The hospital
Special mention has to be made of the love and care Eliza was shown at the hospital in Plymouth, and the respect and support we were given by the amazing team at the baby ICU ward there.
From the moment we arrived (somewhere in the middle of the night), we were swept up into their arms and cradled there for the duration of our stay.
Lizee was shown such gentleness as she lay quietly in the special room with all the machines. We were talked through everything in minute, plain-speaking detail by the ever-patient and available Julia Lilley (the consultant in charge of Eliza).
When we knew how serious things were, both our families drove to Plymouth. It was suggested that we might like the hospital chaplain to officially name Eliza before she died. I wasn't sure about this, not being very traditionally religious. As it turned out the chaplain could not have been more open and all inclusive in his spiritual approach. He wrote and printed a 'service sheet' for Eliza (in the MIDDLE of the night mind) and conducted a naming ceremony for her while we all sat around her cot and Simon and I held her. We sang her a lullaby that my dad used to sing to my sister and I, and then it was time for our families to say goodbye and for us to have our special time with Lizee.
The nurses took us to a double room down the corridor where we could spend the night and be alone with our girl. They brought her to us with her breathing tube still attached and a bag keeping the air pumping into her lungs. They helped us get settled and told us that, when we were ready, they would remove the bag and the tube and leave us alone with Eliza. They said that there would likely appear to be one or two 'breaths' inward and then her heart would stop and she would die peacefully.
It was the strangest, most beautiful moment. We held our girl in our arms, together in that room, and then she was gone. We stayed with her for a while, hugging and kissing and holding her, and then when we were ready, a nurse came and took her and put her in a moses basket in the single bedroom across from us.
We slept as best we could, and when we woke tried to eat something. We went in to see her later that afternoon, and our families returned to see her. Some people felt able to hold her, some didn't. My sister sang reggae with her in the corridor, walking up and down.
Before our families arrived for the second time, the nurses encouraged us to wash and dress Lizee. I thought this sounded a bit weird at first - what could be the point in washing and dressing a dead baby? - but I quickly came to realise what a clever suggestion from the nurses this was. The memories we created in that hour are some of the most precious we have. Washing our delicate little girl, getting rid of all the plaster marks, and putting her fresh and clean in her sleepsuit. We took hand and feet prints and cut a tiny lock of her hair. We laid her in her moses basket, tucked her in and gave her the teddy my sister had brought for her.
The hardest thing was when to leave her. I could have stayed for ever. My love for her really started to flow that day: I didn't want to leave her. Ever. At the same time the rational part of my brain told me that the leaving was never going to get easier, and we had to start letting her go. We drove back home with my parents under an amazing blanket of stars.
(In the back of the car, my sister told me that when they drove away from the hospital the night before, just as we were putting Eliza to sleep, the thick fog that had covered the road on their way down to Plymouth had lifted and the sky had cleared making way for Liza's spirit.)
From the moment we arrived (somewhere in the middle of the night), we were swept up into their arms and cradled there for the duration of our stay.
Lizee was shown such gentleness as she lay quietly in the special room with all the machines. We were talked through everything in minute, plain-speaking detail by the ever-patient and available Julia Lilley (the consultant in charge of Eliza).
When we knew how serious things were, both our families drove to Plymouth. It was suggested that we might like the hospital chaplain to officially name Eliza before she died. I wasn't sure about this, not being very traditionally religious. As it turned out the chaplain could not have been more open and all inclusive in his spiritual approach. He wrote and printed a 'service sheet' for Eliza (in the MIDDLE of the night mind) and conducted a naming ceremony for her while we all sat around her cot and Simon and I held her. We sang her a lullaby that my dad used to sing to my sister and I, and then it was time for our families to say goodbye and for us to have our special time with Lizee.
The nurses took us to a double room down the corridor where we could spend the night and be alone with our girl. They brought her to us with her breathing tube still attached and a bag keeping the air pumping into her lungs. They helped us get settled and told us that, when we were ready, they would remove the bag and the tube and leave us alone with Eliza. They said that there would likely appear to be one or two 'breaths' inward and then her heart would stop and she would die peacefully.
It was the strangest, most beautiful moment. We held our girl in our arms, together in that room, and then she was gone. We stayed with her for a while, hugging and kissing and holding her, and then when we were ready, a nurse came and took her and put her in a moses basket in the single bedroom across from us.
We slept as best we could, and when we woke tried to eat something. We went in to see her later that afternoon, and our families returned to see her. Some people felt able to hold her, some didn't. My sister sang reggae with her in the corridor, walking up and down.
Before our families arrived for the second time, the nurses encouraged us to wash and dress Lizee. I thought this sounded a bit weird at first - what could be the point in washing and dressing a dead baby? - but I quickly came to realise what a clever suggestion from the nurses this was. The memories we created in that hour are some of the most precious we have. Washing our delicate little girl, getting rid of all the plaster marks, and putting her fresh and clean in her sleepsuit. We took hand and feet prints and cut a tiny lock of her hair. We laid her in her moses basket, tucked her in and gave her the teddy my sister had brought for her.
The hardest thing was when to leave her. I could have stayed for ever. My love for her really started to flow that day: I didn't want to leave her. Ever. At the same time the rational part of my brain told me that the leaving was never going to get easier, and we had to start letting her go. We drove back home with my parents under an amazing blanket of stars.
(In the back of the car, my sister told me that when they drove away from the hospital the night before, just as we were putting Eliza to sleep, the thick fog that had covered the road on their way down to Plymouth had lifted and the sky had cleared making way for Liza's spirit.)