Nathan

I wrote this after Ben (@jessicastrust) said that it might help. It made me feel better writing it and it gave people insight that they didn't have before. I am not sure at the minute whether i am going to share this blog with anyone but i thought i would add my story here.

Nathan Jo Hamer

On the 30th of August 1997 I got married to Jon. At the time I was (I thought) 6 months pregnant. The next day it was my mum’s birthday and also the day that Princess Diana died. We had stayed overnight in a pub local to my mum on the night of the 30th and the 31st was spent getting glares in a pub whilst trying to celebrate my mums birthday. That night I spent my first night in our new flat in Wheathampstead (incidentally that is where I still live).

The next day I woke to my new life and as usual visited the loo where I discovered I was bleeding. Obviously I panicked and knocked on my neighbour’s door to ask some advice. The lady I spoke to said that it does happen and that I should lie down and rest to see if it helped. I couldn’t stay in bed very long and called the hospital to advise them that I was bleeding; they told me to see my doctor. I went along to the surgery where the doctor said to go straight to the hospital. I arrived and was shown in to a room and told that someone would be with me shortly.

And so we waited……… and waited …….. and waited.

In the three or four hours that followed I think two people visited the room. One to check the baby’s heartbeat and one to say that the doctors were delayed as there were “emergencies” going on. Finally a doctor came in and did an examination. She gave me an ultrasound to check how old my son was and said that I was nine days away from being 6 months pregnant.

With an “I am sorry you are going to lose him” she left the room and went off. Back to her “emergencies” I assume. I was then left for ages again without any help or comfort except my family. Then a person I assume was a midwife as no one introduced themselves to me (as far as I remember) came in and asked me if my waters had broken.

Now as this was my first child and I was 19 at the time I had absolutely no idea what happened during the birthing process. I had wet myself earlier and presumed that was my waters breaking so I said “Yes”. And with that without any examination or checks being made she said “Well you can start to push then”.

I started to push and my waters broke all over everyone in the room (except Jon who was luckily holding my hand at the time). This is one of my only comforts that I got them back a little (petty I know but just the way I feel). I then spent an undetermined amount of time pushing to try to give birth to my son who was breach and as of half an hour before I started to push still alive. (I had used the machine to check that I could still hear his heartbeat).

My labour stopped two or three times and so I was given drugs to speed it up. The last time my labour stopped was just as his head was coming out and so caused him to get stuck. I asked for something for the pain and was given a Pethadine injection in my bum. Luckily, as I turned on my side to get the injection my labour started again. My son was born on the 1st of September 1997 at 11.45pm. The nurse then took him away, took some pictures and then let us hold him for a while.

As you can probably guess my sense of time is a bit skewed so I actually have no idea how long anything took. I just know that I went to the hospital late morning / early afternoon and Nathan was born at nearly midnight. During that time up until I started pushing I had about 3 or 4 people in the room the whole time I was there. They put us in the parents room for the night so I didn’t spend the night on the actual ward with all the new mums which I thought was nice. The other good thing was the Pethadine injection as I had had that I was drowsy enough to sleep otherwise I think I would have been awake all night!

There were a few kicks in the teeth after this when I couldn’t register him as he was a miscarriage and not a stillbirth (under 6 months old). Also a further kick when a doctor said to me “Do you know that you probably caused your miscarriage as you smoked when you were pregnant?” I advised him of course that I actually lost my child due to other circumstances and that if he had read my notes he would know that!

Later when I was pregnant with my daughter the doctor told me that I had a form of Lupus that only occurs during pregnancy and that was the cause of my miscarriage. I have lots of questions that remain unanswered and probably will for the rest of my life but I have a beautiful daughter and now try to “Live for the day!” It can be tough but when I feel like giving up I just think how much Nathan would have loved his little sis.

I was inspired to write my story by a fellow sufferer of loss and as I think knowledge is important please take a look at www.jessicastrust.org.uk for information on Childbed Fever sign the petition please.