The Loss of Our Son Pt 2: The Aftermath

It was so difficult to leave my baby at the hospital. We were told that we could stay in the parent accommodation over night so that we didn't have to travel home after losing Ted.

We didn't stay.

Though it was so hard to walk out of that room once we did I didn't want to stop.

After it was confirmed that he had passed away the nurses gave him a bath and changed his clothes. We were asked if we wanted to but I just didn't think I could handle it. But I stayed. At first I was really angry at the fact that they carried on talking to him like he was still alive but after a minute or two I think that was the best thing they could have done. They did take some hand and foot prints before they washed him which was pretty difficult as he was really puffy at this point from all the fluids they'd been pumping into him to keep him hydrated. We got some really good foot prints but it was hard to get all his fingers on the hand print. 

When he was born we had put a hand print on my Dad's birthday card so we had a really good one already.

We had bought some clothes of his with us to bring him home in but they wouldn't fit him anymore. They had some in the ward that did fit him though. A beautiful blue sleep suit that fit him so well. It's the only time he's ever fit into anything. Even the premature clothes that we'd been given for him had a bit of space in the legs or arms that was spare.

When they'd changed him they asked if I wanted to hold him and I automatically said yes. When they gave him to me though I asked for them to take him back. It just didn't feel like him. It felt like I was holding a doll. I didn't want to remember him feeling like that. I wanted to remember what it felt like to hold him before.

Paddy's mum and mine did choose to hold him and I didn't leave the room once. Paddy was on the phone to various people letting them all know what had happened. He told Ted's godparent's and our friends that were all in the pub back home. The entire pub had been sat for hours, just sat, not talking. They had been waiting for news all day. As soon as nick had told one person on the phone everyone in the pub knew that it was him calling. All they did was shake their head and the whole pub left. 

Our entire town pretty much stopped.

There was one of our friends that hadn't got any of the messages and rang Paddy at this moment saying he'd just heard we were in the hospital and that he was sure Ted would pull through. I wouldn't have been able to have that conversation.

All of our family left to sit in the waiting room then so that Paddy and I could spend some time with Ted on our own.

I hadn't cried since they'd given him to me before he'd gone. The minute the doctor checking his heart shook his head at me I just felt dead. This didn't break until Paddy broke. He was standing by his cot and just gently shook his shoulder, telling him to wake up. This is when he broke, telling me I had to wake him up. I collapsed into the chair behind me and we stayed there for a while. The nurse that was doing paperwork behind us left the room. Her and the other nurse that had looked after him all day went into the nurses kitchen and cried.

When we got up to leave I gave Ted a hug and found that I couldn't. I stood in the middle of the room and I just couldn't make myself move anymore.

Paddy grabbed me and left quickly, stopping only to thank the nurses, until we got to the waiting room where our family was. 

We went back to our room and packed our stuff up. I've never packed so quickly before. I just wanted to go home. We didn't stop at the reception to get our deposit back and we didn't clean the room. We just left.

Because so much of our family had turned up Paddy and I ended up travelling back home separately. I don't remember a lot of the drive. The whole car was in complete silence. 

When we got home Paddy hadn't long got there and Rosie (our dog) was very confused. She'd been left with a friend of ours for two weeks when I went in to have Ted and then we'd left again only to return without her baby (she was so protective over him in the short time he was there I swear she thought he was hers)

That night we went straight to bed.

We didn't cry.

We didn't have anything left.