February 2017
My wife (Suzi) and I had been looking forward to the arrival of our baby. All plans were in place to ensure that he or she would come into the world with the maximum of care, love and attention to detail. Anyone who is expecting his or her first child knows the arduous journey of what pram to get, which clothing is required, how many nappies you need, should you have a change table and which one you should get, sleeping cycles, how many of this do you need and how many of that and the list goes on. The lead up to your first child is exciting, a little scary and a lot of preparation. For us it was mostly exciting. In our profession as teachers Suzi and I have spent the bulk of our lives around children and we were both super excited to mold our own little ninja scholar and help prepare them for the world.
Every night before falling asleep I would love to feel our little person (inside Suzi) throw a front kick into my hand knowing that within a few years that very same kick would be directed into a pad at Adrenalin or into my shins at home. One night there was no kick. We rushed to hospital to discover that there was no kick as a result of no heartbeat. Our precious little baby had passed away inside the very body that had nurtured her for the past 34 weeks. Initially there was the shock of the news that there was to be no baby. Both Suzi and I were in tears and frozen with what we had just been told. All of the work, all of the plans and all of the love had been crushed with just one scan at the hospital.
We were told to go home and figure out when we wanted to induce the birth. At home we sat together frozen and heart broken for the rest of the day. With next to no sleep we both got up and decided to give birth to our child as soon as possible. A couple of quick phone calls and text messages to friends and family and we made our way to the maternity ward. There, we were treated in the most professional and gentle way possible by all the staff at South West Health Care. Everyone on staff understood the magnitude of what was taking place and they all went above and beyond to ensure Suzi’s health and well-being. After three days of medication Suzi finally gave birth to our precious little girl Ella Rose Argyle. For us she was a perfect little beautiful girl who had no heart beat and did nothing but beat our hearts. Upon her birth we experienced the same joy and happiness that every parent (I’m sure) feels when their little one comes into the world. She had a perfectly formed face, hands, feet and body. Everything that we could ever want. We spent 6 ½ hours magical hours bathing her, getting photos with her, taking hand and foot prints of her, holding her, kissing her and talking to her. Even though she was not alive in the physical sense, we felt her presence in the room with us. At 10:45pm it was time to say goodbye. The hardest goodbye you could imagine.
Ella’s body was rushed to Melbourne for testing to figure out why her heart had stopped and we were gently sent home to try and make sense of what had just happened. Our lives over the past three weeks have been turned inside out and upside down. We both still feel frozen and scared at what life has thrown at us. We both miss our little princess and find it difficult to be in the real world. We have experienced the thrill of birth and tragedy of death in the same moment. We feel that we have been robbed by one of life’s peak experiences but at the same time treasure the moments we had with our little girl. We both feel different than what we did before and we don’t expect that this will ever shift entirely. A hole has been left in our hearts by a little girl who was born sleeping.
If one positive thing has come out of this tragedy it is that we both feel very lucky with the support that has been thrown our way. Having my class schedule filled, facebook messages, emails, text messages, phone calls, flowers, plants, gifts, meals, hugs, hand shakes, words of comfort and support have wrapped a thin layer of foam around the lump of wood that our lives had been struck with.
Ella Rose Argyle lived for just 34 weeks inside my incredible wife but she will live in our hearts forever.
RIP my beautiful daughter. Love from Dad xo