notes then I already knew what was written there. I was also very angry at this stage with my obstetrician, I had trusted him to deliver Liam safely and he had failed to do that. Continue reading
The First Month Anniversary
The next day was Thursday 26th July, it was exactly 1 month since Liam had been born and had died and I needed to be busy. My friend Gina had the week before found a new dance school to put her daughter Chiara in. Alethea and Chiara had previously dabbled in some dance lessons, but the studio that they were previously with was quite strict, played the music REALLY loudly and generally scared them both, so they didn’t want to return, however over the previous few months Alethea had been asking me if I would take her to ‘new’ dancing lessons, I had thought about it but with all the activities that Alethea already did and with the new baby on the way I didn’t see how I was going to manage it. Now that there was no baby to look after I had no reason to deny Alethea something that she wanted to do so much, so that morning we got ready and headed for the new studio “Little Feet” at Narrabeen tramshed. I was worried that she would be scared and clingy and not go in, but as soon as she was there she waved ‘bye mum’ and she was nervously excited to start her new venture. Continue reading
A Woman on a Mission….with Anger
I am going to preface this post by saying that anger is a horrible emotion, it eats away at you and consumes your life, for the next 12 weeks I became a very angry person, not to Alethea or Ryan, I just had anger in me as to what had happened with Liam, and I wanted justice for his death, it was untimely and to me it should not have happened, but I will ask you to hold comments on the actions of the hospital and staff until you have heard the WHOLE story (yes I do know that there were a lot of things that happened that shouldn’t have happened, and I appreciate that a lot of you have contacted me voicing your opinion) . MY story for the next 12 weeks is very biased but these are the emotions that I went through and these are the thought processes that I had. Continue reading
Our First Holiday…and Realisation
I’m going to start this post by saying it is a bit of a filler, I tell it because I need to show where I was at both emotionally and in my thinking to get to the next stage of our journey. Continue reading
Tattoos to remember a much Loved Baby Boy
Walking back to the car after the funeral was again a very surreal experience. Family were catching up and chatting together and I was in my own little bubble. The girls were running around chasing each other giggling, sounds of life filled the air. I couldn’t look back, I couldn’t bear to see the hole in the ground holding my little boy, I didn’t want to know if there were people already filling in the hole, I’m not even sure how long it takes before they start to fill in the hole, but I didn’t want to risk seeing dirt piled on top of my little baby so I kept my eyes forward and didn’t look back. We told everyone that we would see them back at our house, got in the car with Alethea and drove off. She was in the back excitedly talking about her cousins and Ryan and I sat in the front with big wide eyes staring at the road not taking anything in. Continue reading
Missing Liam 