Coping with grief after losing a baby

It has been tough for Kekimuri to recover from the misfortune. She has chosen to rise above the pain by encouraging other women to learn to move on . Photo by Esther oluka

Denise Kekimuri Ngesa was a student at United States International University Africa, popularly known as USIU Africa, a learning institution in Kenya, when she met Hosea Ngesa.

The two first met in 2007, became friends and eventually started dating. By the time Denise was graduating in August 2009, she was heavily pregnant.

Denise returned to Uganda and when her parents learnt about her pregnancy, they were not impressed that their daughter was having a child before marriage.

In November 2009, Denise finally had her baby, a girl, through Caesarean (c) section at Mulago hospital. The couple named her Keilah Keishemaza.

Denise moved to Nairobi, Kenya to join her husband in order to raise Keilah as a couple.
In 2013, Denise was forced to move back to Uganda to help look after her sick mother. Sadly, she passed on in 2014. Hosea, then, travelled to Uganda from Nairobi to be by his wife’s side to comfort her.

“Hosea must have felt how vulnerable I was at this time and I think that’s why he went ahead to propose marriage,” Denise says. The couple eventually married in 2015. Hosea also made the decision to stay in Uganda.

The first loss
In February 2017, Denise discovered that she was expecting her second child.
“My husband even got a name for our unborn child. He called him James,” Denise says.

She went for antennal visits during her pregnancy and during one particular visit, an ultra sound scan was conducted to investigate the baby’s growth.

“On that day quite well, the sonographer (a specialist) who conducts ultrasound scans kept asking me whether I was feeling movements in my abdomen and few moments later, he referred me to the doctor who would inteprete the results for me”, she recounts
The doctor told Denise, “The pregnancy is not viable. There is no heartbeat. The baby is dead, therefore, an evacuation has to be done. It has to be removed immediately.”

The doctor’s remarks broke Denise’s heart into a million little pieces. Immediately, she rushed out of the clinic to join her older sister who was waiting for her at the parking lot. Her sister drove her back home.

The second opinion
Upon her arrival back home, Denise burst into tears. Her husband who had anxiously waited for her got concerned and asked her what was wrong. She confirmed the information from the clinic about the pregnancy. As Hosea comforted his wife, he suggested the idea of seeking a second opinion from another doctor.

Denise linked up with another doctor whom she terms as very warm and receptive. He recommended for another ultrasound to be done by a sonographer working at his facility. “He also failed to trace the baby’s heartbeat,” she says. The doctor later confirmed the same results. Rather than doing an evacuation, a medical procedure which involves removal of fetal tissue using surgical instruments, the specialist recommended an alternative. “He prescribed for me a certain pill to swallow in the night that would easily remove the fetus. Later, a scan would be done to check for any left-over fetal tissue. In case any traces were found, my womb would then be cleaned,” Denise says.

Denise went back home with deep thoughts about what had just happened in her life.
Suddenly, she felt a huge wet mass between her legs. When she stood up, she realised it was blood and immediately rushed to one of the nearby toilets.

“I sat on the toilet as chunks of blood flowed out of my body,” she says. Hosea called the doctor and explained what was happening to his wife. The doctor advised Denise to swallow the pill.

“I sat in that toilet, literally, from 6pm to midnight and during that whole time, chunks…and chunks…and chunks of blood kept coming out of my private parts,” she says. The couple lost the baby at seven weeks and four days, in March 2017.

Second loss
In May 2017, Denise discovered that she was pregnant. Reminiscing on what happened to her during the previous pregnancy, Denise says, “I lived in fear, worry, and, dreaded antennal check-ups. I started calling the doctor frequently updating him of the progress of my pregnancy.

Her husband who had failed to get a professional job in Uganda decided to travel back to Kenya. “It was a mutual decision we arrived at after realising that another child was coming into the picture yet, we all had no steady source of income,” she says.

The defining moment of the pregnancy happened on Christmas day in 2017 when Denise was about eight months pregnant. Her water broke, an indication most times portraying labor in women after the rupture of the amniotic sac.

She called her doctor who advised her to rush to hospital. A sonographer did an ultrasound scan which showed the baby was actually fine, despite Denise’s water breaking. But because the pregnancy was still at eight months, Denise was admitted and monitored at the hospital. And d uring this period of time, her doctor was administering steroids to enable the baby’s lungs open up quickly.

On December 28, 2017, Denise delivered a baby girl via Caesarean section. They named her Keitangaza. Following the surgery, a tubal ligation, was also performed on Denise. This procedure involves having a woman’s fallopian tubes tied, cut or blocked to prevent another pregnancy.

“The decision to have my tubes tied was arrived at as a couple. My husband and I agreed to it after realising that the older a woman gets, the harder it becomes for her to conceive and even when she get pregnant, complications may arise for both her and the baby,” the now 23 year old woman says.

Denise had the surgery at about noon, but, as the day progressed and the baby was not being brought to her, she started noticing became suspicious. “It was now 4pm and I had not yet seen my baby. Everyone I would send to go get my baby took eternity to get back,” she says.

The doctor finally came to her room and broke the news to Denise, saying, “It is a pity, your baby girl did not make it. She was born with only one lung”. Denise, demanded to see her baby.

‘Wrapped in a beautiful baby shawl, my baby was brought to me in my room. I looked at her beautiful face, closed eyes, and I immediately began to imagine that my little girl was only sleeping and not dead. I kept telling her to wake up, but, she did not,” Denise says.

Since there were other family members in the room, Denise proposed the idea of them immediately embarking on prayer so that God could raise her little girl from the dead. They all looked on with sympathy.

Keilah’s agony
When her eldest daughter, Keilah, came to see Denise, the little girl demanded to see her sibling. When Denise broke the sad news to Keilah, she painfully recalls her young daughter mentioning, “Why doesn’t God want me to have a big sister?” Her daughter’s words hurt.

“I broke down and just did not know what to tell Keilah. We were all in pain following the loss,” she says.
Right after the hospital visit, Keilah was taken to stay with another family member.
Keitangaza was buried on January 1, 2018 in Kiwanga, Namanve a suburb located in the outskirts of Kampala.

Coping after the loss
Denise went to stay with her elder sister. Denise’s husband was only able to stay for a short time since he had to return to Nairobi to work. He comes back to Uganda, from time to time to check on his family.

“The grieving period was a really difficult time for me. How do other women cope in such times?” she asks.
There were moments Denise did not even want to get out of bed or even look forward to another day. So, how did she manage to during this tough time?

“I started writing down a journal of what I was going through and in some way, I started coming to terms with what had happened and slowly began healing,” she says. On some occasions , Denise says she took glasses of wine, as a way of helping her forget the pain.
She also went on to form a group, Vessel is Me, which brings together women who have suffered neonatal loss. “We meet, sit and talk about our different experiences and thereafter, support and encourage one another,” she says.

According to Denise, the group has been a source of comfort particularly in knowing that she is not alone.
Also, she found therapy in writing a book reflecting on her ordeal titled So, what next? She believes the book will enable other women relate to her experience on neonatal loss.

To other women who have experienced neonatal loss
Denise says: “You are not alone. You will get through the ordeal, don’t blame yourself, you will get through it. If you can, try, and find women who have undergone a similar ordeal. Connect with them. By doing this, you will find out that you are not alone and that there are other women who have also experienced neonatal loss. Surrounding yourself with such women also helps you cope with the loss, easily.”