Stories of Lost Children
Our Little Soldier Jacob
by L.A., Salisbury, Wiltshire, United Kingdom
When me and my husband found out we were expecting twins we were overjoyed. A little scared also as we already had a 2 year old daughter, but never the same overjoyed. At my 20 week scan, we decided to find out the sex of our twins so we could be a little more prepared, and were delighted when we found out we were having a boy and a girl. We decided to name them even then, and decided on Charlotte (girl) and Jacob (boy). I had a pretty straight forward pregnancy apart from being extremely big extremely early, So my doctors decided to induce my babies at 36 weeks. I was monitored constantly throughout my labour and birth and both babies appeared to be doing well. 12 hours later I pushed out our little girl Charlotte weighing 5lb, she was perfect, but 40 minutes later our remaining twin Jacob still was not born. I asked what was wrong but was assured by many people who were in the delivery room with me that he was fine. 10 minutes later, Jacob was born, and myself and my husband immediately knew something was wrong. My son didn't make a sound, he was blue, and floppy. A midwife then proceded to run from the room holding my son in her arms. It was three hours later when a doctor came to see us, telling us our son was very poorly and was unlikely to survive, as he was having very bad fits. We were then allowed to go to NICU to see our son, but were both totally unprepared to see what we saw. My tiny beautiful son was covered in tubes, and had a ventilator strapped to his face, because he was unable to breath for himself. Over the next few days we were told Jacob had been starved of oxygen and blood supply whilst I was in labour, which had left him brain dead. After every test and brain scan imaginable we were told by the doctors that we should turn off our sons life support. After 2 agonising days we decided to take the doctors advice, as we didn't want our son to suffer. On November 2004 our son aged 11 days old died in my arms. The following weeks were the hardest weeks of my life. We still had his surviving twin to care for, but were grieving the loss of our son also. We buried our precious boy Jacob on 6th December 2004, with his great-grandmother also named Charlotte. Every time we look at our daughter Charlotte we see her twin brother Jacob. We have photographs of him all over our home, and talk about him to his sisters everyday. There's not a day goes by that I don't think about Jacob and shed a tear for him. We loved him very very much, even if it was for only a short while; we just wish it could have been longer. All our love, hugs and kisses to our precious little soldier Jacob xxxxxx
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