Anyone out there who has recently lost a baby?

[leske]

 

Hi,

We recently lost our little baby girl, 7 months into the pregnancy. I am Norwegian and my partner is English. Most of the information like Englesiden and support groups are of course in Norwegian. Are there any other English-speaking fathers out there, either on the web or in the Oslo area, who have gone through a similar experience and would like to share?

[shari_z]

Hi,

 

I am so sorry for your loss! I know how badly it hurts to lose a baby as I, too, lost a baby girl in week 30. I lost my baby 9.5 years ago, so it is not recent, but at times it feels like it happened yesterday.

 

I am American, my husband is Norwegian. At the time I lost our baby, I did not speak Norwegian (don't know if this is the case with your partner??) and found it difficult to find help in English. Actually, I never did, not really. There are support groups, but none in English that I know of. I did get to speak with the priest at the hospital and a sosionom, and those conversations were in English. And I met a woman on BiM who had lost a baby and read my story (which I had written in English on the "Vi mistet den lille babyen vår" category) and responded to me in English. We have now been close friends for 9 years. She and her husband were of big help to us.

 

I can also recommend a book that was recommended to me by midwife Rachel Myr (who was the year made Årets jordmor 2008) in Kristiansand. The book is "How to Go On Living After the Death of a Baby" by Larry G. Peppers, Ph.D. and Ronald J. Knapp, Ph.D. The ISBN is 0-931948-69-X. Rachel let me borrow her copy until I could get one of my own, which I ordered from amazon.com. It is an excellent book, but one reason I liked it so much was because it explains how my husband grieved differently than I, which made it easier for me to understand him. I highly, highly recommend this book!

 

And because I couldn't speak or understand Norwegian, our priest found a website for me in English (www.honoredbabies.org) that has support groups. Unfortunately, due to inactivity, the father's support list has been discontinued. I guess the site is otherwise similar to Englesiden, but I have never been active on Englesiden since my grief was in English.

 

If your husband has a need to talk with someone, check with the hospital where you gave birth to your daughter and explain that he needs help in English (if that is the case), through a sosionom, midwife or priest or whatever. If he understands Norwegian, but doesn't feel comfortable speaking it, maybe you could attend a support group together (I know Ullevål has such groups, but don't know how to get in to them) and he could listen to others and perhaps say what is on his heart in English. I often spoke English and Norwegians answered me in Norwegian, and we understood each other, although it sounded odd.

 

Again, I am so very sorry for your loss. Although 9.5 years have passed since I lost our little girl, I don't think a single day goes by that I don't think of her.

 

A big hug to you!

 

Klem

Shari, always mamma to Kayla Colleen, stillborn 19 April 2000

 

p.s. You can pm me if you would like to speak more off-list.

[leske]

Hi Shari,

 

This is Tim, Lena's partner. have tried to PM but it says your mailbox is full.

 

It's all happened so quickly but Lena summed it up really well. We are still in shock and arranging Emma's funeral is not how we had planned to introduce her to this world. I can honestly say that I can't fault the help and assistance we got in Rikshospital, and our midwife deserves a medal. Several.

 

But now we are out there. Lena is finding her way and talking to people who can help and empathise and talk. My Norwegian is almost non-existant (good enough to communicate with our 15 month old) and the socionom put it well in her "good enough" English when she said that she could get the message across, but that she would not be able to put colour into the meassage - or read the colour. That is the case with many professionals I've met here.

 

So, I can talk to people back in UK, but an English speaking support group would be a Godsend and I guess we were hoping there might be one - or enough need to see if something were possible.

 

Thanks for your thoughts and your words - you know what it is like and we appreciate it so much.

 

Tim

 

[shari_z]

Hi Tim and Lena,

 

I lost my baby in Kirkenes, and I can't fault the hospital/midwives/doctor either - at least not in respect to the loss. Had several issues earlier on in the pregnancy with a midwife and a doctor that were not pleasant at all. I think that the hospital did an outstanding job for us as well. I actually felt sorry for them; in Kirkenes, it doesn't happen so often that a baby is stillborn, so it was a shock for them as well.

 

My husband never really wanted to talk about losing our Kayla. I am not sure why, actually, but I know he was also heartbroken. He just grieved so differently than I. I asked him if he'd be willing to talk with you and he is, if you'd like that. Also, our friends that also lost their baby, I can ask him as well. He is Austrian but speaks English quite well.

 

I am so sorry that you haven't found any professionals that can help you in English! My heart just breaks for you that you haven't found any help here; that is really a shameful thing. I would have expected that at Riks there would be someone who you could talk with. (I was hospitalised there in pre-term labor with our first living daughter, and still didn't speak Norwegian, so everything went in English.)

 

I am so sorry that you have lost your Emma. Planning a funeral instead of a homecoming is so hard! It is so very, very hard to say goodbye... goodbye to all the hopes and dreams for Emma.

 

One advice I have is, take many, many pictures of Emma! We thought it was a bit morbid to take pictures of our baby, but did so because my family in the USA wanted to see what she looked like. Because she was born just before the Easter holiday, there were no stores open and we used up all the film we had (before digital cameras), and still it wasn't enough pictures. Now, I mean, looking back, I wish we could have had more photos of her. Our Kayla wasn't buried until almost 2 weeks after she was born, which was 2.5 weeks after she died, and although she didn't look so nice anymore, she was still my beautiful baby, the one I wanted so desperately to keep. We took photos all the way up until she was buried.

 

Another thing I regret is that we didn't carry her casket ourselves. We let the caretaker do that, because we didn't know that we could. I wish very much that we had done that. We also didn't lower the casket then, as I couldn't bear the thought of seeing her little white coffin go into that deep hole. It is normal in Norway to lower the coffin at the end of the ceremony, but I didn't want that. I don't know what it is like in the UK, but thought I'd just tell you my experience.

 

My mailbox has space now, so if you'd like to pm me again, you can. From there you can have a regular email address, phone number or whatever. I am also happy to talk with you, but am thinking maybe you would perhaps prefer talking with my husband? And if you'd like to borrow my book on How to Go On Living After the Death of a Baby, let me know. I know I appreciated that Rachel let me borrow hers.

 

A warm hug to you both. I am so sorry you lost your Emma.

 

Shari