The next morning, after a sleepless night, I got away early to meet Dad and Linda to make all the necessary arrangements. Jamie stayed at home with Henry while Dale was at school, as I didn’t know how long I would be. I said I’d call him later to find out the ICSI results. My head began to throb both with the grief for my mum and my anguish over whether I would get any embryos. I felt like an empty vessel.
Because Mum came from a large Catholic family, we arranged a Mass at St. Patrick’s Church, which was just fifty meters from the funeral parlor where her body rested.
When I later tried to phone Jamie, badly needing to know the ICSI results, he wasn’t in. After a busy morning, I invited Dad and Linda back for a cup of tea and a break from the stress of the day. My dad was deeply stricken by his loss, and I knew that he was going to need our support now more than ever.
There was still no sign of Jamie, but then I noticed that the mantle over the fireplace had been cleared of its usual clock and ornaments to make way for the first eight Thomas trains, all in order. I was initially confused—what on earth was Jamie thinking?—but then it clicked. This was his way of letting me know the outcome of the call from the clinic: each train represented an embryo. Dad and Linda didn’t bat an eyelid, as Dale was always leaving trains around the house in the strangest of places, but I knew it was Jamie.
Shortly afterwards, Jamie arrived back with Henry. “I didn’t want to leave you a note,” he explained, “but I thought you’d understand the significance of the trains.”
Only this news, and Jamie’s way of breaking it, could have made me smile at a time like this.
I was still consumed by thoughts of Mum, but at least there was now a little hope amongst all the pain. The only other pressing issue was how to tell Dale about the loss of his wonderful granny, who had meant the world to him. That night, we were sure Dale could sense something was wrong and Jamie decided to speak to him. We agreed he would have to explain at a level that Dale would understand.
Gathering Dale next to him, he began. “Dale, Granny Madge was very sore. The hospital medicines and Mickey Mouse band-aids did not work because Granny Madge was just too sore.” Dale sat silent and solemn as Jamie continued, “So she has to go away to a nice place in the sky called heaven and we won’t see her anymore. That is why we are all sad, because we loved Granny Madge very much.”
Dale remained solemn, but snuggled into Jamie, who planted a gentle kiss on his head. After a little while, still in silence, Jamie left Dale to reflect, but checked in on him periodically—he was playing quietly with his trains on the floor.
The next day, I decided to take Dale into town with me and involve him in choosing a wreath. I wanted the nicest possible arrangement for my mum, so we went to my favorite florist, which, although expensive, had a big book of designs for Dale to choose from. We flicked through a page at a time, with me not caring what Dale chose or how much it cost—I just wanted him to be fully involved, to help him understand what had happened. Jamie and I had explained to him that Granny Madge would go up to heaven in a special heaven bed and that all her flowers would go with her to make her happy when she got there.
As I turned the pages of the big book, I came across a floral teddy bear; it seemed to intrigue Dale, so I asked, “Dale, would you like to give the teddy flowers to Granny Madge to take to heaven for you?”
I was not expecting his response. “No,” he said, “I’ll give Thomas.” I tried to explain there was no floral train, but he insisted, “No, Thomas, Thomas flowers.”
Realizing how much Thomas meant to Dale and that for him this would be the ultimate tribute to his granny, I asked the florist if there was any way she could do a train like Thomas. Not surprisingly, there wasn’t.
I left the shop to phone Jamie, who agreed that if it would help Dale, then it was worth trying to find what he wanted, and we could always get a separate arrangement from ourselves. So I spent the entire afternoon visiting every florist in Greenock and phoning others, even as far away as Glasgow, but no one could help. I felt really disappointed for Dale because he had seemed so happy at the thought of Thomas flowers for his granny, but there didn’t seem to be much more I could do.
As we made our way back to the car, passing the various shops adjacent to the row of bus stops, we came to a grocery that sold fruit, vegetables, and a few flowers. It was a nice shop, but I never usually used it and the flowers on display were nothing like what I was looking for. Nonetheless, I concluded that there was no harm in asking. In we went, and I explained my predicament to the large, pleasant owner, who announced, “I’ve done guitars and animals before, but never a train.”
In excited disbelief, I suggested, “If I give you a picture, could you do something as near as possible?”
He said he’d do his best, although as he would have to spray some flowers, it would be very time-consuming and therefore costly.
“If you can do this,” I told him, “I will be happy to pay whatever it takes.”
The day before Mum’s funeral, the kind grocer came to the house with the fruit of his labors. True to his word, it was big, but very definitely a Thomas wreath and, at a cost of £120, hopefully for Dale worth every penny. I thanked my savior profusely as he left and then turned back to the wreath. It might not have been what I had planned for Mum, but it was perfect for Dale.
When Dale came home from school, the huge floral train was sitting on the dining table. Dale ran straight to it and jumped up and down with joy. “Thomas flowers,” he cried. “Thomas for Granny Madge.”
We were so relieved to hear this, as Dale was never normally willing to be parted from Thomas, and we had feared he might want to keep the wreath for himself. We explained that we should take Thomas to the place where Granny Madge was in her heaven bed and then she would go on up to heaven in the morning with all her flowers. Dale calmly accepted this, and we prepared to leave.
Jamie carried the wreath to the car as I locked the front door. I turned with Henry and stopped, stunned. As I looked at Dale, I was overcome with silent tears. There he was following Jamie down the path, both of his arms circling just like the train characters in Starlight Express, contentedly chanting in a rhythmic train beat, “Puff, puff…puff, puff. Thomas is taking Granny to heaven. We won’t be seeing her any more. Puff, puff…puff, puff.” He continued until Jamie had safely installed the wreath in the car. Then we set off, Jamie and I quietly touched by what we had witnessed.
I had explained the situation in advance to the staff at the funeral parlor, and when we arrived we took a photograph of Dale sitting with the wreath. Then I told him it was time to give the flowers to Granny Madge, who was in her heaven bed behind the big doors. Jamie took the wreath in and laid it on the floor beside her coffin. After a little nervous hesitation, Dale cautiously popped his head around the door, holding my hand and waving, “Bye, bye, Granny Madge. Thomas will puff, puff with you up to heaven.”
9
The Miracle
The days following Mum’s funeral were tough. The loss of such a wonderful mother and grandmother was unbearable. We particularly worried about how her passing might affect Dale, but looking back, it was as if he reverted to his contented, happy self almost immediately after the handover of the Thomas wreath. Although Dale had lost his Gran, he still had Henry, and without their strong bond at this time, I think Dale would have been lost.
We took Dale up to Granny Madge’s graveside to reassure him that Thomas had indeed taken her to heaven. The uniqueness of the Thomas wreath had obviously touched the gravediggers as they had propped it up with some bulky earth at the head of the grave. All the other beautiful tributes people had brought covered the remainder of Mum’s resting place like a luxury floral blanket.
We told Dale that the graveyard was where the heaven beds were put and later, when it was dark, Granny Madge’s “spirit ghost” would float up to heaven with all the flowers. He understood in a very basic way about people becoming “ghosts” as one of his favorit
e films, Casper, had dealt with death in this manner, though we had to explain that, unlike in the film, spirit ghosts stayed up in heaven forever with all their flowers beside them. Dale seemed passive and accepting, and Jamie and I wondered if he really did understand. But then, as I took his hand and we slowly walked back to the car, I heard his lovely, by now familiar chant: “Bye, bye, Granny. Thomas will puff up with Granny to heaven.” With his free arm, he was again doing his train actions, which he kept up with the chant until we reached the car.
A couple of weeks afterward, I went back to the grave to find that due to the harsh weather it had been totally cleared of flowers. Armed with this knowledge, Jamie and I took Dale back with Henry and explained that, led by Thomas, Granny Madge had now arrived in heaven. Dale just stood quietly, as did Jamie and I, each with our own private thoughts of her.
Dale was by now a well-grounded ten-year-old and was continuing to progress both at school and in his extracurricular activities. Although the major concern remained about his inability to integrate with the mainstream kids at St. Anthony’s, one of the most positive things at this time was his now firmly established friendship with Robert. Our Sundays were totally taken up with his visits, and the two of them spent hours playing with the Sega Genesis. To prevent the boring obsessive factor from taking over, however, Robert fortunately became adept at diverting Dale on to other activities, both inside the house and out in the garden, often playing soccer, which Henry joined in enthusiastically.
With this stability in our lives, although it was only a few weeks since the loss of Mum, I felt it was time to face the reality of my ICSI treatment. At the right time in my cycle, four embryos were thawed, which was in itself a big hurdle to cross because of the risk of the embryos perishing during the process. The hospital informed us, however, that we had two viable embryos and so, with great anticipation and anxiety, we drove up to Glasgow Royal Infirmary for the process of implantation. Once the embryos had been placed in my womb, all we could do apart from being generally sensible was wait fourteen days and see whether Nature now took its course. At the end of that period, I provided the usual sample to the hospital, which was tested as we waited in a side room. When the nurse returned, the news was gently broken to us that the embryos had failed.
This hit me really hard. Because I’d been pregnant before with Dale, I had honestly believed that if I had real embryos inside me, the process would work. I had so desperately wanted it to work, not just for us as a family, but for Mum, who I missed so much. I also wanted to give my grieving dad, George, something to look forward to. Despite knowing that ICSI treatment is a form of emotional and physical hell for so many couples, Jamie and I felt that our personal hell throughout this process was on a scale all of its own—one that we could barely cope with, let alone get anyone else to understand—so much so that we decided that if we had a successful pregnancy and birth, we would donate any remaining embryos to help other couples, and signed a consent form to this effect, although we did have to inform the consultant of Dale’s condition.
We had taken the decision not to tell Dale of our quest for another child through infertility treatment. We felt that if it didn’t work, he might be upset unnecessarily, and, more importantly, if it did work, he would need full preparation for such an enormous change in his life.
Meanwhile, I tried to console myself with the fact that there were four frozen embryos left.
Since 1990, Jamie had been employed at Motorola’s design center in East Kilbride, and his work over the past year or so had necessitated trips to Austin, Texas. In January 1999, he was due to return there for three weeks. Dale was getting used to his father’s absences, and Jamie assisted in this by always spending time with him before he left—for example, making a detailed chart with a drawing of an airplane and a number of squares below it to illustrate how long he would be away. This would let Dale cross off each day so he would understand when his dad was coming home. Each time Jamie returned, it would be like a mini Christmas as Dale was given toys or games that were not available in the UK. Jamie would also bring Robert the same things as a mark of appreciation for everything he had done for Dale. Needless to say, it was no time at all before Robert and Dale were filing requests for games with Jamie well in advance of his next trip.
To keep Dale busy during the weeks that Jamie was away, Granda Jimmy worked on making a large wooden Henry train from scratch. On Jamie’s previous trip, Jimmy had made a Thomas train, but this time Dale wanted to help, and they worked together in Jimmy’s big joinery workshop in the attic of his house. Dale would be involved in any way he could and would update Jamie on the train’s progress each night on the phone. Such was the quality of these trains that to this day Dale has them displayed in his room, together with a picture we managed to capture of Henry the dog lying beside Henry the train.
When the next four embryos were thawed, sadly, again only two were viable. The day that I was due to have these implanted was to fall during Jamie’s forthcoming trip to Texas. We spoke to our friends Lorraine and Brian, and as Brian offered to drive me to the hospital in Glasgow on the day, we resolved that Jamie should go on his trip as planned.
Brian made me feel so relaxed and was very positive about the whole thing. We had several laughs along the way because various members of staff kept thinking he was my husband. One nurse in particular spotted him sitting on his own while I was in the operating room having the embryos implanted and tried to drag him in to be with me. Thankfully, he took the day in stride, even to the extent of using his relaxed and pleasant nature to calm down other anxious men waiting.
The usual two-week wait followed, then the sample and the wait for the final result, which even through familiarity became no less agonizing. I stood in the hospital feeling sick, bracing myself for the inevitable…then the nurses from the Assisted Conception Service came in, one saying cheerfully, “Nuala, sit down, we have good news. Congratulations, you’re pregnant.”
I just couldn’t absorb what the sister had said. My heart pounding out of my chest, I asked her to repeat those words I never thought I’d hear. She duly did, and after thanking her as if she alone were responsible, I wept with joy. The feeling of happiness was indescribable, and I loved every minute that followed that simple conversation.
I was bursting to tell Jamie, but had to wait until that evening when he called from Texas. I proudly announced that while he was 4,000 away, I had got pregnant, with my friend’s husband at the conception! This caused no little hilarity between Lorraine, Brian, and us over the next few weeks.
When I was about eight weeks pregnant, Jamie took me up to the Nuffield for a routine scan. There was nothing routine about it, however, because it clearly revealed that I was carrying twins. After all we’d been through, and still raw from losing Mum, we felt better than if we’d won the lottery—no amount of money could have bought us such happiness.
A couple of weeks later, I started to bleed, not just spotting, but obvious bleeding that was clearly abnormal. While the midwife in me told me that this sometimes happened, I felt the same sense of unease that I had the day Dale was born: deep within me, I suspected this impossibly precious pregnancy was doomed.
Since a thread of hope remained, however, I fought off my distress and spent a whole week trying to stay calm and doing all I could to prevent what seemed inevitable. I followed all the advice and took total bed rest, but nothing stopped the continuous bleeding. When Jamie took me back to the Nuffield for another scan, the nurses and my consultant showed great compassion as the ultrasound probe was placed next to the neck of my womb. I could hardly bring myself to look at the monitor as the consultant searched and searched, but in vain. There were no heartbeats. Only black masses of conceptual contents remained.
Utterly destroyed, I was then told that because of the bleeding and risk of infection arising from the retained products of my pregnancy, I would have to be admitted to the hospital for a minor surgical procedure. To try to bring an end to my
mental turmoil as soon as possible, the consultant arranged a prompt admission to the Glasgow Royal. Yet again I would have to undergo a general anesthetic, only this time with no hope of a baby beyond it.
I will never forget being admitted to the ward for this procedure. Here I was in the same hospital where the embryos had been implanted, desperately wanting to keep them but having to endure the nightmare of having their remains removed. The nursing staff were very supportive, but somehow they also knew to leave me be.
Such was my grief that I never wept once throughout the time I was there; I was just numb. I wanted everything over and done with, and I think my silence spoke volumes about how I was feeling. I’d never experienced grief like this before. The only thing that kept me going was that Jamie was as determined as I was that we shouldn’t give up. The very fact that I had become pregnant at all gave me the strength to carry on.
In April 1999, Jamie started a new job in Livingston, which was a 120-mile round trip. He had no option but to take this post because the office where he had worked in East Kilbride was moving all of its design activities to Texas. We had been offered the chance to go there, too, but had felt that because Dale’s quality of life had now improved so much, such a move would have been devastating for him and may well have set him back years. It just wasn’t worth the risk.
Around this time, I attended a parents’ afternoon at Dale’s unit in St. Anthony’s. I went along feeling encouraged by the fact that Dale was generally progressing well, at school, at home, and in all of his out-of-school activities. When I spoke to his teacher, however, I learned to my horror that Dale’s fate for secondary education now seemed to be sealed. Although the unit had tried to bridge the gap regarding his integration, it was felt he had not reached an acceptable level to cope with mainstream education.
A Friend Like Henry Page 11
