Tiny bundle is the sunshine after rain
Helensvale couple welcome baby boy after tragic loss of son
EIGHTEEN months after Shannon Trounce built a small wooden boat for his little boy to be buried in, the hole in his heart has been filled by the most precious of gifts – a newborn baby.
The Helensvale carpenter and partner Renee Pask welcomed Conor Jax into the world a fortnight ago, his second name a touching tribute to the big brother he never got to meet.
“Conor will definitely grow up knowing who Jax was,” Renee said. “He’s part of everything we do.”
Two-year-old Jax died in March last year when he was found not breathing only hours after being put to bed with a mild fever.
He could not be revived, with his death considered an extremely rare case of Sudden Unexplained Death in Childhood after other causes could not be identified.
“This has pulled us closer together,” Renee said of the couple’s heartbreaking journey.
“After Jax we didn’t grieve in the same way and it was hard on our relationship, but I look in Shannon’s eyes now and I can see he’s got that love going again. It’s a nice feeling.”
Their baby joy also comes after a drama-filled pregnancy that further tested their emotional strength.
Having conceived after two failed rounds of IVF, the couple was left devastated at 10 weeks when a blood test revealed their unborn child had trisomy 13, a chromosomal condition associated with severe intellectual disability and physical abnormalities.
“Some babies with trisomy 13 can live for a month but the doctors told us he wasn’t going to survive outside the womb,” Renee said.
“It was just awful but when we had a scan two weeks later, they couldn’t find the abnormalities. They said ‘We’ll give it another couple of weeks’ but still nothing showed up.
“They kept on scanning and scanning and ended up saying ‘It’s a grey area – you won’t know if anything’s wrong until you see him’.
“They gave us the option to terminate but something got the better of us and we said ‘He’s going to be fine’. When Conor popped out, it was the first thing we were worried about – ‘Is he OK?’ – and he was.
“If they had been certain (he had trisomy 13), we don’t know if we would’ve kept going. I don’t think we could have brought another child into this world only to have to say goodbye again.”
Little Conor has been swamped by his family and friends and his mother is honest enough to admit the past weighs heavily on her.
“I’m a bit paranoid about who holds him and I want them to have clean hands,” Renee said.
“I wasn’t so strict with Jax but I’m continually checking his heartbeat. I’m shocking.
“We’ve even got a little monitor that sits on his nappy and picks up his heartbeat.
“If it stops, it alarms … it does help because you feel like you can put him down and go to the toilet.”
Does she think such fears will ever subside?
“I don’t think so,” Renee said.
“Look at Jax – he was nearly three and you’d think he had gone past that risky stage. I think I’ve got a lifetime of worry ahead.”
That said, there’s no doubt she’s also got a lifetime of love to give.
“We just adore him,” she said. “He’s definitely a special little baby.”
I CAN SEE HE’S GOT THAT LOVE GOING AGAIN. IT’S A NICE FEELING