What if…

Liam, just then for the hundredth time today I played the ‘what if’ game. I am starting to believe I will engage in this game until my final day. I don’t want to partake in it and I don’t intend to but I find the more days that accumulate after your death, the more opportunities there are to miss you and wonder ‘what if’. I will be with Caden at the Lego table and stop and stare at the empty space on the floor beside us. I start to think about how you should be in your bouncer, in that space, sleeping or watching your brother, in awe of all he can achieve at two years old. It is when I think of you and miss you Liam, I begin the game and I miss you all the time. I start thinking of you and then I start thinking about your birth and then your death and while I think of all these things I add a, ‘what if’ before them. Although Liam, I hate to use the word game or play as it is not amusing or fun, it is my very cruel reality that I partake in. Every day I wake up and I partake in ‘what if’ several times before brushing my teeth. Every morning I stop throughout our activities, or sometimes now even during them, and I think ‘what if’. When we have our lunch and I only have two mouths to feed I think ‘what if’. Throughout the afternoon as we anticipate the arrival of your Daddy home from work I am often presented with a short or long game of ‘what if’, depending on how tired I am. Then all throughout the night after Caden has gone to sleep and my thoughts and I are one again…the “game” continues. With the ‘what ifs’ comes tears, lots of tears and the tears are coupled with self-blame, breathlessness and a wish stronger than anything I have ever wished for…that I could turn back the clock to the January 2019 and do it all over again. ‘What if we could…would you be here now?’

So Liam, what if I had known more about this insidious condition and, more to the point, that I suffered from it and pushed for a stitch at twenty-two weeks and not waited for a follow up scan in a fortnight, would it have saved you? What if the stitch gave you several more weeks inside of me to grow stronger and bigger? What if the stitch caused an infection or struck my membranes and thrust your small body into the world even sooner than twenty four weeks and only given us minutes with you, rather than a week and a fighting chance? What if none of these happened but even with the stitch you still made your arrival at twenty four weeks?

Then every day Liam, I think what if there had been an earlier appointment for my twenty week scan? I forgot to make your appointment as I left the thirteen week scan and when I rang a few weeks later the best appointment they could give me was at twenty-two weeks. Your brother and you had the exact same due date two years apart, his appointment was on the 3^rd January, yours was the 7^th, what if those four days could have made a difference? The four days would have meant that at our follow up appointment we still would have been less than twenty four weeks, would we have been offered the stitch then, knowing then that it definitely was IC? However, what if we did get an appointment at twenty or twenty-one weeks, would my cervix length have still been normal then? It shortened so quickly and so dramatically. If I did get a scan at twenty or twenty-one weeks could I have been sent home and told all was 100% because it hadn’t yet begun to shorten? Then what if I had given birth before twenty four week Liam, with no viability, because nothing had been picked up on the scans and no medication given to calm the uterus?

Liam, I have relived the eighteen hours leading up to your birth countless times. Sometimes I slow it down and look at every minute and every decision, replaying particular sections of the day over and over again in my head. I replay the conversations I had over the phone with medical staff. I hate myself for being a person that didn’t want to overreact or inconvenience and I hate myself for what I decided to do because now I have the luxury of hindsight and know the outcome. I now know that at the end of every pregnancy there is no guarantee that you bring your baby home. I now know why society says they are ‘expecting’ a baby. What if I had gone to the hospital a few hours earlier that day? I rang for medical advice, I thought that was enough. I was assured there was no need to but ‘what if’ I ignored the midwife and doctors and went to hospital anyway? What if the hospital staff had been able to stop the labour if I had arrived a few hours earlier and I was there when it began? What if they have been able to prevent the infection that struck us both or was going to the hospital what caused it? What if they had been able to give us a couple more weeks as one and you a stronger chance?  

That week leading up to your birth Liam, your Daddy and I were given every best case scenario and worst case scenario that there was for every event that occurred in the week. We got lucky with two of them: you were born after twenty-four weeks and you survived the delivery. Liam, every single other test, scenario or situation we hit the absolute worst case scenario, we couldn’t catch a break. If you were not in such an awkward position inside of me would I have been able to deliver you vaginally and given you a better chance at living? If you were in a better position would you have just fallen out before we made it to the hospital and not even given the opportunity to receive the best neonatal care the hospital has to offer? What if the two Panadol had worked that night and allowed me to fall asleep, would you have died inside of me trying to enter the world while twisting out of your sideways position? What if both of our lives have been in your Daddy’s hands to protect by urging the ambulance to our house faster? 

Liam, I have events coming up in life that will require me to enter a hospital again and I am unsure if I can do it. When I think back to our time in hospital I unlock another level of the ‘game’. What if the NICU doctor had never come to me that morning to tell us your blood pressure was not stabilising? That morning, that conversation…etched into my memory forever. What if you had beaten all the other odds in the future weeks and come home with us after months growing in the NICU, our 24 week battler? What if the medication they gave you could have stabilised your blood pressure and you could just have gone back to being the smallest on the ward and not the sickest?

Liam, I ask daily what if my body could have kept you on the inside for just a few more weeks? The more I learn about incompetent cervix pregnancies and births the more I learn that just a few more weeks could have made a lifetime of difference. I am so jealous of the other parents who tell their stories of their micro preemie who is a happy and healthy two year old now. I am so jealous of the other parents’ stories who had the foresight to think they suffered from IC and went and got the stitch before it was too late and went to full term before they delivered. Why couldn’t that be us?  What if I was the mum in the photo talking about my miracle prem boy while bouncing two boys on my knee and not just one? I hate myself for letting the jealously rise up. I don’t wish this pain or situation on anyone. My wish is for all parents to bring every single baby home. I hate that grief turns you into some sort of monster that you don’t recognise in your reflection. Grief turns you into the worst version of yourself, it makes you weak and it breaks you down and takes you to a place that is full of hatred, jealously and despair.

What if Liam, we could have been the lucky ones? The lucky parents who get to raise all of their children, while constantly complaining about the burden and enormity of the task. What if I could get up now from my computer now Liam, go in and wake your brother from his nap and then feed you after yours? What if I was lucky enough to dress your brother in the mornings each day and then pick out a matching outfit for you? Liam, what if I got to dress my two boys this Christmas for our traditional Santa photo and then send out the pictures to family and friends? Would they comment how cute you both are and send me a message to say how lucky I am to have two such handsome boys. Simple everyday things that so many take for granted. What if I got to do the simple things with you instead of just dreaming about doing them gorgeous boy? 

Liam, ‘what if’ we got forever with you, not just a week?

Love Mummy