Jessica Charlotte Graham

**Please see bottom for Post Mortem results**

Jessica's little sister has also now passed away. You can find her under Jennifer Graham in My Memorials.

Jessica Charlotte. Daughter of Sarah (19). Estimated Due Date: 28th September 2008. Born at 40 weeks and 5 days gestation (Oct 3rd).

JESSICA'S STORY :-

Saturday 20th September –
We went to hospital to get checked out as we weren’t sure if my waters were trickling or not. While I was there I had an internal to check, waters were fine and the check showed my cervix was very posterior, very thick and very closed. Thus meaning it wasn’t even trying to get ready for labour.
I was seen by a "Trainee Midwife", a young Male with a foreign accent. I can't remember his name. The Doppler they were going to use to check Jessica's Heartbeat apparently wasn't working and so they ddn't bother getting another one to check, I was just sent home after them assuming baby's heart rate was fine.

Thursday 2nd October –
We’d went into hospital very very early in the morning because I’d been having pains, and as they do, they hook you up to a machine, checking baby’s heart rate, checking for contractions and your blood pressure. They gave me an internal to check the state of the cervix again, immediately I lost my mucus plug and then started bleeding, which we had assumed were my colours going. This bleeding continued from the time we got home which was 6am, until I went to hospital the next day.

Evening/Night Time came and I had been in total agony for 7 days by this time, and had already been to hospital in the morning, so I rang the hospital again, complaining of agony, they said because I was low risk pregnancy just to stay at home and not go in. The pain I was in was unbearable but I stayed at home. I had explained that my colours etc had gone after the internal. (I later found out, your colours dont go if your waters haven't broken. I was bleeding and this didn't seem to phase the Staff at the Hospital).

Friday 3rd October –
Rang hospital on the night complaining of agony, which had only gotten worse, told them out right I was not coping and went in to get checked out. They said just to bring my hand held notes, so we did.

They took me in and hooked me up to the machine as usual, to measure contractions and baby's heart rate and left the room with no medical staff around.. I was writhing around on the bed, completely out of it with pain, my partner was trying to help keep me calm with breathing techniques that the Midwives had told him to use, telling him to stand to the side of me and rub my shoulders to try and get me to relax them. The pain, I’ll never forget, I’ve never felt pain like it, I knew something was wrong because we’d already found out my cervix wasn’t “playing ball” so to speak.

We had our doubts about this being labour, as a week prior I’d had an internal exam, which showed my cervix was shut. The contractions being measured were very real and very strong. I had tried to tell the hospital I was having contractions for days but they seemed convinced I wasn't.

I’d been hooked up to the machine for just a few mins when Jessica’s heart stopped, but with no staff there to witness. This is where things sped up, everything went into fast forward.

My partner shot outside trying to find someone to tell them the machine was beeping like mad.

The Midwife came running in, viewed the chart, called in the Surgeon, he looked at the chart, saw it and immediately Jessica’s heart rate went off the chart again, within a second he said "we need this baby out now, emergency cat 1 c-section"... I was prepped and in theatre in mins. It literally only took a matter of mins from the Surgeon saying “C-Section” to me being in there having one. My partner ran out of the room to ring my Dad – who he couldn’t get hold of. In the short time my partner was outside on the phone I had from what I remember, about 5 members of staff around me in the bed, I was having things put in the back of my hand, signing forms to say it was alright to knock me out, as with Cat 1 Sections you have to be unconscious, and because Jessica had no heartbeat, this was necessary. I had the anaesthetist on the left hand side of me explaining what would happen to me whilst other people were stripping my clothes off and pulling a robe thing round me. I had someone between my legs putting a catheter in. You understand this all happened in mins. I was walked down to theatre carrying my catheter, shaking like a leaf, a total wreck having still not seen OH as he was still on the phone – again, that shows how fast this happened.

So I was in theatre, sat on the bed having everything explained to me while the staff were preparing everything they needed.

I was still on the monitor and Jessica’s heart rate slowly started creeping back up, very slowly mind. But this meant I no longer had to be unconscious, I was allowed to be awake.

I was given the epidural into my spine.

I was pretty out of it so just lying there looking around as I couldn’t see what was going on with being covered by a sheet thing up to my chin, I kept asking where my partner was, if he was coming and just generally wanting him by my side. They said he was busy getting changed and would be in very soon. I looked above my head at people standing in scrubs and genuinely didn’t recognise my partner standing there all in green. He sat down next to me stroking my hair asking if I was ok and telling me he loved me. I felt a lot more calm with him there for some reason, just with his hand on my head and feeling his touch, I felt secure.

He never looked over the sheet during the section, as he was pale as it is, he was terrified himself. The first time they mentioned the section he was a total wreck, totally nervous, panicking and everything.

Baby was delivered at 23.38 on Friday October 3rd, she had to be resuscitated immediately as her heart had already stopped when she was in my tummy, we had already lost her when that happened.

No one said a word as Jessica was delivered because of this, however they managed to resuscitate her and we heard her make a noise, 4 times. I don’t think we’ll ever forget hearing her little voice. As soon as this happened the Surgeon leaned over and said “Congratulations”, we looked at each other and smiled and said we loved each other. I said “you’re a Dad” and he was just staring into my eyes smiling back, still stroking my head.

She was a very poorly little girl, had the cord round her neck and had opened her bowels PRIOR to us going to hospital (6-12hours as shown by post mortem results), this was the reason for the total agony I was in, not labour. There was very very little fluid, it was mostly meconium.

Shortly after she made the noise the Midwife came dashing over saying “I’ll show you baby quickly” and flashed her face at us then ran off with her, taking her up to Special Care upstairs.

After I’d been treat for infection and had the meconium cleaned out of me and was stitched back up, we were taken back down to the room we were initially in and we were told “you’ll be able to see baby within the next hour”… Great we thought, fantastic, we couldn’t wait. my partner was talking about his shift at work on the Saturday and getting it covered and time off. We were discussing the visiting times so he could come back in the morning and see his little family, we were so happy. He was even saying how he could go to the pub on the Sunday night with his mates for a drink to celebrate. Everything was perfect, we had our little girl. We now understood WHY people would go back and have more than one child, its for that instant when they’re born and you just hear them, that instant feeling of endless love that comes from nowhere on earth. The 9 months of hell was instantly forgotten, it didn’t matter, it wasn’t a factor, I’d do it for twice as long just to have that feeling again. (Not that we would dream of even trying to replace Jessica – can’t be done).

The hour passed, we were told maybe another 20mins.

The 20mins passed, then 2 hours passed. Time kept passing and we realised something wasn’t right, we weren't being updated regularly with what was happening, we had no clue.

It got to about 04:00 and the consultant (paediatrician) came down to see us with staff from Special Care, where he went on to say “she is a very poorly little girl, we are doing everything we can for her” … My heart had just been sliced in two with an axe. “We have the top doctors from the RVI here trying to save her, they’re working on her round the clock, we have to transfer baby to the RVI for the treatment she needs”. He went on to explain they had an ambulance ready for Jessica, and all they needed to do was stabilize her so they could get her into the incubator and across to Newcastle RVI. South Shields didn’t have the equipment for a baby this ill. They’d said I wouldn’t see Jessica for a few days while she was in Newcastle, which was terrifying, I just wanted to be next to my baby and to be able to cuddle her and make everything better, but with all the love in the world I was still totally useless.

My Midwife saw how I upset I was and she came back in once the Doctor had left saying she’d been on to the RVI and would I want a place on a Post Natal ward there so I could be around Jessica, obviously I replied saying I wanted to be close to her if possible… And so it was arranged, as soon as Jessica was stable, she’d be taken to the RVI and I would follow over a few hours later. The Midwife left the room.

About 06:40 came and the Midwife came back in saying we could go up and see Jessica soon but to understand she was on a lot of machines, with a lot of wires and lots of people around her. We just wanted to see our little girl.

The pain I was in after the C-Section wasn’t even bothering me, I clambered out of bed and into a wheelchair, I just wanted to get to my baby so desperately. We were taken up to Special Care and as soon as we went through the doors, we saw people, everywhere, lots of doctors, nurses, midwives, consultants, all around, all working. Then we saw her, lying on her back, lifeless on a machine with all the wires, things down her nose and throat. The most perfect, innocent and gorgeous little thing we’d ever seen in our lives, my heart sank and I was pouring my heart out, my poor baby girl was NOT well, and it was NOT a dream, nor was it the drugs from the section. This was very, very real now and it HURT.
I stretched my hand out, scared to touch her, not sure if I was allowed to, and touched the back of her hand with my left index finger, she was warm, but there was no reaction. I just sat stroking the back of her hand, with my partner standing over us, his hand on the back of my shoulder, hugging me occasionally. He was staying so strong, he hadn’t cried but the hurt was in his eyes, like I’d never seen before. I got a bit more brave and put the tip of my finger inside her little fist, again there was no reaction, nothing, but she was still perfect. Her skin was immaculate, she was so different to what we’d expected from the scans, on scans she’d shown as chubby with chubby cheeks. In front of us she was a lovely, slim, tall baby.

Who I can only assume was a Nurse, was over the other side of the table Jessica was laid on, doing something, as I said there were wires everywhere, it took us shouting at her for her to realise when she went to walk away from that side of the bed, that there was a wire from jessica going to a machine and she seemed so clueless that she hadn't realised it was there, had we not shouted, i dread to think what would have happened when she walked into it. Us bringing it to her attention meant she stopped walking and realised. She then proceeded to have a good giggle about it, as if it was the funniest thing that had happened to her in days, We did not find it so amusing.

Staff were behind me, trying to get the respirator working on the portable incubator, not paying attention to jessica.

I was watching her heart rate on the machine and whispered to my partner “her heart rate is going down”, and we watched it go down. It slowly started creeping back up, very slowly indeed. We took our eyes off the machine and back to Jessica. The lady from the RVI dashed over after we'd said this and put her stethoscope on the left of Jessica’s chest, then moved it quickly to the right.

“The heart rate is gone! Lets get Mam out of the room, get Mam out of the room!”

There were staff everywhere, I could barely see for tears and now OH who was being so strong had completely lost it, he was beside himself. We were rushed into another room, pouring our hearts out, he was kneeling in front of my wheelchair holding my hands, both crying so hard. I said “If ever there’s a time to be religious it’s now” and I prayed and prayed and prayed, “please God don’t let my baby die”. We weren't even given privacy in this room, there was someone else in there and we were dealing with the prospect of losing our baby. The other person (a nurse) eventually left.

The door opened “I think you need to see your baby now” and we were rushed back to the room. By "rushed" I mean, after a bumbling nurse trying to turn my wheel chair around wasting time bashing me into things saying she couldn't move me - we were pushed in to Jessica's room. I can’t find words enough to describe the feelings we had going on and the total mess we were in.

The staff were around her, the lady from the RVI was trying to manually resuscitate her with her hands, rubbing her chest and saying to me “This is where we have to stop Sarah, we have to stop now”. “NO! Don’t stop! PLEASE don’t stop!” I was shouting, blood curdling yells of “No! No! No!” … Then it happened, that split second where I looked straight into the eyes of RVI lady, and she looked straight into mine, and I nodded. She lay Jessica back down, the time of death of 07:17 was announced. It was over, we’d lost our little angel to a better world.

I was asked if I wanted to hold her, they took the things out of her chest and nose and passed her to me in a blanket, I was beyond help, looking at my dead little girl knowing I couldn’t save her, I’d never see her grow up, or hear her shout “Daddy!” when he came home from work one day. All the things that happen on a daily basis to others, it wasn’t going to happen anymore, and it felt wrong on so many levels.

Holding her, looking at her, I genuinely don’t have words to describe this feeling. The feeling that was made worse when blood was pouring from her nose and mouth in my arms, as if knowing she wasn’t alive wasn’t enough, we had to see just how ill she really was. This was the blood that was in her lungs. Again no staff were around to help us deal with this so my partner had to leave me to find someone to come in and help.

We were asked if we wanted her baptised, to which we said yes… Please understand, none of this was calm, or rational, this was all absolute terror, tears and crying, sobbing non stop. The type you see in movies. It actually happens in real life.

The chaplain Jennifer Lake came up to see us, and asked us her name. We looked at each other and said Jessica Charlotte Reay. We hadn’t even had time to name her, when we were discussing it in the room downstairs my partner had said “well we’ve got 6 weeks to register her name, so we don’t have to rush it”… Well, now we did. But we’d already said we didn’t think she looked like a Charlotte, more a Jessica. So we knew somewhere deep down, she was Jessica Charlotte Reay, daughter of Sarah. And the best thing that had ever happened to either of us.

Jennifer baptised Jessie for us, while she was in my partner’s arms. I wanted him to hold her while she was baptised, the whole time we were breaking our hearts and I was just staring at the two people I loved more than life itself, seeing them both broken. Our little family that had been perfect just 7 hours earlier, smashed to pieces in an instant, irreplaceable, unable to be repaired.

They gave us time with Jessica and then took us back downstairs into a different room. Room 9 on the Delivery Suite. The lonely door that stands on its own to the left of the reception desk as you enter.

I was put into bed there while we waited for Jessica to be brought down to us. We were told we could dress her. my partner passed my hospital bag over with all of Jessica’s clothes in, the “sensible” tracksuit I’d packed with her supposed to be a September baby, in case it was cold outside when we took her home. So I didn’t want to pack a pretty dress. I was sorting through the clothes, deciding on baby grows and crying to my partner saying “Do I put a baby grow on her to keep her warm under her top?”, then you think, she can’t feel anything, and cry even harder.

Our midwife for the day Keely came in, introducing herself carrying Jessica in a moses basket and placing the basket inside the crib next to me. She asked if I wanted to dress her, or if I wanted her to. We were still crying, we hadn’t stopped, I asked her how to dress Jessica, what clothes to use, socks etc. She said “You dress her like you would if it were any other day”… So I did, I picked the clothes, baby grow, socks, booties and hat and asked Keely to dress Jessica, I was scared in case I hurt her.

The whole of the Saturday was filled with tears and us tightly holding our baby girl, talking to her for hours, telling her how much we loved and missed her and how beautiful she was. Promising to get married, so Mammy could have the same name as her daughter. Daddy telling her that “Jessica will always be number one”. We had lots of visitors, family coming to see us, every last person in tears, absolutely beside themselves.

When it came to my Dad, George, arriving at the Hospital to see me and his Granddaughter, (around 10am) he spoke to Delivery Suite asking for me, they then sent him AWAY from Delivery Suite (where I was, with my dead baby) up to the Ward upstairs where Mam's go with their babies. Where he was then told "we're not sure where she is at the moment. We're really busy. Go home and ring up in a few hours and we should have found her by then".... I'm sorry, but it wasn't hard to find me, I was the only one in there holding a dead baby. The staff seemed completely incompetent as they had proven to be from word go when the problems all started.

Saturday was a very long day.

Friday was the best day in our lives, the day our daughter was born, Saturday was the worst day in our lives, the day our daughter died, there can be nothing worse than that to come in my life.

Jessica was taken away from us to have the canulas taken out of her hands etc, and to have hand, foot and thumb prints done. By the time they decided to do the prints, Rigamortis had already set in and jessica's fists were tight shut, so they couldn't do them properly. They brought Jessica back to me after having taken the canula out of her left hand. Whilst taking it out they had actually managed to peel the flesh back on the back of her hand, the staff didn't tell me about this when they brought her back, I was left to discover that myself. I couldn't believe it. It seemed like they'd just tried to push it aside on purpose, it's impossible to not notice that you've done that. It wasn't just a few layers of skin, leaving normal looking skin underneath showing, it was red, raw, flesh.

Sunday 5th October -

We had a lovely day with Jessica, we got up at 7am, and they brought Jessica to us. We had to send her to the mortuary on a night as she had to be kept cold to stop her from deteriorating. This was hard for us, the thought of our little girl, so cold, so lonely in a bloody freezer without even a teddy bear for company. But, we had to do it.

Sunday we spent acting like a proper family, just as if our baby girl was sleeping, we sat and ate with her next to us in her crib. I had to get up and about that day to try and get myself better, so I had to go in the bath, where my partner ran the bath for me and I asked if he was gonna keep me company and he said "I'm gonna keep an eye on the bairn". We picked her up, had lots of hugs. We just wanted ONE day where we could TRY and be a proper family, and have some happy photos of us and our little girl. It wasn't all sad, we love her very much and we LOVE the fact that we have a daughter together and she's so perfect.

Just because she doesn't play in the same playground as other peoples children, it doesn't make us any less "Parents" than anyone else. We have a daughter, she's just asleep.

I can't describe the Sunday very well, because its something you won't understand unless you've lost a child and done it. It was such a lovely day, we just enjoyed our time with Jessica. Genuinely enjoyed it.

Ok, we didn't feed her, change her nappy, hear her cry. But we cuddled her, kissed her lots, snuggled up together as a family on the sofa, slept next to her. Tried to do the things we could STILL do with her, even though she was asleep.

We played music to her and cried so hard.

We played :

Eric Clapton - Tears in Heaven
Sarah Brightman - Time To Say Goodbye
Madonna - Dear Jessie

PLEASE READ THE LYRICS FOR MADONNA DEAR JESSIE - THERE IS A REASON WE PLAYED IT

But don't get me wrong, we are in no way happy. We just knew we had one day, and one day only, to pretend everything was ok, so we did, we pretended and literally played happy families. As a result we have hundreds of photos of our family. OH fell asleep next to Jessica and I just stood and recorded a 2 min video of them asleep together. So when he feels ready he can see it and say he got to fall asleep with his little girl.

We never got to see her when she was alive, we never got a photo of her before she fell asleep, we never got to see her with her eyes open, we don’t know what colour eyes our daughter has and never will.

We sent our daughter back to the morgue that night, very late, around midnight, as we knew it may have been the last time we'd see her.




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This little angel had touched so many lives in the short time she was with us.


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There are still bits and pieces missed out of this story, there is so much to tell and not enough words to describe what happened well enough.



Her name is Jessica Charlotte Reay. She was with us for 459 mins and this is her story.


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Jessica was buried at Harton Cemetary, South Shields on Monday 13th October.

She is buried next to other babies, right next to the Chapel in the middle. She has lots of flowers.

We played Eric Clapton - Tears in Heaven, as we walked into the Chapel, my partner carrying his little girl's white coffin and me carrying her photo that I placed in front of her coffin in the Chapel.

The service was lovely, she had several guests, the chapel didn't have enough seats so people had to stand at the back.

The weather was good too, things couldn't have been better under the circumstances.

At the end of the service, my Aunty Andrea sang, whilst my cousin Ryan played acoustic guitar - Eva Cassidy - Songbird. It was beautiful.

There wasn't a dry eye in the house I don't think.

We have to arrange her headstone now.

I'm so proud of Jessie, she caused QUITE a stir in her 7 hours on this Earth, I've been trying 20years to get that much attention and she did it in just 7 hours.

What an amazing little girl.

She turned the world on it's head.

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Update 11 December 2008 :-

Post Mortem results show the cause of death as being

1) Persistant Foetal Syndrome
and
2) Meconium Aspiration Syndrome