What came next

The first night we held each other, Adam and I. There was a pull out couch and when they found us trying to sleep together on a single bed, the nurses rushed in and said "you two can be together". Not gonna lie - it was amazing to spend the night with Adam without us both possibly falling off the bed. It was also comforting - the message I got from my brother Tim - "Don't stress, Noah is so happy with Mum". However we both woke up near crippled from the horrible pull out. Despite that, we had had a night holding each other and we both needed it. Breakfast arrived. Weetabix and a yoghurt. Adam and I looked at one another and without words knew this wouldn't work. So I googled cafes that were open on a public holiday and found the best. Adam left to fetch us some food and I was left. Laying there.

I tried to turn the television on but it didn't work. There was nothing. Just a clock on the wall and a huge space where you'd normally put a crib and look after your infant.

That space... I looked at it and hated where I was. I knew why the room was so big. But I also knew why the room was so empty. The memory of "It's time to say goodbye" fucked with my head while I waited for my Adam to get back. There was literally nothing to do. NOTHING.

That's when I first heard it. The baby in the room beside me began to cry.

The sound of a newborn crying is something that I used to savour. So beautiful. So fresh. So innocent. It's the sound of a new soul letting you know he or she needs something, I fucking lost my shit. Alone. I heard the sound I had been waiting for for myself and for the first time I began crying. And I mean UGLY crying. I wailed. I heard the baby I should have had. The baby soon stopped and I tried to get my shit together. Adam returned with an amazing breakfast and I ate some. A doctor who had cared for me back in the birthing suite stopped by to see how I was doing and I begged him "Please.... I can hear the babies... why are we here this is fucking with me something chronic!"However it was silent at that poimt. He was a young man, however he had spent a lot of time by my side and was also a very calming man. "We don't have a gyno ward anymore because the gov combined it to make room for covid. What can I do to help you? Anywhere I move you doesn't have the midwives you need." "Oh please for the love of god do something to make the sound stop!" I begged. I hadn't cried much ONCE in the entire ordeal - he knew I was serious. "Please get me a speaker or something so I can drown out the sound! I CANNOT hear the babies this is destroying me! Or let me GO HOME!"

"Let me see what I can do".

He was clearly distressed with no fucking solution. He left. Adam arrived back. He sat down in a chair and then it began. The sweet beautiful baby in the room beside us began crying.

The healthy baby. The one that just needed mummy. Screaming. Adam bent forward in his chair and put his head in his bands. He began crying. "Please I can't hear this" I remember saying before I lost it. I literally lost it. I was leaning over my bed vomiting on the floor as Adam held me. I felt so bad...he was hurting so much but came to hold me as I finally really cried. I howled. I howled for the child I had lost. I howled for the decisions I had made. I howled for the empty body I had that was still being treated as a post partum woman.

Staff came in and I, with all the fury in my soul, told them I was leaving.

"You don't understand how sick you are" they said.

(Note - I stopped writing at this point some months ago. I simply couldn't continue. Today I just needed to get more out.)

I threatened to rip my own IV out if they didn't let me go. 'Okay - there comes a point where we have to put your mental health first and this is that point' they said.

It took endless hours for them to have my strong anti biotics and other medications dispoensed. I was only given 2 days worth of the other meds to help me sleep and to reduce my nausea. I didn't care. That bleak, miserable, empty room mocked me. I learned that the hospital had been forced by Y'vette D'ath's direction to remove the gynocology ward to make room for Covid despite the countless women explaining it had traumatised them to be forced to recover there. If you Google the situation you'll find the news article. (I ended up, some time later, both writing and calling Yvette's office to explain just how much the situation had damaged me. They didn't respond, simply had the poor poor hospital call me and ask me how they could 'do better'. I was mortified. I apologised that they thought I was complaining about them - that was never my intention. I told them to at least ensure the rooms for the bereaved parents had a television etc to help keep them occupied somehow and to potentially distract from the heartbreaking sound of babies crying.)

So it was time to walk the walk only a parent leaving a maternity ward for the last time without a baby can know the pain of. It felt like a kilometre when in reality it was only a short distance. It was time to drive home without our daughter in her capsule. To walk into my home where all her clothes and newborn accessories awaited.

Every single moment felt like torture. But there we were, and now we had to navigate the funeral for our baby girl. That's all for now.