After four years on Delivery Suite and following the extremely sad stillbirth of a very special baby girl called Frances I realised I needed and wanted to specialise as a Bereavement Midwife so that I could really make a difference to families when their baby(s) died..
I had started to teach Aqua natal classes in 1992 and realised you form a very different bond with moms to be when you are all standing wet and naked following a class.
Very sadly, one of the lovely moms came in to Delivery Suite when I was working with reduced movements and sadly her baby Frances had died inside of her..It was truly heartbreaking.
I came in to look after her the following day and cared for her when she gave birth and it broke my heart watching her and her lovely husband sitting with Frances and then going home alone without her. I requested to visit them at home to do the postnatal care and that is when I really learnt the full impact of what it meant to lose a baby to stillbirth for not only the parents….. but for grandparents, aunties, uncles and friends too. I also learnt about Sands and the amazing support they provide and even went to a meeting with my “friend” as she was now. The Universe works in strange ways and almost immediately a Bereavement Midwife post came up at Queen’s Hospital at Burton and there was no way that post wasn’t going to be mine.
So I left Heartlands and took on the most personally challenging and emotionally draining job of my entire career. I put my heart and soul into it …. But I got so emotionally attached to the families it nearly killed me and I’m not ashamed to say that after two and a half years of sitting with grieving parents, arranging and attending at least two baby funerals a week and running between the mortuary, cemetery and crematorium …… I had a breakdown
Following me leaving this position it was made a job share for two midwives with half their time being spent looking after happy families which I feel is a much better balance and more sustainable as it was too much sadness for one person …..but even now I remember all of those special families and babies I cared for.
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