Key Points
- Heidy Pérez and Robert Yeomans lost their son when Heidy was 31 weeks pregnant.
- The couple want to share their story to help others.
- They turned to creative outlets as a way to process their joint grief.
WARNING: This article and podcast delve into aspects of the death of a baby in pregnancy, stillbirth, and sudden infant death that can be distressing.
Despite still grieving for their son, Colombian Heidy Pérez and her Australian husband, Robert Yeomans, have decided to share their story to help others going through a similar experience.
Ms Pérez’s pregnancy seemed to have been progressing normally until the seventh month when doctors detected very low levels of an essential protein, so she was hospitalised for observation.
After several weeks, Ms Pérez decided to return home as she felt anxious and vulnerable in the hospital, away from her husband and the safety of her home.
A few days later, on 4 September, 2022, little Thiago Sebastian's heart suddenly stopped beating.
Ms Pérez and her husband returned to the hospital for the devastating removal of their unborn baby.
"[Robert] was with me all the way, keeping me company, giving me the medicines, helping me, it was very important," Ms Pérez told SBS Spanish.
"At the hospital, they also gave us some hypnotherapy sessions."
But perhaps the most significant thing for both parents was the several days they spent with Thiago, holding him in their arms, describing their deceased son as being "asleep, but dreaming".
Ms Pérez and Mr Yeomans while she was pregnant.
But she explained that it was important for her and her husband “…to see him, meet him, we could name him and say goodbye as a family".
"The hospital's gesture of letting us be with our baby and share the time together, even offering us the possibility of going out on the street with our baby, was very important for us.”
‘He was born asleep, but dreaming’
The couple said they found ways to cope with the grief of Thiago’s passing.
Mr Yeomans composed a 28-minute musical piece entitled ‘Born Asleep but Dreaming’ as a tribute to their son.
"My husband is a person who doesn't express himself much in words, but, from the first day we got home, without our son, he started playing the piano. In the early mornings, when he couldn't sleep, he played until he found that note that made him express what he was feeling," Ms Pérez said.
Every time he plays I feel like we're honouring our son's life in a very special way and that he's always going to be with us through that melody.Heidy Pérez
For her, crochet became a kind of therapy.
"[That activity] fills my mind with peace and when I thought about my son, I no longer did it with that pain of absence, but with nostalgia to know that he had passed through my life and it had been a very beautiful story and that I wanted to remember it with love," she said.
Talking about tragedy helps with healing
Talking about the death of a baby can involve an incredibly difficult conversation.
But the reality is that many parents want to talk about their babies, because they existed, were wanted and loved and parents need to honour and acknowledge the existence of their babies.
"We realised that we could not let that future that did not come hurt us [forever] so we chose to remember our baby [who was with us] those 31 weeks that we were happy," she said.
"That helped us be in the present, it helped us acknowledge what did happen, and our feelings."
While the death of their little son has left a terrible void in both of their lives, Ms Pérez said they had decided to talk about what happened as part of their healing and acceptance process.
Perinatal death, a tragedy affecting many families in Australia
According to figures from the , each year, around 100,000 families lose their babies due to miscarriage, which can occur before the 20th week of pregnancy.
A further 3,000 families endure the heartbreaking loss of a baby due to fetal or intrauterine death, which occurs in the womb, after the 20th week of gestation or during childbirth.
Another category in which infant deaths are classified is neonatal death, which occurs between the time of the entire delivery of a live baby and a maximum of 28 days after delivery.
Perinatal death includes intrauterine and neonatal death.
and of these deaths, just over 75 per cent were intrauterine deaths (2,273) and just under 25 per cent (731) were neonatal deaths.
The rate of intrauterine deaths in Australia remained between seven and eight deaths per 1,000 births between 2003 and 2020.
However, these devastating losses are often followed by absolute silence from friends, colleagues and even close family relatives.
Adriana Zapata-Delgado, a psychologist at the , an organisation that supports the emotional well-being of future and new parents, said that unfortunately, the death of a baby remained a taboo subject.
In our Western society, we do not yet have the tools or education to know how to handle painful feelings or experiences. So, what we often do is try to hide them or pretend they're not there. That is why so little is said about this topic.Adriana Zapata-Delgado
"However, not speaking further increases the stigma and makes it difficult for people to express themselves," she said.
The lack of a support network intensified grief following a baby’s death.
According to Ms Zapato-Delgado, there are several challenges that can arise following the loss of a baby.
Unlike other deaths where the person lived on for a few months or years, where memories were created and moments were shared, in these fetal cases, that process never happened, she explained.
"It is a duel of dreams, not so much a duel of memories, getting home without the baby," she said.
"Also, the physical recovery after pregnancy, without having the baby, becomes more painful."
The specialist pointed out that this situation was even more difficult for immigrant women, since the lack of family or close friends, as well as limited English language proficiency, could aggravate the process and create barriers that prevented access to information and support services available in Australia to deal with this loss.
Ms Zapata-Delgado affirmed that while it was very difficult, talking about the death of a baby could help in the grieving process.
Creating a space to cope with grief and trauma was critical to accepting absence, as Ms Pérez experienced.
"I, for example, felt very lonely at first and thought that this only happened to me, because it had not happened to anyone in my family, or my friends. But when I spoke, I began to hear of many cases with people telling me, 'I went through the same thing, but I never said anything'," she said.
She said after the death of their unborn son, she and her husband were 'foggy' and had no idea of what to do next.
"My husband's parents were the ones who organised the burial and wake. The hospital gave us some tips on how to apply for the Centrelink subsidy for babies born this way... they were guiding us with different organisations through the social workers at the hospital," Ms Pérez said.
The grave marker for Thiago Sebastian Yeomans. Credit: Supplied
Supporting mothers and fathers who have lost their babies
Ms Zapata-Delgado explained that in the event of a perinatal death, hospitals in Australia now allowed parents to spend time with their baby so that they had a chance to meet and say goodbye.
The therapist said there were also organisations like , which supported couples who had a perinatal death.
"And also organisations like , where people individually or as a couple, can request support," she said.
"For this, they only need a referral from a general practitioner. We are all over Australia and they can also access support through teleconsultations."
(Perinatal Anxiety & Depression Australia) is another group that supports the mental health of parents and families during pregnancy and the first year of paternity.
Ms Zapata-Delgado offered the following tips for coping with perinatal death:
- Listen to your own needs. Take some time to assimilate what is happening and talk about it with your partner, if there is one. In addition, it is important to transmit these needs to caregivers or those closest to them.
- Seek professional help. Either within the hospital itself, with social workers, or by contacting an organisation that offers help to parents to deal with a perinatal death and begin grief therapy.
- Tell your story. It helps to understand and accept it. You can share the story in therapy or in conversations with family or close friends, recounting emotions helps to confirm the existence of that child in the life of the family, to give him or her a place, to name him or her and, little by little, accept what happened.
- Look for something that brings peace. Explore emotions through art or create an intimate space that provides peace and tranquillity.
If you are grieving a perinatal death or know someone who is going through this trauma, or if this story has caused you stress or caused you to relive traumatic memories, you can contact the following organisations for help:
- 1300 851 758
- 1300 11 HOPE (4673)
- (Perinatal Anxiety & Depression Australia) 1300 726 306
- 1300 224 636
- 13 11 14
Listen to Heidy Pérez's full story by pressing the arrow on the play button below the headline of this article.
