Sands Manukau

One of the things that Sands does is go visit families when their bSandSands goes to families whose babies have died.  

This post is by.Sands Manukau

Just home now from meeting a very precious angel. So bitter sweet as her twin sister lay in mums and dads arms as a healthy newborn. Such love in that room for 2 very special babies who will not as they should, grow up together. A tough night. xx

SV we know what that is like with our twin boys
Thursday at 6:35am · Like · 3

Ann Chin I experienced that scenario too. 
The good baby went home,

The sick baby was left in the hospital to die. 
She didn't become an angel straight away.

 More like 2 months. 
She was my Andrew's friend.

excerpts of Diary of a bereaved Mother, Good bye my baby Chapter 5.

Do you remember Dr Bobby Tsang? He was our friend who told me about this twin who was abandoned by her mum on the day. Baby Lo had spina bifida and had hydrocephalus. She was in Nursery 5, the cubicle just before Andrew’s. The cubicles were partitioned on the top by glass and her cot was diagonally across from Andrew. I could see Lo’s cot from my chair and the nurses didn’t mind me popping over to see poor Lo because she had no visitors. Like Sina, the fluid was building up some much that the head was very big. Unlike Sina, she had no operation to insert the shunt to drain the fluid to relieve the pressure. You might think she was a space alien or ET. Lo was just waiting like our little Andrew. The only difference was that Andrew was surrounded by love and lots of people. Lo had that wait alone.  Andrew and Lo were the two oldest babies there and were “hopeless” babies.

Each time I felt moody, the doctors and nurses told me to look up across to poor Lo and reassured me that I was a very loving mum and Andrew and the whole hospital knew it. Indeed, just looking at her gave me this warm fuzzy feeling. I did not abandon Andrew. I wasn’t self-justifying or glorifying myself. When you are in a disastrous situation, you cling to anything that gives you hope.

 When I went back to the hospital to say thank them after Andrew had died, I asked how Lo was. Though her mum had abandoned her to die, she still came to give her four woollen gowns. Most of the times she came in for a fleeting visit to pick up her soiled woollen gowns. They needed to be hand-washed and the hospital would not wash for her. I had seen her couple of times and I asked the nurses who she was. They told me she was Lo’s mum.

What’s the profile of a mother who abandons her dying baby?  Was she a grotesque person or an ogre? She was a slightly older Pakeha, not a young mum. No, she was your ordinary person who made her choice of not wanting her dying baby. Her reason, only she knew. But I think I had a good idea. She didn’t want to form an attachment and when the tragic time finally happened, the separation wouldn’t be so painful. Besides, God had given her a healthy twin. I am not quick to judge people now. She was also a kind woman. She told the nurses to give the knitted gowns that Lo had outgrown to another baby. Or was it? Was it that she didn’t want anything to do with things used by Lo? You wouldn’t know.

Andrew wore Lo’s hand me down knitted lemon gown to meet his coroner. Her head had grown too big for her to pull the gown over it. His nurse Daphne gave it to Andrew.

Lo’s short life impacted me in a way that nobody would understand. God put Lo in my life to gently remind me that I am not a failure. She constantly told me that I was a good mum, I did not abandon Andrew the way her mum had abandoned her.

During the Christmas holidays, Dr Bobby Tsang came to our house and told me that Lo had gone to play with Andrew in the Heavenly gardens. No more pain, no more big head. He said he knew I would want to know.