Kye and Peanut's Blog In memory of our lost ones Kye and Peanut

A little while ago, a lady from Avenue Magazine came to a Caring Beyond meeting to listen and talk to some of us for an article on losing a baby. The article will be out in late October. Currently, she has Kye’s footprints and certificate of life, but we are not sure what she will use in the article.

After the meeting, she had contacted us and asked for some more information about our story. So, I sat down to write a quick overview. Then, I wrote some more, and then some more. Somewhere it crossed from a quick overview to a form of therapy. The final result won’t win any writing awards, but is from the heart. It is below.

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Here is a rundown of our story. Sorry, it was supposed to be quick and has turned into a whole magazine worth… I was not quite sure what info you were looking for, so I threw it all in. In the process, I think it went from a quick rundown to do-it-yourself therapy…

Kye was removed by D&E on March 29. He was and is loved very much and we miss him terribly. Key means ocean and we chose that because the happiest time of the pregnancy was sitting on a beach in Malibu with the kids on Easter and just having a wonderful day. Paula had planned to do his room in a surf theme once we got back from vacation and found out what gender he was. Paula has a few of his ashes in a memorial necklace that she always wears (I don’t because I am afraid that I would lose or damage it). Emma, talks about Kye often and tries to talk to him through the necklace often. She even tries to do things like feed him cheese (don’t ask how she thinks that works). Emma and Kris are both super with babies and would have been great with Kye. Kris is becoming a teenager and does not know quite what to think, how to handle it or what to say. We all miss Kye and the future that we had hoped for with him. Paula says that you can use his footprints if you would like.

When we met (about 6 years ago), Paula was the fun girl that was always laughing and having fun.

When we had Emma, the plan was always to have another baby a couple years later. Paula had some pretty bad postpartum depression and we had pretty tough time with that (The psychologists caused as much trauma as they solved, we ended up in the horrific Foothills Emergency Psych section and Paula was almost committed, but that is a whole other article). So, a while after Emma, we tried, and after a few months of trying, we got Kye. The pregnancy was going quite well. Paula wasn’t sick (she was constantly throwing up with Emma). At our first ultrasound, they said that they suspected that Paula might have some condition that might cause the baby to be a bit smaller (Emma was 11lbs 5oz vaginally). They moved our due date back a few weeks because of Kye’s size (instead of realizing that he was small). We were told that there would be a few more ultrasounds, but that it was still low risk and not to worry.

Paula was having some depression and we tried to get help (but couldn’t get it because the medical system works very slowly for such things.

We had decided to go on a “baby moon” in the second trimester to go and have a nice vacation. We went to California and had a great time. Paula started to feel better about the pregnancy.

The day after we got back from vacation (march 27), we dropped our daughter off at the day home and found out that she was closing the home. She had arranged another day home for us until the baby was born. That afternoon we went for our regular 18-week ultrasound. After a few minutes, the tech tried to check the heartbeat. Usually, you can see the heartbeat in red and blue and they measure the heartbeat. It did not quite look right. She quickly did a few tests, and then said that she had to get someone to check something and left the room. After about 10-15 minutes, a doctor came in and started to talk to us. He said that he had checked the tapes and the baby had died, likely several weeks before. He didn’t really get much further as my wife started crying and ran out of the office. I went after her. We were in a quite section of the parking lot having a really good cry when the cell phone rang. It was the doctor’s office asking us to come right in and talk to them A.S.A.P. She gave me a special number for medical staff only so that we could call them when we were close and they would make sure that there was a room ready when we got there. We had to drive all the way across the city from Bedington to Dr. Goldie’s office (17th Ave SW by Scarce). We got there and were rushed in for one of the most useless talks I have ever had. The doctor was really useless. There was a lot of “Oh, well, this is unexpected” from the doctor. The doctor said that she would try to rush things (because of Paula’s previous depression… OK, there is a lot more there, but there is a limit to email sizes), but that it might be up to 2 weeks… Paula was very upset and didn’t sleep much. Paula talked of feeling like a walking coffin and about how hard it was because she still looked like a perfectly healthy pregnant woman.

The next day (Friday), I called the doctor’s office to get something to help Paula sleep. The nurse was really helpful and said that the doctor was away but she would talk to the sub (a Dr O’Kelly I think… She was great). I explained things to her and she called in a prescription and promised to do what she could. A little while later, we went to get the prescription, but before we could pick it up, we got a call to go to Emerg at foothills A.S.A.P. and they would admit us as a private patient. So, while our doctor sent in a request and would have let us wait literally weeks, some doctor that we had never met came to the rescue. I can’t imagine how hard it would have been on Paula if she had to wait weeks at that point.

We went home picked up some things, arranged for Paula’s mum to take the kids and went to the hospital by about noon. Paula’s mum would take care of the kids for much of the next several days. When we got there, they gave us a private waiting room in admissions (I hadn’t realized there were any before). Then they admitted us and put us into a private room in emergency (once again, I didn’t even know that they had such things). The nurse was great, and the doctor (Dr Mark Bromley) was really great (I filed a note with the CHR about how great he was). Dr. Bromley kept in touch with us all through the stay and was amazingly helpful. A social worker briefly talked to us, but we were far to mentally overloaded.

After about 6 hours, Paula was transferred to ward 42. That night an intern (and Dr. Bromley) put something in to dilate Paula’s cervix for the operation. The nurse offered to set me up a bed in the patient lounge, but in the end, I figured that it would just be to loud and I wouldn’t get enough sleep, so I went home for a few hours sleep.

For the next several days, I was at the hospital as much as I could be (about 14-16 hours a day).

Saturday morning, they wheeled Paula down to surgery. The anethnitist talked to her a while. Then the surgeon (Dr Woo, who I have a complaint with the CHR filed against) came in and talked to us for just a minute and got a page, so he went to the phone. Then he sat down and started reading a magazine. We had a number of questions and such, so I went over to the nurse’s station and asked to talk to him.
- I asked the doctor about getting the baby’s remains. He actually told me that he didn’t know if it was possible (all the pamphlets say that this is not an issue and I know others who have done this). Eventually, I got him to promise to look into it. He later gave me a phone number to call. It was the wrong number, but after over a dozen calls, I tracked Kye down and was able to get him cremated.
- Paula had asked for handprints or footprints if at all possible. He looked irritated and said that it was not likely possible. (for the record, I later asked a social worker that I met by chance after signing the cremation papers already. It took her 5 minutes to get these for us).
- Paula really wanted to know the baby’s gender, which no one would tell us. I told the doctor that this was really important to us so that we could name the baby, treat it as a person and move on. I begged and pleaded for any answer on this. I even told him point blank that if he had to just write down what was in his heart that would be fine. He was pretty clear that he was not sure that he could get us an answer and did not really seem to care. He never did do much about this for us. Eventually, Dr. Bromley got us the answer before we left. Our doctor also called later with the results.
- The surgeon (dr. wood) was the most uncaring person that we met and really did not seem to understand basic things about dealing with the patients in a case like this.

Paula still remembers being wheeled into surgery, and seeing all the tools laid out and the big tub of formaldehyde (this is against protocol, ruined Kye’s DNA and made it so that they could not do any DNA tests during autopsy) for Kye’s remains. They didn’t even hide it until she complained about how heartless they were. I filed a complaint, but have yet to get any resolution months later.

As I left the surgery area, my brother (a paramedic who was dropping of a patient) came up and I just cried. I am definitely not religious, but I spent the next 1/2-hour in the chapel as they removed my dead son from Paula.

Paula says that she has memories of waking up in recovery and crying. A nurse came over and told her to stop crying because of the other patients. Paula told her to f— off and then she doesn’t remember anything else about the recover room or the next hour or so.

When Paula finally came back to the ward, I was there with her brother. Of course, I ran up and met her in the hall. She was not really awake (I thought that she would be). She started shaking more and more. They called “code 66″ (the “Oh Shit” code) and the room filled with equipment and staff. Jason and I were asked to leave. For the next 1/2 hour they yelled at Paula to wake up, pounded her chest, and did anything that they could think of. Eventually, she started to come around. We never did find out the cause. They think that it was not a seizure, but who knows. One theory is that it was her body dealing with the grief and not wanting to wake up after everything that went on. Whatever it was, sitting outside in the hall while they frantically tried to bring her around was probably the scariest thing in my life. Our plan has always been for us to both get snipped once we are done having children, but after that, I am not sure that we can risk it…

I was not allowed to use any washrooms on the floor. The closest one was on the birthing floor, so I had to go there whenever I had to use a washroom.

Some of the nurses were pretty good. Some were horrible. Right before bed one nurse gave Paula a speech about “keep your chin up”. She got Paula so worked up that she pretty much had to be sedated… The ward was full of pregnant women. Many of them were walking around in labor. I never did find out if they were also having miscarriages or if they were just there as overflow… It was really tough to see them constantly, but the nurse was just “you better get used to it”.

After that, we just sat around the hospital for several days. We were supposed to get a social worker, and having talked to her several times since, that really would have helped a lot! The nurses screwed up and didn’t tell the social workers though. Paula asked for a priest to talk to. 24 hours later, one came by very briefly on his way to sermon. 24 hours after that, another one stopped by briefly until a doctor stopped by. We had to wait several more days because Paula was upset and they wanted her to get a pshych check. I learned that somehow time passes differently in a hospital. It is like purgatory. You just sit and do your time and wait to get released. I also learned that the only thing worse than hospital food is trying to eat it while dealing with intense grief. Much of that time is a haze. We both lost our appetites when Kye died. Paula still has trouble eating much.

Finally, after waiting several extra days, the psychology department came by to talk to Paula and said that she could go home. Ironically, by now we had been trying to get help for months and we finally had an appointment to see PAS (the psychological assessment unit). These were the people that caused us a lot of pain during Paula’s previous postpartum, but they were the only option that we were being offered… We were told to go home and come back the next day for our appointment with PAS the next day.

The next day, we went in to PAS. I had explained over and over that we didn’t want to see them, but the health region refused to let us see anyone else without a referral from PAS. They did promise not to have our previous doctor there… I went with Paula because I go to everything with her (for support) and she was really scared of these people. The doctor insisted that she had to go into the interview alone even though I have always been allowed to be with her. They put her in a room with a mirrored wall and an intern interviewed her while the doctor and who knows who else sat behind the wall. I sat in the waiting room down the hall where I could hear her crying and couldn’t help her… After the interview, they said that they could help us and told us to go home and they would get back to us later to tell us what they would do.

Kye was removed on a Saturday. On Monday, I started calling to try to get him cremated. Apparently, I am the first person to ever do this (although I know friends who have also done it). Starting from the number that the surgeon had given me, it took over a dozen calls to locate his remains. It took days more to get them to a funeral parlor. While we were at the funeral parlor signing the paperwork, we were told by the funeral parlor that the hospital was asking about autopsy and wanting us to talk to a social worker. It turned out that they were supposed to get us together with her in the hospital, but we had a new nurse, who didn’t tell her. So, while Paula was frantically looking for answers and trying to get someone to talk to, this excellent social worker was just down the hall and never came because no one told her. I still resent them for that. Laurie-Ann (the social worker) was great! She explained some things and helped arrange the autopsy (the answer was that Kye looked perfectly healthy, and they had no answers). I happened to ask her about getting hand and foot prints even though the doctor had already said “no”. She called back a few minutes later to say that they were able to get us footprints! That really helped. It is the only real thing from him that we have. They are very small. When I went in to get the foot prints, Paula came with me. Laurie-Ann made time to talk to us and we ended up talking for well over an hour. It really helped and she really understood. As we left, Paula said that she wished that we had met her sooner…

We had decided to name Kye after two of our grandfathers. When I mentioned that we were considering this to my Dad, he had a lot of trouble with the whole idea and said that he was not sure that he could support that. He never actually forbade us from using the name, but he tainted the idea so badly that we could not. Paula was very upset about that and has never forgiven him. I don’t know if she ever will. I don’t think he has any idea how much that hurt. My Mum tries to be supportive, but my Dad just can not handle it and seems to be firmly of the “ignore it and hope it goes away” mindset. We found that a lot of people in our parent’s generation seemed that way to varying degrees.

For some weird reason, Paula’s family sent condolences to her Mom, but not to us. Occasionally, we hear “uncle X” sent condolences, but usually only if my wife complains that they never said anything. It was odd.

No one knows what to say (them or us). Most people just solved that by saying nothing at all and just looking awkward for a while.

About three weeks later, Patty Brennan finally called us to arrange something, but she refused to talk to me. Even though Paula had severe grief and depression and was not dealing with anything that she didn’t have to, Patty would only deal with Patty until we filled out the appropriate paperwork… I came very close to just finding a woman to call Patty as Paula for me in order to let us just get this done… Somehow we also have Dr. Culver as our doctor now. He maintains the prescription that the psych doctor gave Paula in the hospital, and occasionally changes them, but really does not even talk to us unless Patty calls him in. As a doctor, I would describe him as totally negligent and absent.

We talked to the pregnancy loss group counselor, but she was not very good.

My big regret is that we kept talking to Patty and didn’t talk again to Laurie-Ann because therapy was so exhausting. I wish that we had talked to her more.

The next few months were really tough, but Paula was getting better. We had a therapist, although she just didn’t really seem to understand… At one time Paula was upset about something that the therapist said, and she gave us some speech about needing to be hit over the head with things and that if we were upset with her to just be blunt or she wouldn’t pick it up. Looking back, that was probably a pretty clear sign that we should have run away, but we needed help and medicine.

During this time, we both tried to work through our grief… I thought that I was doing OK, but Paula noticed that I was more distracted, forgetful, and not myself. Her therapist once asked how I was doing and I gave the standard husband answer of “Ok”. Frankly, the therapist is the last person that I want to show weakness to because I need her to feel that Paula has a good support system and can be trusted to stay home. Anyways, Paula corrected me and said that I was not… It turned out that she saw right through me and saw more than I thought…

Anyways, Paula felt responsible for Kye’s death. She is not, but that is what she feels. We had long discussions about how she felt that her depression killed the baby and how she didn’t love him enough because of the depression. The depression and the grief fed each other and dragged her further down. She thought often of suicide, although she also did what she could to try to improve things including working out for hours and trying to get together with supportive friends. The therapist started to focus on suicide more and more until each session just became a case of us trying to convince her that Paula was still safe to come home. The more that they focused on suicide, the more exhausting it was to deal with them and the worse Paula’s suicidal thoughts got. It seemed to Paula’s mom and I that they were pushing her and making it worse. I know that Paula already had these thoughts, but the focus seemed less and less helpful. More and more I felt pressure from the therapist to agree to commit her. They kept trying to convince Paula that it would be a good idea to be admitted.

Paula admitted to thinking of driving into a dump truck to die. I started driving our small car more so that she always had the safer SUV. We decided that she would drive as little as possible and pull over if she started feeling like that. I still let her drive our son to school because quite frankly, I needed the help, she needed the purpose, and through it all, the kids have been her lifeline and I trust her with them. The only thing that seemed less likely than her hurting the kids would be her hurting one and leaving the other behind

Paula was really working hard to get better, but not making great progress.

It was hard to because I knew things about Paula that I would not share with the therapist for fear that she would use it against Paula and have her locked up.

As part of the healing, we had a tree planted in the “birthplace forest” for each of our three kids. Well, actually, I requested three, and we got a certificate for Emma. I am still working on the other two… It was really tough and we didn’t see anyone else who looked like it was for a lost baby, but then again, I figured that they might just be avoiding the main crowds.

I asked them over and over what the plan was if Paula was “Admitted” (such a nice elite sounding word for “Locked away indefinitely”). The only thing that they could say is that she would be safe there. They had no real plan as to what they could do, how we would get Paula back out, or how long she might be in there. The only thing that seemed clear was that it would totally remove her support system and remove all the positive things that she was trying to do. Instead, she would not be sleeping any more and just be left there to sit and think about how bad things were. From the start, they had always talked about admitting her, but over the next while, they got worse and I felt like we were constantly being threatened with it. There were several times when patty said that she was going to have Paula admitted soon and then did not.

Then one afternoon, Paula was coming back from a play date with a friend. Our daughter was asleep in the back so Paula pulled into a parking lot for a minute to let Emma sleep. It was the parking lot for the birthplace forest. Paula started to feel more depressed. I was now controlling more of the medicine, but unknown to me, she had a bottle of pills. She was thinking about taking them when Emma woke up. Paula was scared by how close she had come and drove home. Once she told the therapist that, she was locked up.

A week ago Tuesday, she told the therapist about the pills, Paula’s therapist decided that she was really concerned that Paula might commit suicide and requested a psychiatrist (Dr Culver) come talk to her. He has only ever talked to her for a total of about 1/2 hour, but he agreed that she should be “Admitted” (talk about a sanitized was of saying it!). They walked us over to the ward and once we got in there, he immediately committed her. The next day, he had another doctor commit her for a month. Oddly, while every other patient there was handed off to a ward doctor, Paula was not.

I called Laurie-Ann (the social worker) and asked her to visit Paula even though it was not her ward. She stopped by and talked to Paula and introduced her to the ward social worker. She kept visiting Paula and we have an appointment to go see her again. She is really nice and actually understands what people go through with miscarriage.

For the most part, the nurses were really good. They were the only good thing about that place.

The next several days were hell and anxiety. Probably one of the hardest things that we have ever done. I spent as much time there with Paula as I could and our family took the kids on several occasions. We didn’t even have a rough date that she might get released (other than after the doctor got back from vacation in a week or so ), or a plan to help Paula work through things and get out. Through this she was in a “spare overflow bed” and didn’t have a place to put anything and could not even get a pillow, locker, closing curtain or anything else that patients usually get! I eventually brought her pillows from home because they could not find any!

Then we found out that the psychiatrist was going on vacation and some other doctor (Dr Angus) would keep an eye on her until he got back in a week or so. He was quite clear that he expected her to be there when he got back, but heck he doesn’t really even know her anyways.

That weekend, we at least managed to get a 4 hour pass for the butterfly release.

Paula was often pretty scared in ward 22. There were often patients that were threatening, making threats against people and potentially violent. Wednesday night, a patient (300+ lbs big really tough looking guy) started yelling at Paula that she killed Kye. They locked him up in the observation area until Paula left the next day.

Thursday, they finally released Paula. The temp doctor (Dr. Angus) said that if he didn’t release her then, she might be in until at least the next Wednesday… We are so relived to have her home and she is doing a lot better.

Well, OK, she was doing a lot better. That was until CPS got involved.

Friday morning, I got a happy call from her and we chatted. She was doing quite well. Friday afternoon (3:20) I got a frantic call from Paula. Her mom had been over all day, but a few minutes after she left, a guy from Child Protective Services showed up and started interrogating her. When he found out that Kris was there (he didn’t even know that we had two kids), he insisted on talking to Kris alone. I have no idea what powers he officially has but he was pushing Paula around like a cop on a drug bust. He asked Kris a lot of really tough questions that we really didn’t want him to have to deal with (like if he had a plan for what to do if Paula tried to kill him). I drove home as fast as I could (i.e. 125 in a 60-70 zone fast). When I got there, the guy had Kris in the living room, so I asked to talk to him outside. Then he started asking me all sorts of questions about Paula’s mental health. He had bits and pieces, but of course did not understand anything (i.e the wrong number of kids). In the end he told me that he was under the impression that Paula was not allowed to drive or be alone with the kids (he thought that there was a doctor’s order). When I said that there was no order he told me that I had to make sure not to leave her alone with her kids (or drive) until he could check into it (likely not until Wednesday almost a week later because of the long weekend). I still don’t know what powers he has to boss me around… So after spending over a week trying to make her feel better, someone sent this guy and now we are both extremely upset agitated and worried. We now have these people hanging over our heads until Wednesday or whenever he decides to tell me if my wife can be alone with my kids based on his limited knowledge.

Currently, we don’t leave Paula alone with the kids. Not because we don’t trust her, but because we don’t want to tempt the CPS guy. I still don’t even know what power he has and have not been able to get help or answers because he visited us at the end of Friday, and no one is around for the weekend…

Paula’s Mom is going on vacation with Paula’s brother on Wednesday. She feels really bad about it because she wants to stay and help us. Of course I had to tell her to go and have fun…

At this point, I have a lot of pain that was caused by the health system that was supposed to help us. Some of the people have been great. Some have caused us a lot of pain. If I had a choice, I just wouldn’t deal with them, but I know that we need help and I don’t seem to have any other options…

One more comment. A lady at group once commented on how she never sees her husband cry. I wanted to say something but there were two women who wouldn’t let anyone else talk. We cry. It is just that we are trying to support our wives and we try not to do it in front of them to much so that we don’t suck them down too. Lastly, we are just to busy for that… The last time that I tried to just sit and have a cry, my son cut himself doing the dishes and I was at children’s hospital until after midnight…

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