Expecting Quads

We hadn’t fully decided on names for our quads when they decided to arrive at just under 26 weeks’ gestation, so when a nurse came in to tell us to prepare for the worst at 3am was when we officially named them all – three little brothers and a little sister to our eldest daughter who was born 15 months earlier. 

Shortly after, a second visit from the nurse confirmed that the first born baby wasn’t going to make it and that we should come down to be with him. I felt numb and as if I’d stepped into someone else’s body.

The atmosphere was tense, staff rushing everywhere, sympathetic looks. Some didn’t know what to say and yet for others this was the day to day reality of life in NICU. Our tiny baby was removed from the incubator and I saw his face for the first and last time as they removed the wires, tubes and masks. Perfectly formed but so minute. He continued to breathe for what seemed like a long time as he was placed in my arms. After a while I handed him to my husband as I felt too overwhelmed, feeling that I was in someone else’s life which was not my own.

Our three survivors and eldest daughter drove us forward from that day and made us focus on each and every moment. We decided to bury our tiny baby near where we used to live in a peaceful woodland cemetery, where we have visited over the last decade. The children do enjoy going to their brother’s ‘garden’ every once in a while and they each put flowers down and say a few words to him before we sing a song together. There is something very beautiful and moving about this time and we openly talk about him whenever he comes up in conversation in our everyday lives too.

I do acknowledge that it is difficult to quantify the death of one or more multiples when others have survived, because you can’t grieve for the absence of life per se after the pregnancy. Trying to unpick the journey is impossible to fully encapsulate, but I think that the short sentence we decided on to put on our baby’s resting place is a start, ‘You breathed life in this world so briefly, but will live in our hearts for always.’