Ebben’s Story – Baby Loss and Still Birth
Hello all, If you’re looking for information on the ‘Stars for Ebben’ fundraiser, or how to purchase one of our ‘Forever Loved’ pin badges please click here. But first, I’d love for you to take minute to read all about our beautiful son Ebben and the reason we have started raising money in his honour.
Most people now know 1 in 4 pregnancies end in baby loss, this figure includes all losses from the start of pregnancy. But did you know in the UK 1 in every 225 pregnancy ends in a still birth? Thats on average 9 babies every day. A still birth is deemed as a baby who is born sleeping after 24 weeks gestation. It’s a surprisingly high figure, and around 60% of those parents will never be given a reason as to why their baby died. Just like miscarriage this is another subject that isn’t spoken about enough. So by talking about our experience and being open about my emotions during this time I am hoping to raise awareness and hopefully break the taboo on still birth, just like I aimed to with my miscarriage posts.
The Day Our Lives Changed Forever
On the 24th June at 4:34pm, at 41 weeks and 2 days pregnant I gave birth to the most perfect little dude, our 8lbs 6oz Ebben Arthur. But this isn’t the happy birth story some of you might be expecting. That day was the most painful and heartbreaking day of both mine and Jon’s life. It was the day our entire life came to a stop, and our entire existence changed. Our life was suddenly split in 2, the time before Ebben and the time after Ebben. The us from before Ebben no longer exist, we are completely new people now. Now we will forever be bereaved parents, living our lives with a major chunk of our hearts and family missing, and there is nothing we can do about it. Our little Ebben was born but sadly his heart had already stopped during labour and he was born sleeping. It’s taken me quite a few weeks to really start to process everything that happened that day and to build up enough strength to write this. Some of you may already have been following along with our journey via our social media but I have yet to tell everyone the full story of Ebben’s birth so here it is.
My First Labour
Actually before I tell you Ebben’s birth story I should really give you a little background information about his big brother Elian and his rather eventful entrance into the world in 2016. I won’t go into huge detail, or you’ll be here for hours reading this post, but I will give you all an over view of Elian’s labour and explain the important bits you need to know.
On the 17th June 2016 at 11:20pm I started having quite strong contractions, I was 40 weeks and 4 days pregnant so we were all ready for the arrival of our first child. The plan was a home water birth, we had our pool and the community midwives knew the plan. I’d been practicing hypno-birthing and we figured we were prepared!
My contraction started getting closer together and the pain was already very intense so at around 2am a midwife came out to check me and found I was only 1cm…worse news ever, especially for a first time mum who has no idea what to expect of labour! She told me to try and get some sleep, luckily I did manage to drift off for an hour or so and at 6am 2 new midwives arrived to see how we were progressing. Another check and she said I was around 4cm, but she informed us that Elian was back to back and that was why the pain was so intense and pretty much all in my bum and back. So she told Jon to fill the pool and went to get the gas and air.
Getting in the warm pool was a huge help to me and allowed me to finally get a little rest between the intense contractions. The gas and air helped a fair amount too, so much so I don’t actually remember a large majority of that entire day! Over the course of the next 12ish hours I moved in and out of the pool, having constant doppler checks on Elian’s heart and checking me to see if I was progressing. It was incredibly slow going and incredibly painful. The contractions were incredibly intense and I was unable to stop my body pushing down against the surges.
At 7cm the midwife makes the decision to break my waters as my labour was going so slow. When labouring at home this gives you 2 hours to progress due to the heightened risk of infection. So those 2 hours pass with no luck, and my cervix had now swollen quite badly. Elian’s heart rate was still fine but the midwife makes the decision to send me in to Singleton hospital as I just wasn’t progressing. Que the ambulance and all our neighbours now panicking!
Once in the hospital they hooked me up to some pain medication and a drug to try help me dilate more. My contractions are almost on top of each other by this point and the pain meds do little to help. Over the next hour or so I made it to 9cm but when a consultant comes to check on me she decides my cervix is so swollen I wouldn’t make it to 10cm. First she tries to manually retract my cervix while asking me to push, aiming to get Elian to move down into the birth canal, but every push caused my cervix to push back up. So a decision was made that I needed an emergency c-section. This is the part that was most scary for me as everything just started moving so fast, and an emergency section is the outcome no mum wants. I’d never been in hospital before, let alone had surgery so I was quite scared. At no point was Elian in distress, it was simply a case of him not being able to be delivered naturally no matter what happened.
They wheeled me into theatre, Jon changed into scrubs and they administer a spinal block. The minute it took effect I started to shake uncontrollably. After some strange pulling sensations and only feeling my hips being moved side to side, at 2:17 am on the 19th June Elian was born, all 8lb 6oz of him and Jon got to cut his cord. And he was perfect, so blinking perfect. The midwife wrapped him up and placed him by my shoulder so I could see him and kiss him through my tears, before he was weighed and given to Jon to cuddle while they sorted me out. We finally had our baby and I was so relived he was here and he was safe, everything I had been through was worth it. I was so grateful for him. After having a miscarriage before Elian it made me so thankful to finally have our little boy. At that point I promptly threw up, all over my hair and the anaesthetist. 
After stitching me up, we were wheeled down to a recovery room with our perfect little dude cuddled into my chest getting some much needed skin to skin. Thats when we were told I had haemorrhaged after Elian was delivered and lost over 2.4 litres of blood (a normal c-section usually loses a max of 1 litre) so I needed a blood transfusion. The vomiting was due to my body going into shock. I felt horrific and looked it but I honestly didn’t care at that point as I really was just so happy.
For the rest of that day I was looked after by the lovely Ainsley. Ainsley was so kind and sweet, helping me to try and latch Elian on for his first feed, which sadly didn’t work as Elian was simply so tired from the long and difficult labour he had endured, just as I had. So eventually she helped me to express a little colostrum into a syringe so I could at least hand feed him that to start with. A few hours later he did at last latch on and the start of our 2 year breastfeeding journey began, with Ainsley holding my boob! lol!
I only stayed in hospital for the 1 night as I really didn’t want to be there and apart for the very bad iron levels and the usual scar healing my post surgery recovery was fairly uneventful.
So now you understand my past labour experience it might help explain some of the decisions that were made in the lead up to Ebben’s delivery.
This Is Ebben’s Story
Ok guys, take a deep breath and make sure you’ve got the tissues ready. I’d like to formally introduce you all to our second born son, our perfect little angel and the inspiration behind the #StarsForEbben fundraising effort. This is Ebben Arthur our 8lbs 6oz little boy and this is how he changed our lives forever.
At the start of my pregnancy I had automatically been put under consultant led care due to my previous c-section, this is standard practice here. My early pregnancy was pretty uneventful and apart from the usual tiredness and nausea I had no issues. At around 23 weeks I saw a consultant and was asked what my preferred method of delivery was and we said we wanted a natural home birth if possible as I wasn’t keen on another c-section, especially as I now had a toddler to look after too. She explained the risks of a possible scar rupture (which are fairly low) and after reading my notes the consultants decided that the issues we had had with Elian’s labour was most likely all positional. This means everything happened because he simply got into an awkward position and this is something that can happen to any one, but the chance of it happening again was unlikely or at least the same chance there had been of it happening in the first place, pretty low. With that info and my good general health she was happy to sign me over to the community midwifes to look after and would simply see me at 40 weeks should I get that far, then we would have to consider a c-section as the further over you go the higher the risk of you rupturing your pervious scar.
So the rest of my pregnancy went fairly smoothly. I had my regular appointments with my community midwife Jackie (who has been amazing supporting us since Ebben’s arrival, always there for both medical and emotional needs) Apart from crappy iron levels I didn’t have any issues and all my scans and tests came back fine.
I saw 2 consultant midwives during the rest of my pregnancy and still they all agreed that I was young, fit and healthy so was a perfect candidate for a home VBAC. So we put all the plans in place, the pool was delivered and we were ready to go…again. But this little dude was determined to be even later than his brother and held out for a while. I had 3 sweeps in the week leading up to my labour and during the final one the midwife said Ebben was still lying on his side behind my right hip (where he had been all pregnancy) so she told me to spend time lying on my left side to try and encourage him to move into a better birth position.
On the 24th June at 1am Jon was putting Elian back to bed after he had woken up and I was just getting ready to get into bed myself, when I felt the unmistakable wave of a contraction. I was 41weeks 2 days pregnant and we were booked in for a scheduled c-section 3 days later if I hadn’t gone into labour natural by that point. At the time I was so relieved and excited as I hadn’t wanted the c-section if we could help it.
I spent the next 2 hours pacing the bedroom and timing contractions which were progressing in intensity and speed rapidly. At 3am they were almost 4 minutes apart and becoming very strong so I woke Jon (asleep on the chair in Elian’s room) to tell him I was in labour and we phoned my parents to collect Elian and Opie. I phoned the midwife led unit in Neath to notify them so they could send a midwife out, while Jon started inflating the pool. On the phone the midwife asked if I’d be really upset if I had to go down to the birth centre instead as they were short staffed on community midwifes. At that point in time I was in so much pain I didn’t care as long as they had a pool I could use which they did, so we grabbed the bags and got in the car. I physically couldn’t sit down properly due to the pain in my bum, and I knew that Ebben was back to back again.
At the hospital a midwife got us settled in a room and checked on me, only 2cm! Again not what I wanted to hear considering how intense and frequent my contractions were. And so the next few hours continued in a blur. At around 7am we were introduced to our new midwife, Julie! The wonderful lady who would be by our side throughout, and who would become such a huge part of our story. When she next checked on me I was just about 4-5 cm, but my cervix was a little swollen, so she called another midwife in (I can only assume she was a more senior midwife) who said it was a little swollen but to allow me gas and air and to get in the bath as that should help. So thats what we did, and as with Elian’s labour the water really did help.
The next few hours continued as expected, the contractions were intense in my bum and coming thick and fast. I was relying heavily on the gas and air to get through them. Julie continued to check Ebben’s heart rate which was nice and strong throughout, and check me at regular intervals. Julie and Jon chatted and joked to try and keep my spirits up, and they both held my hand at different points to help me get through the stronger contractions.
I eventually made it to 10cm dilated around midday and Julie could feel Ebben’s head, she told us he had lots of hair! At this point my contractions were almost continuous, one on top of the other, but I was riding them out a little better so we thought we would be meeting our little boy very soon.
When Ebben still wouldn’t drop down properly Julie and the other midwife got my out of the pool and onto a bean bag so they could get a better look at what was happening. Ebben’s heart rate was checked again at that point and he was still all good. They thought I might be better on the bed to deliver him as I could get into a better position to encourage him to move. Moving quickly between 2 contractions Jon helped me onto the bed.
I was in agony at this point but thought we were at the end and he would be here in no time as I had made the 10cm goal. But this is where it all started to go wrong. Once on the bed Julie went to check Ebben’s heart rate again and couldn’t find it. So the other midwife tried and still nothing, so more midwifes were called in and this is when I started to panic. Jon was holding my hand trying to keep me calm and the midwives kept reassuring me that Ebben might just have moved and now it was harder to find his heart.
I hadn’t even noticed that 2 other midwives had rolled in a baby resus cart, but Jon had. I now had 3 midwives, including Julie trying to get Ebben out. They sat me on a special stool and asked me to push as hard as I could during the next few contractions, which I did, but he simply wouldn’t budge. In my heart I was still praying he was ok, I was thinking we were in the same situation as I had been with Elian and we would be transferred for a c-section and have our little boy.
The ambulance arrived and took me and 2 midwives to singleton hospital. Jon wasn’t able to come in the ambulance so had to drive, but Julie was still with me. I don’t remember the ambulance really it is all a bit blur of pain and gas and air.
When we arrived I was taken straight to a birth suite and a whole team of dr’s and midwives arrived, it was a total flashback to Elian’s labour, as I was hooked up to monitors and drips were placed in my hand and arm. I gripped onto Julies hand so hard at this time, I was worried about Jon, and desperate for him to get to the hospital and worried about Ebben. As soon as he did Julie passed him my hand and he was sat next to me. I was in such a panic I just kept asking if the baby was ok. The pain meds did little to touch the pain, but my worry for Ebben overrode most of it.
The consultant, Dr Flynn got set up to scan my tummy with an ultrasound, and another important midwife in our story arrived, she was called Enfys. She held my hand and explained what Dr Flynn was going to do, that he was checking on the baby, and they would tell us as soon as they knew anything, that baby could just have moved back but the ultrasound would tell us for sure. She was so caring in a motherly way, stroking the hair off my face and talking to me gently to try and calm me. But within seconds of the ultrasound wand being on my stomach I knew that something was wrong, we couldn’t hear any heart beat no matter where Dr Flynn moved it. I was still holding Enfys’s hand and Julie was standing next to Jon supporting him. When Dr Flynn came round to the other side of the bed to talk to us, we both knew. He said that there was no sign of a heart beat and sadly our baby had died, and in that moment our entire world came crumbling down. We clung to each other in floods of tears and all I could say was ‘why?’. The midwives cried with us and for us in that moment, this is the hard and unfair bit of their job.
I honestly can’t explain to you the pain we both felt in that moment as I don’t think there are any words out there quite right for something so horrific. I’m sure Jon’s account of all this would be very different to mine as he literally lived through ever moment of it, saw everything happening, whereas I was often too numbed by physical pain or by the gas and air. But honestly even all the drugs and physical pain couldn’t mask or compare to the gut wrenching emotional pain we both felt in that moment. My heart was broken in two in those few seconds and I’m still not sure it will ever mend itself.
Dr Flynn then explained that they would take me down to theatre and administer a spinal block, perform an episiotomy and with the help of a forceps I would give birth to Ebben. I pretty much shut down at that point, my focus was that I simply wanted my baby in my arms.
Through all this Julie hadn’t left us, and when they went to wheel me down to theatre I begged for her to be with me. Her simply being there helped ground me just a little in a situation that felt so completely out of my control. Again when Jon was changing into scrubs and when he had to sit further back while they prepped me for surgery she was right there holding my hand.
I was still in awful pain but honestly it barely registered until I needed to sit up for the spinal block and I couldn’t sit due to the contractions still being in my bum. One of the midwives allowed me to cling on to her, both arms around her neck in a tight embrace just so I could keep still sitting up long enough for the spinal block to be administered. Once it took effect I was so much calmer, but still a little distant from the whole situation. I became very quiet and internal in those last few minutes, I think I was honestly in shock, I couldn’t believe what was happening and I didn’t want to believe it. There was still this tiny part of me praying that they were wrong.
Now it’s not just midwives who we will remember forever from Ebben’s story, we also had a wonderfully dark humoured anaesthetist called Dr Alex. After gauging Jon and my own sense of humour with an inappropriate introduction (even at a time like this!) she cracked a few lighthearted jokes, and a few darker ones (as did Jon) and helped to relax us a little and lighten the mood (as much as you can in this situation).
Once Dr Flynn was ready to deliver Ebben he asked me to push when he said. Pushing when you cant feel any sensation at all is very odd indeed. Now I’m not 100% sure which midwives I had holding my hands and encouraging me to push at this point but I think I had Enfys one side and Helen the other, (Helen is another important person in this story). If they weren’t the ones actually holding me up I know they were both in the room at least. With 2 big pushes and the help of Dr Flynn and the forceps Ebben was born silently into the world. Which ever midwife was on my right hand side asked if I wanted to see him, have him place on my chest or not. I honestly didn’t even consider not holding him straight away, he was my baby boy and my arms ached to feel him after all the time I spent carrying him. He was placed straight into my arms, and he was perfect. So so perfect. That moment was both so beautiful and so heartbreaking, We finally got to meet our little boy who we had been waiting so long for, dreaming about seeing, wondering what he would look like and making plans for his future as part of our family. This just wasn’t how we were expecting this to go, this wasn’t how it was meant to be. This should have been the most joyous day of our lives and it wasn’t, it was the most painful we could ever have imagined. But he had a dark mop of hair, even more than his brother had, a little button nose and these beautiful full lips. Bang on 8lbs 6oz like his bro, but so long! 57cm in fact, which is crazy long (Elian was 54.5cm and the average in the UK is 45-50cm).
I just held him, and stroked his face, and said how beautiful he was and how much he looked like his big brother. And we cried, we cried a lot. But the midwives were all amazing, so gentle with us, talking to us and him, helping clean him and get him into a cute baby grow. They cried with us and said how beautiful he was too. Julie stayed until we were moved to the surgical recovery room, she had been right next to me the entire time, she took photos of Jon holding Ebben in the theatre whilst Dr Flynn was sorting me out, she cried and hugged us goodbye and said how sorry she was that it had ended like this. I know she felt guilty, just like I did (and still do) but it was never her fault, there is nothing she could have done to change it, no way to know what was going to happen. We have never blamed her or anyone else for even one second. No one could change this, Ebben was simply there one minute and gone the next.
During the day times we were looked after by Enfys and Helen but that evening we were introduced to the last important midwife in our story, and probably the most important one for us. Rebecca! Although Rebecca wasn’t involved in Ebben’s delivery she was with us and Ebben for both our evenings in the hospital and she probably held Ebben and spent the most time with him than anyone, aside from us. Medically she looked after me, emotionally she looked after both of us, and she took such great care of Ebben. Rebecca treated Ebben with such love and respect, wrapping him up in a blanket, tucking him into his cuddle cot with his teddy and talking to him just like you would any normal newborn. She spoke to him each morning, told him he was beautiful and was just so unbelievably lovely and compassionate. Her smile, positive attitude and caring nature helped make a truly awful situation that little bit more bearable. She gently washed his hair so we could have some hair cuttings to keep in his memory box. She took his hand and foot prints, and even made imprint moulds in a special frame for us to keep. She kept our spirits up over those 2 days and helped us to make beautiful memories with our boy that will last us a life time. She took photos of the 3 of us together, she knew how important those photos would be for us to look back on. Saying goodbye to her was hard, but she gave us all big hugs (whilst trying not to cry!) and it really wasn’t a goodbye as she has continued to support us since, talking to me online and commenting on my posts.
Ebben’s ‘godmothers’ Heather, Lindsey and Vikki all came to met him, as did his Bampa Paul (Jon’s Dad) and Aunty Briony (my sister) and our good friend Justin. He was held and loved by all of them. It was important to us that we were able to share him with others. To show off our perfect little baby just like any other newborn parents. We wanted to have others be able to share a part of our story with Ebben, to share in his short time on earth with us, so we would always have others who got to meet him and now he existed.
So after 2 days in hospital savouring as much of our little man as we could, taking photos and making memories that would need to last us a lifetime, it came time for us to finally leave and honestly that was the hardest part of all. We couldn’t bare the idea of leaving our little boy behind but we knew we had to, but if we had to then we were going to leave him in the arms of someone we had already met and who was there when he was born. Luckily the lovely Helen was working that day and she was happy to be the one to look after Ebben when we left. So on Wednesday we got ourselves ready, spent the morning soaking up the last of our hugs, we wrapped him up, showered him in kisses, told him how much we loved him, shed a million tears and said goodbye to our little boy for the very last time. Jon passed his tiny little body over to Helen and she cradled him so gentle, cwtching him up, hugging us goodbye and shed a few tears with us and we left. We knew he was safe and being loved by Helen and the other midwives, and she said they would cuddle him for a while before anything happened to him. In the corridor outside I could barely move, me and Jon held onto each other and cried as we slowly walked down the corridor, hearing other babies and seeing other happy parents was so hard. Luckily Ainsley the midwife from Elian’s birth had been told we were there and leaving so came to find us and help support us until we managed to leave. She came up and gave me the biggest hug, while I just sobbed into her shoulders. She wrapped me up in her arm and walked us to our car to make sure we got out of the hospital ok. And then we left.
The Unanswered question…Why?
It is unlikely we will ever know the exact reason Ebben’s heart stopped so suddenly. After talking to our consultant, Dr Flynn, we made the decision not to have a postmortem done as he was pretty sure they wouldn’t be able to give us any answers either. And we didn’t want Ebben’s body going through anything unnecessary. The best guess as far as the medical staff can tell is simply that Ebben got stuck due to turning back to back, my cervix swelling and him having his head facing upwards rather than tucking his chin down. This meant he was unable to drop down into the birthing canal correctly. Then because my contractions were so strong and unrelenting his little heart simply couldn’t recover between them and it stopped. There was no warning, his heart never went into distress, he was simply there one minute and gone the next. There were no problems with the placenta, the umbilical cord or my previous c-section scar as that was all checked, so this seems like the most obvious answer.
What Dr Flynn has said since is that there is a chance I have a tilted pelvis, or something to do with the structure of my pelvis which caused both our boys to turn in such an awkward way, and lead to both our babies getting stuck. We are hoping that this is something I can have looked at in the future.
Going forward…
What this means for us going forward … well we fully intend to try for a rainbow baby at some point in the future, when we are both physically, mentally and emotionally ready. We know we don’t want Ebben’s passing to stop us growing our family and from giving Elian a sibling here on earth he can have a relationship with. But it is pretty clear my body cannot give birth naturaly. Yes we wish we had known that before we had Ebben, but as babies can get into awkward positions for all manner of reasons (or simply because they feel like it) neither us nor the medical staff we saw before Ebben’s labour ever thought there might be an underlying issue. We only know now because it has happened to us twice. The boys labours were so similar and that would be highly unlikely if there wasn’t some sort of physical/medical reason for it.
So the plan with any future pregnancy will be an early scheduled c-section to avoid the chance of me going into labour naturally and to bring our little one into the world in the safest way for all of us. Yes, we will still have the worries about me haemorrhaging like I did during Elian’s delivery, but the surgical team will be prepared this time and every precaution will be taken to keep us both safe. And although the issues we have don’t relate to me actually carrying a baby to full term, we know my body is capable of that, I didn’t have any pregnancy issues, just labour issues, but they will be keeping a much closer eye on me. I will have extra checks and monitoring throughout, partly to help relieve some the anxiety and worry we will no doubt have throughout our next pregnancy.
The support we have received since has been truly amazing. Between Jackie my community midwife, Rebecca from the hospital and Christie-Ann my bereavement midwife we have been surrounded by amazing women all willing to do anything needed to help get us through this difficult time. Of course there has also been all our friends and family, the amazing blogging community and our instagram followers, our photography colleagues and clients, and all the parents from Elian’s school, we have been surrounded by such amazing people.
We know we still have a hard journey ahead of us, Ebben will forever be in our hearts and we will never stop grieving for him, but with the support and help of others we will learn to handle the pain of our grief better and be able to move forward with our life. And hopefully we will be able to also help raise awareness of still birth and baby loss whilst raising funds for other bereaved parents in Singleton Hospital.