Mom trying to give parents of stillborn babies a few extra days together
WEST KELOWNA – Kristin Esmail and her husband didn’t find out until she was in labour their son, Richard James, was stillborn.
After 39 weeks in utero, finding out that they would not be able to take him home was almost too much pain to bear.
“It was such a shock,” the West Kelowna resident says. “The nurses and staff at (Kelowna General Hospital) were very supportive and made sure I knew I had as much time as I needed so we took pictures while he was still pink and looking like a newborn. It was an experience that meant so much to me.”
Now Esmail is on a mission to bring a piece of equipment to Okanagan hospitals which could drastically extend the amount and quality of time parents can spend with their child.
Cuddle Cots are relatively new to North America. They have been used in Holland for 60 years and are in virtually every hospital in the U.K. but have only been in Canada for less than a year. They are essentially a crib that keeps the child's body cool, allowing parent’s time to grieve.
“Here in the Okanagan if your baby passes away before they are born they give you all the time you want with him,” she says. “But as you can imagine, if they’re not kept cool their bodies start to change quickly. It’s really hard on the parents to have to see their child go through those changes.”
Esmail says she would have given anything for more time with little R.J., whose ashes they now keep in a teddy bear.
“I would have loved to undress him and change his diaper and do all the things I was afraid to do because after the 24 hour mark passes they are very fragile.”
The units cost roughly $3,500 each and Esmail is trying to raise money for three of them, one each for the hospitals in Kelowna, Penticton and Vernon. She is also trying to make a difficult subject a little less taboo — something she says makes the ordeal even more difficult for parents.
“We as a culture definitely deal with the death of children much differently than overseas,” she says. “It’s uncomfortable for a lot of people to talk about so I’m hoping to open up the conversation and make it okay to talk about without people feeling awkward.”
Last Friday, May 29, she started a GoFundMe account in the hopes of raising $12,000 to cover the costs of three Cuddle Cots. Any money left over will be donated to the hospitals to help pay for care packages for parents going through the loss of a newborn.
“We need to have this here,” she says. “When it happens to you it’s such a blur and it’s such a shock. There are so many things I wish I could have done but I’m never going to see him again.”
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To contact the reporter for this story, email Adam Proskiw at aproskiw@infonews.ca or call 250-718-0428. To contact the editor, email mjones@infonews.ca or call 250-718-2724.
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14 responses
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My daughter Grace was stillborn at 39 weeks. You are in shock and confused. There is not really anything anyone can say to take the unbelievable pain away. We only got to spend the day with her before she went to the funeral home to be cremated. That was 19 years ago and I still cry when I think how she missed out on life. To have been able to spend more time with her would have been comforting.
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A small comparison would be the regret I felt at not spending time with my pet when she passed away in her sleep, stroking her and sending her on her way with love. Our culture doesn’t support that kind of sentimentality – when we have the ability to change the culture like this, it’s a good thing.
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This is such a heartbreaking story…But I also love the possibility that a family can have the time they need.I could not even begin to imagine the grief.I hope these Cuddle Cots happen and I will be donating to this incredible fundraising effort.
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Some foul language accidentally made it through moderation. Apologies everyone. Since removed.
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Obviously spoken as someone whom has never lost a child,its not creepy to want to spend some time with your child, those are moments a parent would cherish forever, I spent almost 4 hours holding my son before his funeral, but that was after he had been embalmed and he looked and felt VERY different, this would be an amazing gift to loss parents, that time was both one of the hardest things I have ever done and something I will cherish for the rest of my life and I feel like I got to say goodbye, which was something his death robbed me of, and just because you think it is creepy because you have never had to be in a similar situation does mean you can slam it, you have no idea of what is or isn’t helpful to someone in this situation, and no right to judge.
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a very touching story. It is hard to imagine every day parents are suffering such grief and it is often overlooked in society because it is such a taboo subject. the cuddle cot allows more family members to be involved and then lighten the load of grief for the parents by SHARING it with them.
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Not to sound insensitive…but this is fucking creepy. REALLY fucking creepy, and this is money that could be going to PREVENTING the tragedy of a stillborn baby or saving lives. I don’t agree with this at all. Only read because I thought this was going in a taxidermy direction.
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So absolutely heartbreaking for families to have to go through. I just can’t even imagine. This cuddle cot idea seems like a great idea.
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