Our email about Cameron
For those of you whom we haven’t been able to get in touch with via SMS, we have some really sad news about our little boy Cameron.
He was due to be born on the 11th Sep, but we weren’t experiencing any signs that he was about to come out. We were booked in to see our obstetrician on Monday 17th to induce him if necessary.
However, sometime on Saturday afternoon he died.
He’d been moving in the morning, as usual, but in the evening we realised that he hadn’t moved for a few hours. We went to the hospital to check for a heartbeat, hoping that he’d just been asleep for a long time, but there was no heartbeat. An ultrasound confirmed that his heart had stopped and no blood was pumping through the umbilical cord.
Our parents came round to the hospital to grieve with us on Saturday night, then we went home and stayed awake almost all night. Crying. Disbelieving. Grieving. Remembering.
On Sunday morning Rhonda was induced and Cameron was born at 2pm. He was a big boy, 4.4kg and 57cm long. He was beautiful, and we’re not just saying that, he really was.
Our parents and siblings came round to the hospital and we all got to hold him and took hundreds of photos.
After everyone else had left, the three of us – Rick, Ronnie and Cameron – spent a few hours alone together. We held him, talked to him and sang to him and then finally at about 9pm, we said goodbye to him before they took him away…
We stayed at hospital on Sunday night and came home Monday afternoon, without Cameron but with all our memories of him – not just of those hours we spent together but of the last 9 months when he was active and kicking Ronnie constantly from inside her womb.
Rhonda was amazing. She was so tired on Sunday that she was falling asleep between contractions. She has been incredibly tough and brave. I’m so proud of my wife, for both how she was during pregnancy and how she has coped with the last few days. Despite the circumstances she has kept it together, even waving hello to the anesthetist as he came in to give her an epidural – which didn’t work. My wife is amazing.
We’re extremely sad and devastated, but we know we have an amazing support network of family and friends who love and care for us very much. Thank you all for your SMSes, calls and emails. They make a big difference, we are reading them all.
We don’t quite understand why God has decided to take him away so soon, but we do trust that He is in absolute control of all things and that Cameron is in a far better place with God in heaven. Of course, this doesn’t make our pain any less, but knowing that he is in God’s hands will help us to get through the hours, weeks, months and years ahead. We look forward to meeting him in heaven.
We’ll hold a funeral service for our immediate family this week, and will aim for a memorial service this coming Saturday all our relatives and friends. We’ll send out another email once we’ve been able to work out the details of this.
Cameron Angus Mason will always be our first son whom we love very dearly.
Love,
Rick and Ronnie