Birth of hope
The hospital delivery room was distressingly quiet. No flurry of movement from medical staff, no joyful congratulations, no sound of a baby’s first tentative wails. The silence is what Jacqui Bruyn remembers, with a sob, about the devastating stillbirth of her little boy, Beau.
It was 3.20am on April 25 four years ago, but for Jacqui and husband Trent Clark the trauma is still fresh, as if it happened only yesterday. They have learned to live with their overwhelming grief, but know it will never disappear nor fully heal.
“You know, when a baby is born, there’s usually a rush of activity and crying, and it just didn’t happen like that,” explains Jacqui, whose tiny son died in the womb 26 weeks into her pregnancy. “It was really confusing, I can’t even begin to explain it. They put Beau on my chest and I felt so much love. That instant connection was unbelievably strong, like nothing I had ever experienced in my life before.
“He was warm, like he was still alive, but after a while he started to go cold. It was horrific, just absolutely heartbreaking. I remember looking at my mum and saying, ‘he’s gone’. It’s the most unnatural thing to give birth to death when you’re meant to be giving birth to life.”
Jacqui and Trent’s longed-for first child had become a poignant statistic, one of the six babies lost to stillbirth every day in Australia,
