You learn to live with pain
Friday marks the start of Baby Loss Awareness Week. Here, mum Kimberley Rodger tells Niki Tennant how a charity helped her family to cope with tragedy
IN the minutes after Kimberley Rodger learned the baby she’d been carrying for 18 weeks was dead, her first instinct was to protect her three-year-old son.
Reeling from the loss, she appealed to the midwife to tell her how to break the news to Leo, who’d been beside himself with excitement about becoming a big brother.
It was on April 16 this year when, due to Covid restrictions, Kimberley had to attend a routine midwife appointment at Glasgow Royal Infirmary without fiance Jason McCutcheon.
Having spent much of her pregnancy in hospital with hyperemesis gravidarum – severe morning sickness which caused her to vomitt up to 60 times a day – she told the midwife she hadn’t experienced erienced the burst of energy she’dd enjoyed after the sickness easeded while she was carrying Leo.
For peace of mind,nd, her consultant suggested a scan – but he couldn’t find a heartbeat.
On taking measuremen t s , med i c s concluded the baby’s growth and development had ceased two weeks previously.
“The consultant wanted me to give birth that day,” said Kimberley, 26, from Cambuslang, near Glasgow.
“But I had to come home and see my partner and my wee boy. I asked the midwife, ‘How do you tell a three-year-old that has happened?’
“She said the best advice was to be honest. She said at that age, they’re too intuitive and smart, and they know when something’s not right.
“It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do in my life. I just came home and told him the baby had died, and we were not going to have a baby any more.”
“He said, ‘OK, mummy,’ and he just hugged me.”
A day later, Kimberley and Jason were back at the hospital, where, in their own room on the labour ward, she was induced at 9.30am and their baby was delivered at 2.25pm.
“The midwife we had was so kind and understanding,” said Kimberley.
“I got to hold her. I got to wrap her in a swaswaddle blanket my sister had made. I got to wrap her up and make suresur she was all coscosy.” Kimberley, Kimbe who is stustudying for a nur nursing de degree at the
University of the West of Scotland, added: “When we found out we had lost her, everything came crumbling down. We had planned our lives for the next three years.”
Helping them to learn to live with the pain are Baby Loss Retreat founders Julie and Bryan Morrison, and the other bereaved parents, who draw strength from support groups held in Bellshill every three weeks.
For Kimberley and her 31-yearold fiance, hearing someone say, “I get that”, is comforting in itself.
She added: “Some days are harder than others. But the build-up to Alex’s due date on September 16 was the most difficult.
“We scattered her ashes on Seamill Hydro beach.”
Raising awareness of baby loss is Kimberley’s driving force.
Next Thursday, the family will mark Wave of Light – led by charity Sands – to commemorate babies who died too soon.