For 54 torturous hours, Amanda Jennings tried to deliver her baby boy, knowing full well he would never take a breath on this earth.
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At 38 weeks, four days pregnant, Amanda realised she wasn’t feeling the familiar kicks in her belly and started to panic.
The fetal doppler Amanda had at home showed no signs of a heartbeat. She called the hospital. Within 10 minutes of her arrival, Amanda’s worst fears were coming true.
''When it was actually on the screen, just the grey screen, it sunk in big time.”
Her thoughts flashed back to a recent Facebook post she’d seen about a stillborn baby at 38 weeks. She remembered thinking “that won’t be me”. But here she was, her own ultrasound showing no beating heart. Nothing.
“Before that it was like ‘they don’t know what they are doing. When it was actually on the screen, just the grey screen, it sunk in big time,” the 30-year-old mum said.
Next came the agonising wait for Jude to enter the world. Amanda was given sleeping tablets after a full day of trying to induce the birth had failed. She could literally feel the weight of her loss inside her.
“I cant have this baby inside me, I was thinking. When there’s no movement it’s like a dead weight. That was torture.”
The emotional stress was taking it’s toll and Amanda’s mum Sonia and close family were by her side when she delivered Jude at 2.02pm on Friday, June 16.
The midwife had prepared her for the confronting reality that her baby would look normal. Without the breathing, or crying. The silence was deafening.
Amanda’s mum Sonia will treasure those precious moments she got to spend with her grandson.
“Amanda got to tell him, If only he could have hung in there 10 more days. We were 150 per cent ready for him.”
“I’m a grandma. I don’t have one to cuddle but I’m a grandma,” Sonia said.
Amanda is grateful to the support group behind the walk.
“When something like this happens you think you’re the only person. It’s great knowing other people go through this, and make it through it.”
Remember Me – A Bridge Walk For Babies: Seacliff Bridge, Moronga Park, Clifton, Sunday October 15. Click here for details.