The delivery

We got to our new room when it was still dark out, so it must have been before 7am. It was the last room on the labour and delivery ward and it was nice and quiet. I couldn't hear any other woman labouring and definitely couldn't hear anyone celebrating their new arrivals, so I was pleased with this.

I was scared to be in labour and scared to be about to have my baby.

My labour and delivery with Jackson was such a fantastic experience. I am one of those odd women that love giving birth. For the most part I enjoy being pregnant, but I especially love giving birth. With Jackson I only had some morphine, that was all the pain medication I wanted. I wanted to be able to feel him being born, I didn't want to be told when to push; I wanted to just let my body do what it needed to do. I felt in tune with my body more than I have ever felt before. I felt powerful and natural about it all. It was an amazing experience. And when he was born? I cannot even explain how wonderful it was. We had a mirror set up so I could see him coming out (thanks for the words of advice on that, Sarah!). It was amazing to watch him being born, to know that all the pushing, all the pain I'd been feeling was causing that. That all the hard work was paying off and I was going to be holding my precious baby soon. Then when he finally did come out and he was in my arms, it was euphoric. My doctor placed him on my chest, we announced it was a boy, and we were a family. It was the best moment of my life.

I was scared how this experience was going to compare to that. I knew it was going to be so drastically different. I knew it was going to be so intensely sad. I confided to Susan that I was scared that my baby was going to creep me out. That I would be horrified by him because he was dead. That I wouldn't want to hold him, or kiss him, because he wasn't alive. I was worried about what he would look like, what he would feel like (would he be cold?). I was worried that all I'd be able to see when I looked at him was a dead baby. Not my baby, just a dead baby. I didn't want that. I wanted to look at my newborn baby and feel the love and pride that I felt when I looked at Jackson when he was first born. I was just so scared. Susan assured me that I would feel the love, that I wouldn't see a dead baby, I would see my child. She explained that when he was born he would have some bruising (from the birth), his skin may be peeling off in spots (because he had died a few days prior and he'd been in the amniotic fluid for those days), and he may not look like a newborn since he was only 34 weeks and would not have as much fat on him as a newborn would (they believed he was only 34 weeks, not the 36 weeks we now know to be true). We went over what we wanted when the baby was born. We wanted her to clean him up as much as possible, we knew she wouldn't be able to bathe him because his skin would already be peeling. We wanted to hold him right away. Brian wanted to cut the umbilical cord. We wanted her to weigh and measure him and do the footprints. Basically we wanted it to be the same as it would be if he had been born alive.

Once we got to our new room we met our nurse. I don't remember a single thing about her. I know she told me how sorry she was for my loss. I just got used to everyone saying this to me. At this point I'd stopped responding with "It's not fair". Instead I just thanked people. What else do you do in this situation? What else is there to say?

The pain was getting intense quickly. I had already had another morphine shot and was not able to get another one for quite some time. We got the gas working again and that gave me some distraction, but it was still more painful that I remembered from Jackson's birth. I could not find a comfortable position. Every time Susan had me lay back to check me I was blinded by the pain. Labouring on my back was not an option, the only way I could get any relief was to sit up in bed. Finally I started seriously considering an epidural. It was not at all what I wanted but I had never imagined the pain to be this intense. Once it got to the point of telling Susan that I really wanted the epidural she decided to check me again. She lowered the bed again to have me lay back so she could see how far along I was and the pain intensified. I told her that I either needed the epidural or I had to push. She told me that was what she figured; she thought I must be in transition (about to give birth). As she started checking me she was prodding my stomach and I started yelling at her to stop touching me, it was hurting so badly. She checked how far I was dilated and all I heard her say was 'oh, I see a foot'.

During the ultrasound on Sunday Daisy had been head down; and had been for weeks. Apparently at some point between that ultrasound and Tuesday morning the baby had gotten flipped around and was now feet down. And now one of the little feet had started coming out already. As Susan examined me and felt the foot she announced that I could start pushing. This was it.

The pain was incredible. Every contraction hurt like hell. I've heard breech births are more difficult and more painful, but I never really understood until now. I don't know how long I pushed for; I have no clue how long the whole delivery took. I know at one point I was in a lot of pain and was tired and I asked Susan "can't you just pull it out". I regret this statement so much. I hate that I said it. I hate that I referred to my sweet baby as 'it'. I hate that I wanted her to just pull it out, like it was just some thing that I wanted to be out of me. That was not the kind of birth I wanted for Daisy. Not the kind of thing I wanted to say. She deserved so much better than such a crass hurtful statement. I know I was in pain, and the heat of the moment, and all of that, but I am so horrified by the fact that I said that.

The baby was born feet first (Footling Breech) and then the arms were over the head. It was basically the most awkward, painful birth. (I have since learned that Footling Breech births are not that common, especially in full term babies. 10-30% of all breech births are Footling, and only 1-3% of full-term births are Breech births at all.) I had forgotten to mention to Susan that I wanted the mirror set up. I remembered how glad I was that I had that during Jackson's birth and would have liked it this time too. I wish that I had seen his little feet coming out. I think it would have eased the pain a bit too as it would have given me some distraction and some incentive.

At 9:52am our baby was born. Once the baby was completely out both Brian and I looked down (I was already sitting up through the entire delivery) and got to announce "it's a boy!". It was odd. During the entire pregnancy I had been referring to the baby as Daisy. As a girl. But when I looked down and saw my son it just felt right. Just felt like 'of course it's a boy, how could it be anything else?'. Our second son was born. And he was beautiful. I did not see a dead baby. I was not horrified by him, or creeped out by him. He was my son and all I felt was love.

During the last 2 days Brian and I had talked about names. We had always knew what name we wanted to name Daisy if she was a girl. But once we learned that our baby had died we knew we couldn't use that name anymore (and no, we are not sharing what that name was!). It's not that we were going to save the name for any future daughters, it's more that the name just wasn't right for Daisy anymore. We knew that if Daisy was a girl the only name that would be perfect for her was 'Daisy'. She was our Daisy and always would be. But if 'she' was a boy, then what? We had never agreed on a boy's name. We had no clue what name to chose. We had both always loved the name Benjamin. When I was pregnant with Jackson we considered that name but I had researched it in baby books and we quickly vetoed it. I read that in the bible Rachel gave birth to Benjamin but it was a difficult delivery and she died shortly after childbirth. We decided this was just a little to much of a bad omen. On Monday I had brought the name up again to Brian. I told him that the situation was already horrible, it couldn't get much worse than the fact that our baby was already dead. He got a bit annoyed at me for that, reminding me that it still could get much worse. But we agreed. If Daisy was a boy we would name him Benjamin, but we were not allowed to say the name again until after the delivery and I was okay. For the middle name we decided on two family names. I wanted William since on my dad's side of the family all the men are named only 2 of 3 names; James (which is Jackson's middle name), Ross, or William. I wanted Benjamin to carry on this tradition. Then we also wanted to honour Brian's granddad who had passed away. His name was Brian Herbert. We didn't want to use Brian so we agreed on Herbert. So our Daisy became Benjamin William Herbert.

So after Benjamin was born and Brian had cut the umbilical cord, Susan took him to the other side of the room to clean him up. While she did this I finished with the whole birthing process (placenta and all that nasty stuff). Susan weighed him (6 pounds 3 ounces) and measured him. He was 24" long. This was an amazing length. When Jackson was born he was in the higher percentile for length and he was only around 21.5". Benjamin was way off the charts. From his weight, length and head circumference Susan decided he was actually 36 weeks, instead of the 34 weeks she had believed. Even for 36 weeks he was off the charts for length. Even for full term he would have been off the charts. He was a very tall baby.

Susan brought him to us to hold. He was gorgeous. He looked so much like Jackson. He had his chin and his forehead. His nose was a perfect combination of Brian and me. We couldn't see his eyes, he was born with them closed and we didn't want to open them. He had adorable little ears and perfect fingers and toes. Oh, his toes. They were so perfect.

It was bittersweet. It was so surreal to hold him. He was done. He was fully cooked. It just wasn't right at all. He didn't look premature. He didn't look like there was anything wrong with him. Sure, his skin was bruised and peeling in spots (really only his belly tho). But his cheeks were so chubby!

We held him for a long time in that room. Susan and the nurse had left to give us some time with Benjamin. We were holding him at 11am when the moment of silence for Rememberance Day was announced over the hospital speakers. I can't even think of what to say about that. Here we were holding our son who was just born still and we knew all over the hospital everyone was stopping what they were doing to have a moment of silence for people who had passed away. It was right, but also so wrong. I didn't want to share this moment with anyone. I didn't want his birthday to be so closely associated with death and grieving. It just wasn't right. I know I will always associate his birthday with the day of his death; there is no way around that. But in my mind he died a few days before, this was only the day of his birth. He may not have been born alive, but he was born this day.

This is all I can type today. It is after midnight here and I am tired and now I am sad. But strangely also happy. I like remembering him and remembering the first time I got to see him. He is my son and although he was not born kicking and screaming I still got to hold him and kiss him and love him.

I will follow up as soon as I can with the rest of his birth day. I am including some photos here of him. You can't see him too well in these photos, they are more of Brian and I holding him. Next post (probably) I will share some beautiful photos of our sweet Benjamin.