'Both beautiful and heartbreaking': Cork family seek to fundraise for charity that ed them through daughter's stillbirth

A BRAVE mum described the moment she held her stillborn baby against her chest as “both beautiful and heartbreaking” in an emotional of infant loss she hopes will help other families.

It comes as Noelle Murphy from Tivoli prepares for the Run for Rosie fundraiser that she has organised to give back to the charity that helped her through that excruciatingly difficult time.

Féileacáin — The Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Association of Ireland is an initiative that provides hospitals around Ireland with remembrance gifts for bereaved families. The organisation gifted the Murphy family two teddies that were exchanged between Noelle and her baby girl before the family said their final goodbyes. It also provided them with clay imprints of Rosie’s hands and feet and a remembrance candle, among several other items.

The virtual 5km Run for Rosie challenge can be completed on any date from March 19 to March 25, the lead up to Rosie’s birthday.

Noelle explained why she wants to keep Rosie’s memory alive almost a year on from the tragedy.

“Rosie was born on Friday, March 26, at 31 weeks,” Noelle said.

“We found out the Wednesday before that her heart had stopped beating. I seeing the doctor’s eyes change as he looked at the screen. That was the moment he realised what he was going to have to tell me.

“I was shaking so much after leaving the hospital that [her husband] Colin had to put his jacket around me.

'FEAR OF THE UNKNOWN'

“We had to come home for a couple of days before going back into hospital for the labour. During those days, all I could do was wonder how I would give birth to a baby who had died. It was the strongest fear of the unknown I have ever experienced in my whole life.

“We went into the hospital on Friday and Rosie arrived on the Friday night. At that time, we never realised what was in front of us. The grief that hits you is massive. Myself and Colin have only ever lost grandparents so there was really no grief we could compare it to.”

Noelle recalled holding baby Rosie for the first time.

“It was both beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time. There is nothing like that feeling of your baby being put on your chest. At the same time it was strange because I kept expecting Rosie to take a breath.”

The tragedy came out of the blue for the family.

“I had been at a normal check-up when we were sent for the scan but I still never suspected anything. In every scan before that, she had been so active and there were the usual jokes about how she couldn’t keep still.”

Noelle spoke of the overwhelming show of she and Colin received.

“Everybody talks about how Covid affected people but CUMH [Cork University Maternity Hospital] couldn’t have been better and Colin never had to leave my side for the entire hospital stay. Our bereavement nurse was amazing. We got to bring Rosie home for a night to meet her big brother Phoenix.

“Féileacáin, along with a few other charities, really helped us. They gave us memory boxes full of little things that we would never have thought of as we were so all over the place. They made clay imprints of her hand and footprints and delivered them framed to our door a couple of days later. We received two little teddies. One is with Rosie and the other one sleeps between my neck and shoulder every single night.”

The family did everything they could to keep going.

“On the days when Colin was strong and I was feeling weak, I leaned on him. On the days when I was strong and he was weak, he leaned on me, but we always respected the differences in our grieving processes.

“I feel like I could take on any challenge now because we’ve been through the worst thing you could ever imagine.”

Noelle said that prior to the labour, they desperately hoped the doctors had made a mistake.

“Even before I went into labour we said that if something happens and it all turned out to be a massive mistake then we wouldn’t blame anyone. We would just quietly say, “Thank you for our healthy baby.’

“Up until the last second there was a part of us that wondered if everything would be okay.”

The family is determined to celebrate Rosie’s first birthday like parents would any other child.

“We knew we wanted to do something for Rosie’s first birthday. However, we weren’t really sure what that was going to be.

"We don’t want to celebrate an anniversary because for us this is a first birthday. I’m sad and teary because of all the love for Rosie.

“We are very aware that we need to be able to grieve properly and not have that grief come back as something else later in life. There are days when you don’t want to get out of bed but we still have a little boy who needs so much from us.”

Noelle says she tries to keep Rosie’s memory alive in any way she can.

“Rosie’s teddy came with us on a visit to Santa and will be ing us on every family outing we have from now on.”

• To for the Run for Rosie event log on to popupraces.ie
• Anyone unable to take part in the fun run who would still like to donate can so so here.