My partner, Spirit, had a straightforward pregnancy. I naively believed we were young and healthy, so everything would be fine. The night Spirit went into labour, we stayed at home for a period of time before heading to the hospital in Canmore. After checking us in, our nurse attached a monitor for our baby’s heart rate. Immediately we began to notice significant drops.
Everything happened very quickly from there. Before we knew it, Spirit was in surgery for an emergency c-section. Spirit’s mother had arrived by this point, but no one was permitted in the operating room. When I was finally allowed to enter, there were doctors and nurses everywhere and both my partner and daughter were not moving—Spirit because she was under anesthesia, and Cove because she was born not breathing.
They got Cove breathing and were continuing to help her breathe when I arrived, but she was still, eyes closed. I felt helpless and confused. No one was telling us much at this point and the nurses were trying to keep things positive, which confused me even more. Spirit came to, and I got to tell her we had a daughter. She was ecstatic but still groggy.
A team arrived from Calgary to transport Cove to the NICU. I overheard someone say that she had to be moved by ground ambulance because the STARS air ambulance helicopter could not fly due to bad weather. That was the point that I knew things were much worse than anyone was telling us. Spirit could not leave the hospital in Canmore because of her surgery, so the transport team managed to move Cove into her arms once before they left. I will never forget how happy she was in that moment.
I left for Calgary right away to follow them. I fell asleep in the NICU waiting room because I beat the ambulance there. I was awoken by a doctor telling me my daughter had made it to the NICU and I should follow him to another room. It was there that he would deliver the worst news of my life, that no father ever wants to hear: there was a very good chance that Cove was not going to make it.
Once I had calmed down, he showed me into the NICU where I could be with Cove as she lay still. I began to call family members and they began to arrive, including my immediate family from Australia in the days to follow. Spirit was eventually moved from Canmore to Calgary.
The doctors explained in detail that there was a knot in the umbilical cord. When Spirit went into labour, the knot became restricted and Cove went without oxygen for too long. In the NICU, the healthcare team, along with machines, would keep Cove alive while we spent time with her between tests. The nurses managed to move Cove into our arms, juggling the wires and tubes around us, another of the happier memories.
One of the final tests performed on Cove was a brain scan, which devastatingly showed almost no activity. It was after this test that Spirit and I made the heart-breaking decision to take Cove off life support. The three of us stayed together until her final moments. Rest in peace, my love.
Waiting on Sunrise 