Song playing is:~  Wind Beneath My Wings...

'OUR BIRTH'

Jack's due date was the 25th November 2000...  With my previous 2 children neither had come on time ~ and I had to be induced with both...  I honestly thought this was to be the same this time around ~ but things were so different with this labour and birth...

It was Sunday 26th November, one day over my due date...  Jack had survived full-term...  I had told the hospital I did not want to be induced so we decided to leave it as long as we possibly could…  I knew in my heart that things were starting to happen, but I was scared and said nothing to no-one…

I was starting to get some really niggly pains around 5.00pm ~ but kept dismissing them as I didn't want to accept that this was going to be the last day I felt my baby move...  I didn't want to have to go through labour ~ to give my baby life, then to have it snatched away again...

I also needed to know that my other children were content when we left…  Night time would be good ~ they would both be sleeping, we could get Andrew's sister and mum to come and look after them and we could leave, yet our youngest Ben had different ideas that evening!  I am sure he must of sensed something was wrong...

It was getting around midnight when the pains were getting even stronger ~ I still hadn't told Andrew ~ I didn't want him to have to go through this heartache, the possibility of losing his precious son, so I still kept quiet…  I knew that within a couple of hours I would have to go to hospital though ~ but I dearly wanted our Ben to be soundly asleep so I wouldn't worry as much about him…   In between contractions I tried to lay on his bedroom floor, holding his hand, whilst he tried to go to sleep...  After an hour or so he drifted into the land of nod...

I then found the courage and casually mentioned to Andrew I thought I was in early labour…  He told me to immediately call our Midwife Lisbeth…  She arrived and timed the contractions ~ every 3 minutes they were coming…  Now I was getting really scared…   Andrew's sister and mum arrived to take care of our children...  I kissed Sophie and whispered we were going to the hospital...  A tear trickled down her cheek, she closed her eyes and went back to sleep…  We kissed Ben and we left, sad, scared and feeling desperately alone...  

On arrival at the hospital, I immediately had an epidural set up.  Petrified of needles, I wasn't quite sure how I was to cope with this, but I kept thinking about Jack and he gave me the strength to be brave and to let them do what they had to do...

After 20 minutes or so it was done.  Andrew and I were left alone to be together as much as possible ~ our baby was going to be born today and we all needed to be strong…  We got through the early hours of the morning, then around  9.00am our other midwife Bev came on duty...  It was good to know we had both of them here...

Our families were very concerned for us all ~ we had a few visitors during that morning... From around midday things were really happening and I was even more scared...  The epidural that I had been given had been put in slightly too high, which meant that the numbing feeling was working its way upwards instead of down!!  I didn't really have any numbing pain in the areas  which I should of for the remainder of the labour…  They called the anaesthetist back in to see if he would re-sight it, but he didn't think it worth the while! ~ so I ended up taking 'gas & air' to help...

Labour itself was 13 hours... my longest ever...  Knowing Jack was breech, I expected to have some kind of intervention, but I needed nothing.  Our Jack seemed to do everything he could to help us - I was only using gas & air, and Jack was born at  1.50pm  November 27th 2000.  He was beautiful...

This photo was taken just after Jack had gone to Heaven, about 15 minutes old here...Everything about him was just beautiful... We held our baby in our arms - touching, feeling and loving him... I kept waiting for his first 'cry' - to 'hear' his little voice - yet I knew the wait was hopeless...  Although we 'knew' so much before he was born, we still couldn't understand 'WHY'...

Jack weighed 7lbs 13oz and was 50cm long…  He was gorgeous, a double of his brother and his daddy...  He never actually opened his eyes, but I imagine they were the most piercing blue just like his daddy, sister and brother…

Bev,  Lisbeth and Julie delivered our baby so safely...  Lisbeth stayed by my side throughout ~ giving me ultimate support... She was very tired from being up in the early hours ~ but stayed throughout everything, giving total support and care until we left hospital…

 I had kept my eyes shut for the whole duration of labour...  I wanted to see no-one, I just wanted to hear our baby take his first breath... to hear his first cry...  devastatingly, we heard only 'silence'....

Jack had attempted to breathe twice when he was born ~ and as he had tried we were going to do everything we could for him, but they couldn't even get the smallest of tubes into his tiny, underdeveloped lungs, and after just 5 minutes Andrew and I made the decision to 'let him go' ~ no more intervention...

He was placed back in his Daddy's arms...  If Jack was going to stay with us here on earth then that's what he would of done ~ we let God decide what to do ~ left it in his hands ~ and this is what 'He' chose…

After coming into this world at 1.50pm, Jack so sadly left again at 1.55pm, just 5 short minutes later.  He went to Heaven in his Daddy's arms...  So peaceful, so quiet..

We were left alone in our room to hold our Angel ~ to try and understand what had honestly just happened...  Family started arriving, photos were being taken, Sophie came in, our Vicar Chris arrived to baptise Our Sweet Angel' ~ there was so much happening in such a short space of time...

When Jack was about half~an~hour old, Bev asked if we would like his little hand and footprints taken... They looked beautiful on a pretty little card with teddies on it ~ inside were all the details of Jack and his birth...  

Bev then gave him his first bath and dressed him in his beautiful little Winnie-the- Pooh outfit that we had bought for him... He looked so peaceful...

If you go to 'Our Photos' on the index page, there is more of our story with the photographs... 

The next 2-3 hours went pretty quick, we had a room full of family all giving Jack precious cuddles...

We wanted to go home with our Jack as soon as possible and so within a few hours we were ready to leave the hospital…  Lisbeth, Bev and Julie made sure everything was ready for us to leave…  

We tucked Jack up in his Moses Basket,  gathered all our belongings and went home with our baby angel…

It seemed so strange, so unreal in a way, everything that we had just been through...  With my previous 2 births I had a hard time getting over them, a lot of pain, just general childbirth related problems ~ yet here I was with Jack, having given birth about 3 hrs before, a 13 hour breech labour, and I was walking around as though I was in somebody elses  body. 

I  went immediately back to my pre-pregnancy size and I just couldn't believe I had given birth such a short while ago...  Andrew kept saying it was our Angel Jack ~ doing everything he could to make our pain as less as possible for us ~ I truly believe this was the case... There were many strange things after we had Our Jack ~ things  that we can find no answer for!  We just know it is Our Jack letting us know he is here ~ and watching over us...

Part 2

We arrived home with Our Angel in his Moses Basket about 20 minutes later...  I carried him indoors, and sat beside our Christmas Tree, rocking my angel in my arms, watching the little twinkling lights... It was beautiful…  Jack stayed with us at home until the following evening…

Family came round to meet and cuddle Jack, it was a wonderful 2 days with him at home...  We changed his clothes and held him in our arms all the time... We made sure everything was as perfect as it could be for him…  but Tuesday night came and we knew that it was really time that Jack should spend the next few days in the Chapel-of-rest...

As we had had him home for two days, I couldn't understand why he had to go away again... I think deep in my heart I truly knew,  I just didn't want to accept it…

On Tuesday evening, we placed Jack in his Moses Basket, and made our way to the Chapel ~ situated on a beautiful little island around a 15 minute drive from our house... We actually knew the Funeral Director, he was a friend of ours,  which I think helped to ease the situation a touch...

We arrived at the chapel ~ thinking we are just not going to be able to go through with this but we stayed strong, gaining our strength from somewhere...  We carried Jack in and placed him on a little table with a pretty white cloth on it...  Although Jack was staying in his Moses Basket at all times, with all of his precious little belongings, I couldn't bear the thought of leaving him here in this strange place...  As far as I thought, he should be at home with us and his sister & brother, not here in a place like this...

It was late, but we were allowed to stay as long as we wanted...  After a while we knew we had to leave.  Fighting back the emotions of having to leave our Precious Baby Son out of our sight, we got in the car and drove to the beach...  we walked and cried...  we then drove home...

Over the next few days whilst Jack was in the care of the chapel, we visited every day.  I yearned for these visits, a chance to hold our baby in our arms again...  I remember I just used to sit on the floor there and rock him in my arms... It just didn't seem natural ~ seeing our baby for just an hour or so each day, when my body was telling me our baby should be with us, always ~ yet this was not to be...

Every day we visited, and every day we held and hugged our Sweet Angel until we had to say goodbye again till the next day...  We always took a rose to Jack on each visit, each rose bloomed beautifully throughout the 5 days they were with Jack and their aroma was wonderful...

On the Sunday after we had visited Jack, we arranged with John what time we will be picking Jack up the following day...  We were bringing him home to be with us for this last day before his 'funeral'... We were going to have Jack all afternoon, evening & night and we couldn't wait... Our Angel was finally coming home ~ again...

Part 3

Monday morning arrived, the day we were to go and bring Jack home...  We couldn't wait...  We had everything ready at home for him, making sure we had done everything we needed to do so that we could spend the whole evening with our baby, and worry about nothing else...

My father lives out in California, us here in England, but he flew over to be with us all.  He asked if he could come with us to the chapel to bring Jack home ~ of course he could...

We drove to the Chapel ~ I rushed through, my tears falling and picked Jack up, took him to the car and we left...  On the way back home, we stopped off at a beautiful little place on the island where I held Jack in my arms, showed him the sea and the boats sailing past... I know this will remain in my dad's memory forever...as it will ours...

We arrived home, took Jack upstairs and just spent the rest of the evening loving our baby son…  (To read about 'Our Last Night' with Jack please go to the link on the home page 'Our Last Night').

To also see some more photos of Our Angel, please go to the 'Everlasting Memories' link on the homepage, where you will see our precious Angel in his beautiful little Moses Basket...

The following links on the 'Homepage' will take you through the rest of our story... I hope each and every one of you who read our story, will gain some kind of comfort within...  I know and understand that our wishes were not the most traditional ones in a position like this, but we feel it is what Jack would of wanted and what we felt was right… The way we arranged everything to us was perfect...  we were so very lucky to have such a wonderful amount of time with Jack…

Even though we never took Jack to the Chapel~of~rest until the second day, and we bought him home with us when he was 8 days old to spend the night in our loving arms, he got prettier & prettier every single day...  His colouring got 'pinker' and he was just as beautiful as the day he was born...

I remember our funeral director saying to us that he had never 'seen this before' ~ to stay looking so beautiful for so long, he also told us that he has never witnessed in all the years of his profession  'a mother doing the things that I did for my baby' ~ from carrying Jack everywhere on the day, placing him in his casket, carrying his casket etc...  I never thought I could do all those things, and neither did Andrew!

BUT WE DID....  I TRULY BELIEVE IT WAS WITH THE LOVE OF OUR SWEETEST ANGEL JACK.  HE GAVE US THE STRENGTH TO GET THROUGH THAT DAY - WE KNOW HE WAS WATCHING OVER US... WE REALLY DO...

Jack's Diagnosis

We had decided against any intervention on Our Precious Angel after birth ~ we refused to agree to a Postmortem and any other sampling that the previous London Hospital wanted us to do...  Our views were that he was just so perfect to us, on the outside it was unimaginable to think there was anything wrong at all ~ it was all internal that wasn't quite right...

We felt as though our Jack had been through enough in his little young life, he passed to Heaven so peacefully, was now in the care of his Guardian Angels, we could not disturb this... We just couldn't bear to think of anything being done to him, so this is where we just prepared ourselves to go home with our Angel and spend as much time as possible with him...

They said on his Certificate that Jack 'died' from:-

a) Pulmonary Agenesis

b) Polycystic Kidneys

Although I had no amniotic fluid, little Jack survived so well in my womb without this...  I worried so much about him, could he turn around, could he get comfortable yet there was nothing I could do...  I asked about having courses of injections to inject fluid into my womb so that he would be protected, yet was told it would just 'disappear' as soon as it was put in...  With regular 'Ultrasounds', we managed to keep a very close eye on how Jack was growing in my womb and making sure that he was 'comfortable' and making sure that he was AlWAYS in a position that was 'from the outside looking in', as comfortable as could be...

We saw many times on the 'Scans' Jack sucking his little thumb and playing with his toes...  This showed us that although there was no amniotic fluid surrounding him, he was doing just fine...  The whole pregnancy progressed exactly the same as my previous two pregnancies...

I felt Jack move all the time and his growth chart was so similar to my previous pregnancies, that it was so very hard to actually believe that there was something so terribly wrong with our baby...

It felt as though there was nothing I could do, except just take care of my Sweet Baby as best I could while I had the chance...

PKD

ARPKD - (Autosomal recessive polycystic kidney disease) - (sometimes called 'Infantile' PKD) is a 'genetic' disease that is inherited in a random fashion and is beyond a parent's control...  Many, many small cysts form in the last section of the 'nephron' ~ called the collecting tube...

In recessive disorders such as ARPKD, the baby must inherit a copy of the disease gene from each parent in order to be affected...  ARPKD affects around one in 40,000 babies and often causes significant mortality in the first month of life...

Since parents each have only one copy of the 'disease gene' ~ they do not have the disease...  In genetic terms they are referred to as carriers...  For carrier parents there is a 25 per cent chance in each pregnancy that both copies of the diseased gene will be transmitted to the baby...

Typically with recessive disorders, there is no previous history in 'either parents family'...

In it's most severe form, ARPKD begins in babies during pregnancy and the kidneys become so large that sometimes the baby cannot pass through the 'birth canal'...  In addition ~ the huge kidneys can also impair the baby's breathing efforts...

Although unlikely a 'cure' will be found ~ current research efforts should deepen our understanding of the basic disease processes.

If you would like more information on ARPKD or any form of PKD, please go to the following address:~  www.pkdcure.org/index.html   On this site they have lots of helpful links and much information on Polycystic Kidney Disease ~ and other kidney disorders...

ARPKD is a very rare disease ~ around 1 in 40,000.... It is just one variation of the Syndrome  'Potters'... If only one kidney is affected then the child has a very good chance of life with dialysis and transplant ~ but in the most severe form ~ which Jack had,  (when it is infantile PKD ~ diagnosed in the womb) ~ both kidneys are always affected ~ and there is no hope for survival at birth...