Tragedy
Well I can't for the life of me think of a funny mother-in-law story - I actually really liked mine. Hated my wife, but got on great with her mother.

So in lieu of a funny story I'm cheating and going for the sympathy vote. This qualifies as a MIL story as she was there for most of my own personal tragedy.

I wrote this story 1n 1999 before I got married. In retrospect, a lucky escape - but it didn't feel like it a the time.....

Enjoy....

First Posted Feb 1999

A couple of weeks ago I posted asking advice on wether to attend the
forthcoming birth of my first child. Well, I did, just not the way I
intended. My GF dropped the ball, and my kid, on Sunday night.

~~~~~~~~~~
wavy lines
~~~~~~~~~~

On Saturday night, the GF started complaining of severe lower back
pain. I wasn't too concerned as she'd been complaing about this for the
last couple of weeks and the docs didn't seem concerned. Then she went
to the bog and came back, white-faced, and said there was a little
blood. So I called the docs, got directed to the out-of-hours service,
and eventually got to speak to a doctor who advised us to come into
hospital as soon as possible.


As we live on a farm in the middle of nowhere and I'd had a couple of
bottles of wine so I couldn't drive they sent a car with a paramedic
to pick us up. ( We do this sort of thing in the country. If it's a
serious incident, an ambulance is dispatched, if it's not so serious, a
car is sent for you. As the GF was ambulatory and not bleeding very
much, a car was the quickest option. )

Car arrived and we eventually ended up in the local casualty department
of our hospital. We were seen instantly ( another advantage of living
in the countryside ) and the doc had the GF on the couch with her legs
spread in a flash. The doc ( a female ) stuck this weird metal device
up my SRs snatch and then twisted a few buttons and this clamp-thingy
opened it's jaws so the doc could get a good look. We were told that
there was a very slight bit of spotting, but the cervix was tightly
closed and there probably was nothing to worry about. If it got any
worse or if we were worried in any way, she asked us to call the
hospital straight away and they would bring us back in. So off we went
back home........

Sunday passed without incident. The GFs pain had gone and we had quite
a pleasant day. Sunday evening came and went and we went to bed around
11. And then the fun started.

At around 4am, the GF woke me complaining of very bad pain. I tried
rubbing her back, comforting her but to no avail. She then went to the
bog and came back saying the bleeding had started again, only heavier
this time. I ran downstairs and phoned the out-of-hours service and
waited for a doc to call me back. In the meantime, the GF was having
more and more pain and now had a bathroom towel jammed between her
legs. I checked up on her and said " Fuck this. We're getting an
ambulance." She didn't want me to as she didn't want the neighbours
disturbed ( women are bloody weird! Here she is bleeding to death and
shes worried about waking the neighbours! ) but I went for the phone
and called the emergency service ( 999 in Britain ) and her mother.After about 10
minutes, the ambulance arrive follwed closely by her mother.
Bloody good going considering where we live. The paramedics didn't
seem too concerned at first - I think they
thought we might be over-reacting. Then her eyes went wide and she
said "Oh fuck! It's running down my leg" and there was a flood of blood
darkening the towel. Shit I was scared! I knew that shouting and
screaming would just be counter productive so I just stood there,
crapping myself. - Thats the worst thing about situations like this.
There's absolutely fuck all you can do except keep out of the way and
let the pros do their stuff. My GFs mother had her arm round me and
I was just shaking desperately trying to think of something I could do.
I hate feeling helpless.

After a few minutes, they got her to the ambulance and started an IV.
Then we set off to the nearest big hospital with a Maternity Ward. This
was around 35 miles away. By the time we got there the SR was fairly
well out of the game on gas and air and we were quickly taken to a
private room where the midwives and docs got to work. As they lifted
her onto the bed, there was another gush of blood and she screamed with
the pain. I'd never seen so much blood. And then, before anyone could
do anything, there was another contraction, a flood of bright red, and
my kid was born. At fourteen fucking weeks. Dead as a fucking door-
nail.

Not a lot left to say now. These things happen and I'm just glad that
the GF is OK. She's back home now and we're both recovering. The most
tasteless thing about the whole affair was after we had lost the baby
and the GF was resting, a midwife came in and asked us if we'd like to
*see* the baby and say goodbye to it! For fucks sake!

Legless
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Thu 8 Sep 2005, 10:05, Reply)