Painful, Personal Post.......... tissues needed to be handy

I am really sorry if this post is upsetting but I really need to write this down.  
I do. 
Those who know me personally may find this very distressing. 
 I really am sorry but I have to.


I have had a very stressful couple of days.
Although I have had counselling I still find January 15th hard to deal with.
On this day thirty seven years ago I gave birth to a beautiful daughter who we named Leanne Denise.  I invented the name with my friend Joan, it was made up from Leander of Hero and Leander fame (we mistakenly though Leander was the heroine - were our faces red when we found out years later it wasn't).
She was a beautiful baby and I did manage to breast feed her, more successfully than my first two girls.  I used to take her to the Welfare Clinic once a week to be weighed and checked but when she was about two weeks old, I was told that she was not gaining any weight and maybe I needed to give her a bottle.  I already had the equipment so the Clinic gave me a tin of milk and  as soon as I came home I made up a bottle and fed her.  When it came time for her next feed I could not wake her.  I tried and tried but she stayed asleep so I phoned the doctors and managed to get through to Dr Humphries, the lady Doctor, who asked the pertinent questions and then before she could say anything the line went dead.  By now I was hysterical and crying and shaking and still Leanne slept on ...........
Not long after the doorbell rang and there was the Dr on the doorstep.  "I had a sleeping baby and a hysterical mother on the phone and I have come to sort it out" she replied when I asked why she was there!!
She immediately picked up the baby who gave a loud gulp of air and started to cry.

The Doctor thought that Leanne had her first proper meal since she was born and, like any animal, was so full up she had to sleep it off.  She only woke when the Doctors COLD hands picked her up and shocked her awake!!!  We did so laugh as we were both so relieved to know she was ok, I was very embarrassed but the Doctor said she was just doing her job - as all good Doctors and Nurses do.

A week later, N was very poorly with whooping cough but we were told that Leanne would be OK because the breast milk passed on antibodies to protect her.  One night while I held her she stopped breathing and started to go blue.  I managed to get her breathing again and she seemed OK.   After her nightime feed she stopped breathing again and I could not get her to start again so her dad (ON) said we should take her to the hospital, we piled into the car and I put her across my lap and rubbed her back all the way to the hospital where she had been born.  They could not do anything for her as she had been discharged a month earlier and suggested we took her to the Children's Hospital, and not knowing where it was they gave us directions and off we went.  Right across the city we drove, red lights, speed limits - nothing of any importance when you have an ill child.  
When we arrived the receiving Nurse tried to clear her airways and did all the usual checks while we waited for the Doctor.  Eventually a young girl came down the corridor putting on a white coat, obviously annoyed at having been woken up.  She checked Leanne, who by this time was a healthy pink colour and said she had a blocked nose and gave us some nose drops.  
Leanne remained poorly for a few days more but then seemed to start picking up.  We went to visit her grandmother out in the country and I dressed the three girls in matching outfits - crocheted dresses made during anti-natal classes.  Photos of the three generations were taken, one of parents and girls and one of Auntie Molly, Father and Grandmother with the girls.  It was a bright, sunny day and we were all so happy.
On Mother's Day, with my sister and children at home, we all tucked into our lunch and then started the washing up afterwards.  V wanted to feed the baby so I told her to leave Leanne until after we finished the washing up and then fetch her in from her pram, which was outside on the patio.  I warmed her bottle and went into the lounge to find her bib and then sat at the table with my sister.  
There was a shout from outside and V was standing there holding Leanne up in her arms.

I knew there and then she was dead.

I don't know how

I don't know why

but she was

I went out and took her off V and brought them both into the house.  I told ON to go phone for an ambulance and my sister took hold of V.  I remember thinking later that ON had gone round to next door but one's to phone and the lady there was six months pregnant - not the best news to receive.
I went into the front room and looked at my beautiful daughter as she lay in my arms, I prayed that she would open her eyes, would breathe, I held her close - she had been so well wrapped up she was still warm.  
Nothing
I cuddled her as close as I could, praying..........

The ambulance came and they gave her the kiss of life but then a trickle of blood appeared at her left nostril and they apologised and said there was nothing more they could do.  

Two months almost to the date.............. 16th March

They contacted my GP as they needed a Dr to declare her dead.  After about an hour of waiting they had to leave, so they wrapped her up in a blanket, told me I didn't really need to come as they would take her straight to hospital and have her declared dead.  
She left my arms wrapped as though she was still asleep and went into the back of the ambulance in the arms of a man whose young daughter was at home celebrating her birthday.  Who was suffering the most - him or me - I have never known.

Joan had come home by now, we were all sitting stunned, drinking tea and talking.  After a while we decided to go tell the grandmothers, it had to be done and was not something to do over the phone.  
As we opened the front door a jolly lady Dr (Singh or Kaur - can't remember now) was standing on the doorstep.  We wondered what she was doing there and she said "I was having a tea party when I received a phonecall to say that there was a problem with the D Baby.  After we finished tea I thought I had better come and see what was happening here"  I told her not to worry as the baby was dead so she wasn't needed.  Never been one to mince my words when I am upset!!!
Joan came into the hall as the Dr turned to go and asked if maybe it would be a good idea to give me a couple of sleeping tablets as I had had a big shock.  The Dr thought for a moment and then asked if Joan really thought so!!!  Joan said yes she did and so I was given a couple of tablets and off the Dr went, back to her teaparty.

We called in at my mother's house first as I knew my cousins were visiting and she would not be alone.

We then went to his mother's house where she received the news stoically while his younger sister went hysterical and we had to deal with her while ON went to his older sister who lived next door to tell her the news.  

When I arrived home all trace of a baby ever having been in the house had been removed.  No clothes, no cot, no pram, nothing, she'd gone.  My sister and friend Joan had been very busy while I had been gone, taking most of it all round to her ex husband's house, explaining to him what had happened and why they needed to move everything.  They thought it would be better for me if there were no reminders when I came home.

Much of what happened after wards is a bit of a blur.
We arranged the funeral, the Mass, the wake and it was ok.  I remember breaking down completely in the Church as they carried the small white coffin out to the hearse.  I remember that P (the older sister) had made a beautiful white satin blanket edged with lace to sit on top of the coffin.  I went to the Cemetery a few days later and retrieved the blanket, all  that satin and lace, stitched by hand with so much love, I couldn't let it go to waste.

All I had were two certificates, birth and death cards and a pink kitten given by my sister.  All I had to show that Leanne had ever been there.

Some days later I received a brown paper parcel addressed to me containing all Leanne's clothes, all that she was wearing at the time.  The nappy had been washed and dried but everything else was as it was, even to the small trickle of blood on the side of her bonnet where the ambulance man had given her the kiss of life.

I put it away under my bed.

Some months later I took out the parcel, took it into the bathroom, unwrapped the clothes and washed them.  Every one.    I cried as I washed.  How I cried.  Loud, long, sobbingly.  It all came out, the pain, the grief, the emptiness.

And that was it - when I came downstairs Joan said that she had been waiting, held me and told me I should have done it long before.

How could I? 

I had two little girls - 3 and 7 years old to look after, my mother, my sister and her two children at the weekends, Joan, and ON.  
There was no time for weeping, gnashing of teeth, woe is me and all that.  I had to stay strong to be there for the others.  
And I was.
Strong

Joan left eventually to move to foreign climes, my sister found a place of her own and life continued apace.

Well, not really.  There was that Friday afternoon a year or so later............... 
I was 200 yards from home and started to bleed............
I managed to settle the girls and took myself to lay down on the bed. 
So much plain and blood. 
Agony and mess.
Eventually I got control and went downstairs and carried on.

I went to the Doctor's some time afterwards and mentioned it to him whilst we were talking, he asked for all the gory details and became very angry with me.  
I had lost another baby.
I could've lost my life - did that matter?
I needed to take things easy - huh!
Be careful - oh! yeah! 

I do not deal very well with these few months.  I eventually went for Counselling five years ago.  I am much better now.  

But there is still pain.