After doctors told Abiola Thompson Abraham and her husband, Kerwin Thompson, their five-day-old baby had died, they spent about three hours kissing him and “bonding” with him in a room at the Port-of-Spain General Hospital.
“When he was born, I had only touched him. I had never held him.
“When he died they allowed us to be with him for about three hours. We were holding him, kissing him, bonding with him,” Thompson said.
Kayleb Keanu Alexander Abraham was going to be their first son and second child.
Thompson said she did regular doctor visits during her pregnancy and had no complications and her baby’s death threw her into a state of shock and depression that lasted almost a year. She even planned to commit suicide and only changed her mind when she saw her nine-year-old daughter crying for her.
Thompson said the terrible experience brought her closer to God and she realised His plans were greater than hers. She said she still prayed for another son and trusted she would get him. She is pregnant again and due next month.
Tracing the start of her ordeal, the 30-year-old Toyota employee of San Juan said when her son was born, medical personnel told her he was not breathing properly and they needed to put him in the Neo-natal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).
“They said everything so casually. Just before I gave birth, the nurse told me my baby had passed his first stool inside me.
“I didn’t know at the time this was a deadly thing. She said it so calmly, I did not think it was of any great concern.
“I later learned the right thing to do was perform emergency surgery on me since my baby could have inhaled the stool through his nose and into his lungs.
“Instead, after he was born they kept him five days in the NICU, giving him antibiotics and medication and trying to flush out his lungs.
“They even called us during that time and asked us to bring a Viagra pill to make a mixture for him to get his heart rate going again.
“Five days after, on a Thursday, the hospital called while we were having breakfast and said our son had stopped breathing.
“When we got there they resuscitated him but he gave his last breath at 11.30 am that day.”
Describing her emotions while spending time with her dead baby, Thompson said: “It wasn’t real. I could not talk for two days after.” She said she wrote a suicide note for her daughter a few months after telling her she will always love her. “I felt God had let me down. Counselling was not helping.
“I was waiting to commit suicide on a day when my daughter was not at home and during the waiting period she saw me crying and said, ‘Mummy don’t cry’ and started crying too.
“I could not do it again because I could not bear the thought of her crying for me after I was gone.
“That was the moment I began to heal. My husband and I got baptised and started really listening to God’s Word. Before, we were neither here nor there. I accepted there is a greater plan for me than mine.”
Thompson pressed on in faith, confident a son would be returned to her.
“One week before my son’s birthday, I found out I was pregnant.”
Her joy returned, she said. “We still had everything we had prepared for our first son. I was going to give away his baby clothes but my girlfriend, Suzette, pleaded with me not to.
“She even offered to buy storage containers to keep his things at her home. I’m glad I listened to her. We don’t have to buy anything for the new baby.”
Thompson said she would be having her baby at the St Augustine Private Hospital this time. And she will never forget her first son, she said “For his birthday on November 6 every year we distribute lunches to the homeless in Woodford Square.
“As difficult as it is, we are giving back in our own way,” she added.