When she started the ultrasound, my heart sank. In less than five minutes I had gone from being excited to find out whether we would be meeting our baby sooner than his due date to "I'm sorry, there's no heartbeat."
Jessica - Dominic's mum
We were not planning to fall pregnant at the time as we were 3 months from our wedding, although when those two lines came up, I was over the moon. My husband and I had experienced a perfectly healthy, textbook pregnancy. We had a gender reveal at our wedding to find out that we were expecting a bouncing baby boy, who we had decided to name Dominic Jameson George. I had a few small maternal health issues in my third trimester, but my son was still perfectly healthy. At 34 weeks, I fainted at home to be rushed to hospital in threatened pre-term labour. I had asked my doctors to swab me for GBS as I felt there was something seriously wrong as I didn’t think a mother fainted for no reason.
They denied my request.
Thirteen days later, my husband took me to what ended up being our last routine check-up. We were scheduled as one of the first appointments of the day but made to wait for over two hours to see the doctor. They did my stomach measurements and as normal, Bub was measuring over two weeks ahead of his due date, although when it came to the doppler the doctor was unable to find my baby's heartbeat.
That was when I started to panic.
She then put the doppler down and said that she was going to get the portable ultrasound to check to make sure baby was okay. When she started the ultrasound, my heart sank. In less than five minutes I had gone from being excited to find out whether we would be meeting our baby sooner than his due date to "I'm sorry, there's no heartbeat." I was immediately admitted to the labour and delivery floor and the doctors started the induction process.
In the early hours of March 6th, 2022, my son Dominic was born still, but perfect.
My family and my husband's parents were with us in the hospital to meet and farewell our baby. We had decided to go ahead with a full autopsy to determine our little man's cause of death. In less than a month, we had our answer. Our son had passed away from severe GBS and E. coli infection in his internal organs, which had made it impossible for him to breathe and stopped his heart.
Following the loss of Dominic, I have made every effort to keep his memory alive by creating an online business in his memory as well as making plans to expand and welcome further studies to help parents like myself and my husband as well as parents who are expecting after loss.
My husband and I have grown closer since losing our firstborn and the love we have for him extends to the ends of the earth. He is always in our hearts and his memory will live on always in the hearts of our families.
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