On October 15, for World Perinatal Mourning Day, Virginie agreed to share the painful story of her second pregnancy, and the lifeless birth of her little Hugo, in 2022.
It should have been one of the happiest days of their lives, but it was one of the most tragic. Every year in France, around 8 births per 1,000 take place in silence. A little more than 6,000 children are born without life. And 1,400 die in their first week of life. A tragedy for families, which they will never stop carrying.
Every October 15, World Perinatal Bereavement Day seeks to break the societal taboo that still weighs on the loss of an infant. In 2022, Virginie and her partner lost their little Hugo, after 6 months of pregnancy, and the difficult choice of an IMG (Medical Termination of Pregnancy). She shares their story.
For Virginie and her partner, it all starts in spring. “I got pregnant in May 2022” remembers this 34-year-old caregiver. “We learn it, we are so happy that we quickly tell the children.” Virginie already has a 7-year-old daughter, her partner a 4-year-old boy. “My daughter, it was her dream to be a big sister.”
The first trimester is progressing normally. For the first ultrasound, the “T1”, the children accompany Virginie and Émilien to the Beaune hospital center (Côte-d’Or). “In the waiting room, my partner asks me if I’m okay, and I say ‘I don’t know’” remembers Virginie. “Something was bothering me, I wasn’t calm”
During the exam, everything starts well. “We hear the sounds of the heart, we see a well-drawn baby on the screen, we are happy” she remembers. Her daughter can even, at her request, listen to the heart a second time. “And then the gynecologist said to me ‘can your children stay alone in the next room?’ “.
I immediately understood that this child was going to have big problems
Virginie, victim of perinatal bereavement
Once the children are out, for the couple, it is the beginning of a long nightmare. “He tells me, ‘I’m not hiding from you, I see something that’s not normal’” reports Virginie. The baby’s bladder is very large. “For security purposes”, the gynecologist prescribes additional examinations. Virginie cries. “My companion remains hopeful.”
You have to change hospitals, go to Dijon University Hospital, for a biopsy of the trophoblast, the future placenta.. “I am given anesthesia to do the biopsy, and the baby moves, he places his cord where we need to prick” says Virginie.
Impossible to carry out the examination, you have to wait, and come back two weeks later for an amniocentesis, an analysis of the amniotic fluid. “It’s stressful”. An ultrasound guides the actions of caregivers: “I am told that, indeed, the bladder has increased again in size”.
Then, once again, you have to wait several weeks for the results. “I am told that there is no genetic malformation, but that his bladder is much too big, and that in fact he does not urinate” says Virginie. “They tell us, ‘What do we do?’ “. The couple is taken aback by the doctor’s question. “What do we do… Well, we don’t know? We don’t know” reports Virginie. The silence continues, she understands: “I’m a caregiver, there are terms I know.”
“I say ‘are you telling me I’m going to have to undergo an IMG?’she remembersI am told: ‘I’m not telling you to do it, but indeed, if the request is made, it will be accepted’.” Medical termination of pregnancy, the term is released, Virginie collapses. “My world fell apart.”
I knew there was no hope, but there it was sure, it was said
Virginie, victim of perinatal bereavement
Unable to decide there, in a few minutes, they ask for a delay. The couple has one week to choose, before the next appointment. “It was too painful” Virginia breathes.
My heart’s decision was to keep him, but I told myself it was going to be difficult for him
Virginie, victim of perinatal bereavement
On the internet, she discovers that an operation is possible. At the meeting, she asks “Why didn’t anyone talk to me about it? They told me ‘it won’t be with us, it will be in Necker’.” Clinging to this glimmer of hope, at the end of August, Virginie and Émilien went to Paris.
“There, we saw a very nice doctor, very explicit” describes Virginie. The couple finally learns more about the pathology affecting their child. “He told us that our baby would come to term without any problem, because in the womb it was fine, but that at birth it would be complicated” she explains.
Unsolicited, the little one’s kidneys have not developed, they will never function. “We would have had to transplant him, but for that we have to wait until he reaches a certain weight, and kidney transplants are every 10 years” she lists. A life of operations, dialysis, and transplants takes shape. New shock for the couple. “We realize that we are entering into a very, very complicated process” confides Virginie.
We think, we think… one day, we keep, one day, we stop. In fact, we don’t really know, and we see time passing
Virginie, victim of perinatal bereavement
After weeks of overwhelming dilemma, both parents decide : “a life of suffering is not possible”. They ask the nursing staff for an IMG. “I see myself signing again, saying to myself, ‘you are signing your child’s death warrant’, remembers Virginie. But I know that if I did it, it wasn’t love. I freed him from all that. He would have suffered enormously.”
I preferred to take on this suffering rather than leave it to him and have my happiness.
The appointment is made. “It was October 28.” Virginie is six months pregnant. “I arrived in the parking lot, I was crying, because I knew that there were three of us arriving but that there would be two of us leaving.” “We’re going back anyway, we have no choice” she says.
A long wait begins. “They give me medicine, they don’t necessarily explain it to me.” Virginie is in a daze. A doctor arrives, he must administer products that will stop the baby’s heart. She does not see the manipulation, which is done behind a surgical field. “They tell us, ‘that’s it, it’s done’. And there, we know that we are bringing death” lets go of Virginie.
Her labor is triggered. Here again, fate persists. His epidural comes off, we give him morphine for the pain. “I was completely drugged, I was no longer connected” she describes. “My birth was stolen from me, I don’t remember anything anymore.” After the birth, Hugo is taken away, “make radios”.
To this already traumatic day, a particularly shocking memory will be added. After a few minutes“the door opened, the baby arrived, we put him in a cradle” explains Virginie. “I opened my eyes, and my partner said ‘he’s alive?!’ “. For a second, Hugo’s dad, stunned, wondered if he had seen him move. “But no”.
Hugo’s bladder, which never emptied, has, over the weeks, deformed his torso. “It was full of water… The cover was moving” Virginia breathes. The couple is devastated, in shock. “We were not offered to carry him, to bring him gently…”, regrets the mother.
Victim of septicemia, Virginie stays in the hospital longer than expected. After a few days, a nurse suggests a new meeting with their child, whose body has not yet gone for an autopsy. “At the same time, I was so happy to see him, and so sad to see him lifeless” she explains. “But when I was with him, I was good”the couple can take a few photos, say goodbye.
Hugo was buried a few days later, “next to our house, at the cemetery”.
Today, the first anniversary of Hugo’s birth is approaching. Virginie would like to mark this date: “I can’t pretend he’s not here.” “When I wake up, I always think of my son” says Virginie. “There, he would have been almost a year old, he would surely have stood up to the bars of his playpen…” she adds.
In their house, photos of Hugo“with his hands, with his feet”stuffed animals that were intended for him, keep his memory alive.
“I’m really dreading the last one year, because everyone has forgotten, except us” the bereaved mother chokes. “People were there at the beginning, but for parents, it’s a daily struggle, I think until the end of our lives.”
We talk about our daughter, our son, cousins, companions, but he never, never, ever thinks of him
For a year, Virginie, her partner and their children have been living with this grief. The whole family received psychological monitoring. “The children have resumed their lives, with their innocence”, even if Hugo’s disappearance will always be part of their story. “The four-year-old reports Virginie, every day, he will tell us ‘baby Hugo, he’s my brother, but he’s buried’. It’s hard”.
After her maternity leave, Virginie was unable to return to work permanently: “I’m not the same person as before” admits the caregiver. She denounces “judgments”, against this choice of IMG, and violent reflections, faced with the extent of his sentence : “but you didn’t know him“, “it is better at six months pregnant than when he would have been two months”, “now, stop, you stop and you get back to your life”. “Let me live my pain without judgment” she asks.
She now fears these moments in everyday life, trivial for many, when people risk asking her how many children she has: “I say ‘two’. People ask me how old they are, I say, ‘Léa is 7 years old and Hugo is deceased’ she says. “And a lot of times, they turn away and stop the conversation, or that’s where these lines come out.”
Bereaved mother, Virginie wanted to share her story: “raising awareness is important, because it happens and it destroys families”. “If more people were aware, we would perhaps have fewer inappropriate thoughts”she adds. “We are very unhappy, but if you don’t help us, we won’t be able to move forward.”
For Virginie, the road to mourning is still long. Perhaps, one day, a new child will arrive in their lives. This is what she hopes, knowing that Hugo will never leave her.