Sid's Journal
Sid is Talina's daddy. Talina is our daughter, she is the reason "Families Forever" was created. She left us on the 16th of August 2002 (physically).
I have asked my husband to share his feelings through this journey that we may read how a man lived this terrible thing ; losing his child ...
2nd of May 2002,
I got home from work to find my mother in law minding my kids. She was the one who told me something was really wrong with the baby and that steph would be back later.
She was very confusing, she never expresses herself straight. It's not like she said" the baby is going to die", she wanted to tell me but wanted Stephanie to tell me the details herself...This only problem is that Stephanie only came back much later. It was night and waiting for her on the couch, i feel asleep.
I knew it had to be some explanations, something like that never happened to young people, well not me , anyway..
I didn't understand what it meant, would stephanie die, or be in pain? what would she do, keep this baby or terminate ?
I tried to find out what it was all about but no one wanted to talk to me. I thought that there were wrong or everybody was making a big fuss out of nothing.
------------------------
9th August 2002,
Stephanie started to have contractions. I kind of sensed something was "wrong" but everything had been wrong for the past year so....
I didn't know what to tell her nor how to make her feel better so i ignored the fact she was in pain. I couldn't change it so might as well not have mentioned it.
------------------------
13th August 2002,
5.am, I saw her asleep ..She hadn't slept for days, so i assumed she was "better". I trusted the doctors' opinions . A GP had said Stephanie was not in labor so i left for work.. I am not sure why i left. I knew deep down this was "it", but i just didn't know how to face the fact that this birth had lots of consequences to it. Plus it was not "planned". We had decided to have a induction so we would have time to "prepare" ourselves, and this was not planned at all.
I got a phone call at work, i had barely arrived. I was told stephanie had had the baby at home by herself. I forgot to ask whether it was a girl, whether she was alive. I just left.
I had to get to the hospital on the other side of Brisbane with no car, I panicked and i stopped a car in the street. I just wanted to get to the nearest train station but the person took me to the Royal Hospital.
I got there way before Stephanie did. They sat me in a room by myself and i waited . After awhile i asked the nurse whether the baby was alive, and she started crying and told me that she wasn't.. Well, how long can a father be in a room with a crying nurse being told his child has died without breaking himself??
I was very upset. I had missed her birth, i had missed hearing her cry and watching her alive, I tried to not picture her dying without me and the pictures of her "accidental" birth kept crawling back in my mind.
------------------------------
16th of August 2002,
We did a lot of things with her. We kept her home with us. When Steph first told me she was coming home with us, i wondered about this "idea".. How healthy would it be for the kids?? How about us, what do we do with a body??
Once i saw her that was different. She was a baby, just that, my baby.
We danced, we read stories, we hugged, we kissed and we took photos.
I don't think we will ever get over it, but we reacted differently. Stephanie refused any contacts with anyone, not even the kids, she was totally obsessed with the web site , doing it 24/24, and i was sort of in denial, preferring ignoring it happened .
I wanted to have a new baby right after it was possible. First steph was ok about it, but then she decided not to. I personally was craving a body to hold , to kiss and a baby sibling for our other children.
We could never replace her but the pain was so unbearable that i looked for an easy way out.
--------------------------
25th December 2002,
We dispatched the kids' presents. There is one person missing.
I am trying to think" spiritual", sort of gets on steph' s nerves.. She is happy where she is, blabla...sure, she is, but how do we get up in the morning?
---------------------------
29th December 2002,
I reflected on this awful experience. It don't wish it on my enemy. I will always miss her. I know we will see her again, but my life, our lives have changed.
I don't care about physical things, my new life's purpose is to see her again. I feel like this life has become a waiting game. I just hope happiness one day will be part of it.. Have you seen the matrix? it's like that, we have had our eyes opened , life is not "happy, happy" for some.
---------------------------
30th of September 2003,
Time has passed. Things are better. If I sit and think about it, I reckon it really sucked that she had to die. But most days, I try to think about the kids here, and the birthdays, Christmas' and the new baby coming..
I guess the difference between steph and me is that I rather not talk/think about what hurts and she needs to.
------------------
Return to the other's journals page
