Agony of losing newborn baby
A Kiwi mum whose son was stillborn tells Sarah Murray about the pain and confusion after the birth and the ongoing grief. ‘The worst part is some people just swept it all under the carpet.’
There is a room in Amanda McConchie’s Shanghai apartment with a bassinet. Inside it’s filled with baby clothes, books and other items she had carefully picked out for her unborn baby during her pregnancy. But there is no baby because, at 20 weeks pregnant, McConchie was rushed to hospital and told the devastating news.
‘‘The hospital staff said ‘he’s not going to survive so we need to get you prepped for delivery’,’’ says McConchie.
On April 27 baby Henry was born – a stillborn. The Kiwi publicist had somehow contracted bacterial vaginitis which had caused the amniotic sac to rupture and, in turn, exposed her baby to the infection. McConchie, 31, and husband Andrew became one of the 700-900 Kiwi families who lose a child every year through stillbirth, foetal abnormality or sudden infant death.
When I meet Shanghai-based McConchie at a central
Auckland cafe she’s wearing dark sunglasses that can’t hide the tears that come when she talks of her son. She also wears a gold pendant around her neck with an ‘‘H’’ and her son’s birthday engraved on it which she pulls at when explaining how the days after losing Henry were filled with grief, guilt and shock.
‘‘Afterwards, I was numb,’’ she says. ‘‘We were really confused and didn’t know what to do. We thought – do we name him? We didn’t know we were having a boy but Henry had been at the top of our list. We decided it was important to give him is own identity.’’
What made an already harrowing experience worse was the poor communication with the hospital staff in Shanghai. There was no real support for how to navigate this heartbreaking situation.
‘‘When he died he was taken away really quickly. We were just so shocked and scared. We didn’t get to see him or cuddle him or anything,’’ she says.
‘‘We were told we would have him in the morning to cuddle and then they would take him to the crematorium. But when we talked to them later that night to confirm the plan they said he was already on his way to the crematorium. We said ‘no, no, no please bring him back’. So they brought him back,’’ she says.
‘‘When we saw him again he had been in the morgue. He was frozen. We sat and spoke to him. We called him our little man. And we apologised. We said we would always love him. Then we broke down and cried and cried and cried. It was then I went into grief mode.’’
When McConchie and her husband, Andrew, got home from the hospital they were too traumatised to go to bed. So they put his ashes on the side table along with a framed photo of his footprints (which they had asked the hospital to make) and sat on the couch. They talked. They cried. They held each other.
Still reeling, that week McConchie booked herself in to see a psychologist because she was struggling to deal with what had happened and couldn’t stop wondering what she could have done differently. She credits her twice weekly visits for helping her to let go of the guilt and realise what happened was out of her control.
The days and weeks following Henry’s heartbreaking birth were mostly met with amazing support from her friends and family – both sets of parents flew to Shanghai to be with them.
But McConchie admits some couldn’t understand, others just don’t know what to say.
‘‘The worst part is some people just swept it all under the carpet. They think because he wasn’t alive – it was like he wasn’t a real baby,’’ she says. ‘‘I feel like people try to understand but we still have a long way to go to actually talk openly about it.’’
For McConchie’s husband, general manager of a Kiwi company in China, there was little time to come to terms with the loss.
‘‘Andrew phoned his work and told them what had happened but he was still receiving work calls the next day. That’s when it’s tough for breadwinners in the family. He worked off and on and was back working fulltime a few days after I got back from the hospital.’’
Recently, a new members’ bill, The Holidays Act (Bereavement Leave for Miscarriage) Amendment Bill passed its first reading in Parliament. This aims to give parents, like McConchie and her husband, whose pregnancies don’t result in a baby, three days’ bereavement leave. As someone who is self-employed she was able to take two weeks off after having Henry but is aware that’s not the case for everyone so thinks the bill would be extremely beneficial.
It’s clear McConchie’s experience is incredibly raw and she admits she sometimes finds everyday conversations difficult.
‘‘Someone asked me a while ago if I had kids. I said ‘I have one but he died’ and then all the questions came,’’ she says. ‘‘I couldn’t handle it. And the person asking freaked out. I don’t want to freak people out.’’
While she’s not ready to move Henry’s things from his room, the experience has altered her and Andrew’s outlook on life.
‘‘Losing a baby has put everything in perspective. We live differently now. We try to appreciate the small things and we try to surround ourselves with people we love.’’
AMANDA MCCONCHIE