The daughter of Laura and Tero Mäkelä died in the womb a month before the due date. Back then no one would have thought that the family would have to experience the same thing again.
"Listen, madam. This child is dead."
The chief physician who performed the ultrasound appeared sombre. Laura Korkonen-Mäkelä was lying in the labour ward of Seinäjoki central hospital, and could not comprehend what the doctor was saying. How could the baby be dead when it was about to be born?
Laura had heard her child's heartbeat at the maternity clinic. Everything had been alright then. She had felt contractions but that was not a cause for worry with the due date only a month away and the baby ready to be born. This is why Laura and her husband Tero were only excited when her contractions intensified during the day.
Finally Laura felt that the last contraction had not ended before a new one began. The pain was terrible, and they left for the hospital. The two-year-old Artturi stayed at home with grandma to await the birth of his sister.
Tero looked at the doctor and thought he was mad. Neither of them had ever heard that a baby could just die within the womb. The doctor explained that the placenta, the organ responsible for transporting oxygen for the baby, had nearly come off, and this is why the baby had died of asphyxiation.
The doctor could not give a reason for the loosened placenta. Laura did not smoke, she had not fallen or otherwise suffered any trauma and she did not have high blood pressure. It had simply happened.
Far from normal
Laura found it shocking that she had to give birth to the dead baby in the normal way. She was given powerful pain medication, and it turned out to be a relatively easy labour. What was hard was to comprehend that the washed and swaddled baby in her arms was not asleep but dead, gone for good.
Tero rushed home from the hospital and carried the waiting crib to the attic. He thought that Laura would not be able to bear the sight of the empty bed when she came home. After that Tero went for a run, and he ran until he vomited. It made him feel better.
Laura called Artturi's daycare from the hospital and told them that Artturi would stay under care. Once Laura was released from the hospital, she immediately went to a mortician and began to make arrangements.
The parents told Artturi that his sister had gone straight to heaven instead, and that is why she did not come home. When father worked and mother just cried, Artturi said that he would take a ladder to heaven and bring the baby back home so that mother would no longer have to be sad.
At the funeral, the child was blessed by the priest they had asked to conduct the baptism. The escorting crowd sang psalms that were usually sung at a baptism. When the coffin was placed in the grave, Laura felt as if her heart had been torn from her chest and placed into the ground along with the coffin. It was difficult to breathe.
Even during the funeral, it was clear that Laura and Tero wanted to have another baby soon. Two months after the girl's death, Laura was pregnant again.
Laura and Tero were not afraid for the new baby. Doctors and nurses told them that lightning would not strike twice. They would be more likely to win the lottery than to go through the same thing again. The pregnancy was, nevertheless, monitored more closely. Laura and Tero were pleased to hear that they would be expecting a girl again.
Born before her time
In mid-July the due date was only a few weeks away. Laura and her mother went to Vaasa home fair for a day. As she circled between the homes, she felt contractions slowly begin. Laura realised that her pregnancy was where her previous pregnancy had been, to the day.
After all the sorrow, it felt wonderful to be able to give birth to a new, living baby. She returned from the fair and began reading Dumbon junamatka to Artturi as a bedtime story. The contractions intensified and became more painful.
Laura remembered the doctor's instructions. Once the contractions became more potent, she should go to the hospital immediately. The bedtime story was not finished, and Laura rushed Artturi to change from his pyjamas to regular clothes.
Before they went to the car, Laura noticed that there were no more breaks between contractions. It felt exactly as it had during the last time and she panicked. With their son, Tero and Laura began to drive for the hospital.
The ultrasound revealed that the placenta had come entirely off. Laura, was anaesthetised and a Caesarean section was performed. After the surgery the doctor attempted to revive the child for 50 minutes, but to no avail. Laura and Tero had lost another baby.
When Laura awoke during the night, she did not know what had happened to the baby. The nurses would not answer her questions but told her to wait for a doctor. Then Tero entered the room with a doctor. Before anyone said anything, Laura could see from Tero's face that the baby had died.
According to Tero, the hospital chaplain could not face Laura, but stayed outside in the hallway. Even the priest did not know what to say to a mother who had gone through the same nightmare twice.
All the anger, bitterness and rage that Laura had avoided the first time came over her. "I did not want to speak or even see anyone."
There was still one person Laura absolutely wanted to see. The nurse pushed her bed into the cold room where the baby had already been taken. The situation was different from last time. There was no warm newborn the parents could hold in their arms like a sleeping baby. There was only a small, cold body in the hospital's cold room.
"In a sleep stupor, I thought I would steal someone's baby. Just pick up someone's baby from the ward and go home."
No flaw in the baby or placenta could be found this time either, that could have explained the occurrence to Laura or Tero. The three-year-old Artturi was told once again by his parents that the baby sister did not come home but went straight to heaven. Artturi put his bunny in his sister's small coffin.
The same psalms were sung at the funeral as last time. The same priest blessed the child. Laura felt that she was ready to enter the grave with her child.
Final resting place
A new name was engraved on the tombstone that had been purchased the previous year. Half a kilometre away from the Mäkelä home, a tombstone stands on the graveyard with the names of two daughters: Lumi and Laina. Both have one day for a birthday and date of death.
When Artturi was four, Laura was expecting again. This time they were so afraid that they were not even able to rejoice at the pregnancy.
"I was certain that the same thing would happen to us for the third time," Tero says.
He tried to work as much as possible so that he would not have time to think about the pregnancy. In his anger, Tero had thrown the crib into a dumpster: a new one would be bought if they were to have a living child again.
The doctors had promised Laura that the pregnancy would not be allowed to proceed to the phase in which the two previous children had died. The child's heartbeat was monitored once a week, and every day towards the end. Even though they had not discovered a reason for the previous stillbirths, Laura was encouraged to take a blood thinner.
When the pregnancy had lasted two days less than the two previous ones, labour was initiated. The doctor was present from beginning to end, and the operating theatre was next door.
Tero could not come near Laura. He sat in the corner of the birthing room and was so scared that he was shaking.
"I have never been so frightened. When I enter a boxing ring I am scared, but it is a different kind of fear. Now I felt that there was nothing I could do about the matter."
Then Oliver was born, alive and healthy. His crying sounded so wonderful to Laura and Tero that they began to cry as well. Due to his small size, Oliver was placed in intensive care for two weeks, but the parents were not upset in the least. They had received a living child, and nothing else mattered in comparison.
Laura's roommate in the ward also had a child who was in intensive care for the same reason as Laura's child. The woman cried and wept for the situation, but on the other side of the curtain Laura thought of her baby and smiled happily.
Laura and Tero got to tell Artturi that this time the baby would be coming home. The older brother thought it was miraculous.
"Thank God this baby did not die," Artturi said for weeks after his little brother was born.
ANNAKAISA MÄNTTÄRI – HS
ANNIKA RAUTAKOURA – HT
