Ben Palmer - Fridays Child: The Heartbreaking Story of a Mothers Love and a Familys Loss

Contents

Ben Palmer runs an information technology business from home, where he lives with his six-year-old son Harry and three-year-old daughter Emily. This is his first book.

www.jessicastrust.org.uk

In 2004, Jessica Palmer died suddenly of septicaemia, just six days after giving birth to her second child. Distraught, her husband Ben struggled to comprehend his loss and to care for their two young children. It later came to light that Jessicas condition can usually be easily detected and prevented but in this case nothing was done until it was too late. Ben and his family successfully sued the NHS for negligence in 2007.

This is Bens heartbreaking story of dealing with his grief while raising two small children as a single parent. As he tries to accept the idea of life without his beloved wife, he battles shock, grief, despair and guilt, before finally finding hope in the future, thanks to the love and support of his friends and family. It is a devastating story of living with a cruel and needless loss.

AT 6.26 P.M. Jessica gave birth after a short and uncomplicated delivery and our world was made. The midwife held up 9lb 13oz of baby with dark, matted hair and a roll of fat around its neck, for Jessica to see.

Its a boy! she exclaimed. The midwife and I looked at each other in surprise.

Look again, Jessica, the midwife said.

Its a girl! Its a girl! Jessica laughed. She had so desperately wanted a daughter. It meant so much to her that she had given me a son three years earlier, and she now wanted a baby girl. Both of us would always have been happy with whatever children we were blessed with, but with one of each, we couldnt have wished for better.

The baby was lifted by the midwife onto Jessicas tummy for a first cuddle.

It had started earlier that morning when, already three days past her due date, Jessica had complained of abdominal pains. Id looked at her as though she was mad. So thatll be you in labour, then? I teased her. She insisted that it wasnt, as it didnt feel the same as the early stages of labour with Harry. I shrugged my shoulders and we got on with our respective activities; Jessica with her feet up on the sofa and a copy of Daphne du Mauriers Frenchmans Creek and me working on a website proposal for a client in the first-floor third bedroom used by us both as an office.

A few hours later, Jessica conceded defeat and called Kingston Hospital, still insisting that it didnt compare to her experience with Harry. Predictably, because hospital staff do not want every woman turning up as soon as the contractions become a little bit uncomfortable, she was told to hang on a bit longer and to call back if the contractions became stronger or more frequent.

After an hour Jessica felt she could take no more, and this time she was allowed to come in to hospital. Her mother, Christine, was at home to look after Harry, armed with a sheet of Jessicas instructions. As I drove Jessica to the hospital I felt a knot of excitement inside me.

Once shed been checked in and taken to a delivery suite at about two oclock in the afternoon, Jessica was hooked up to a foetal monitor and we were left alone for half an hour or so to watch television and wait. On her return the midwife examined Jessica and looked at the chart that had been spewing out of the monitor and towards the floor. She started to explain that Jessica was still a long way off and that she should go home. But Jessica let out a cry and begged not to be sent home. Seeing her distress, the midwife agreed to let her stay.

Jessica and I had once spent a happy hour discussing a list of old wives tales wed found on the Internet about how to tell what sex your baby is, marking a score against each one. Foetal heart rate is said to be an indicator as well. On one antenatal visit the babys heart rate was recorded in Jessicas notes and my mother had asked again and again what it was, but we wouldnt let on. She said that if it was over 140 it would be a girl. The heart rate recorded had been 143! On balance the old wives also pointed to a girl, but Jessica never counted her chickens. It was evident to all that, had Baby been a boy, she would have been equally ecstatic. She was always a brilliant mother, the best. Ask her friends. Ask Harry.

Minutes after the delivery Jessica said to me, Now Ive got my perfect family! Then, after a pause, she added, looking at me with her Labrador eyes: Can I stop now? I hugged her. It was such a Percy thing to say. I was so proud of her. We were so happy a wonderful three-year-old son and now a beautiful daughter for Jessica to clothe in pretty dresses and play dolls with. The future looked fantastic. We had everything we had ever wanted. As Laura, my sister, said to me on the telephone later on when I rang from the hospital car park, A designer family. Nothing could go wrong now. We felt we were invincible.

From: Minette Palmer

To: Multiple addresses

Date: 24 June 2004 20:39

Subject: Midsummer baby

Dear All,

Just to let you know that Ben and Jessica had a baby girl this evening, 9lb 13oz, dark hair, no name yet. Mother and babe both very well.

Lots of love,

Minette xxx

Later in the evening, having ensured that both Jessica and our daughter were settled in the maternity ward, I went home exhausted, but over the moon.

From: Ralph Lucas

To: Minette Palmer

Date: 24 June 2004 22:03

Subject: Midsummer baby

Pass on congratulations and sympathy must have been one huge push!

Ralph

ON FRIDAY, 12 February 1993 I was at a loose end.

Im meeting Andrew and Graham in the Hollywood Arms. Why dont you come and join us? asked my cousin, Ed, on the telephone in the early evening.

Ill see you there, I told him.

Little did I know that a quiet drink (inasmuch as any Friday night in the pub was quiet, back in our twenties when carefree weekends meant late nights, lie-ins and breakfast at the greasy-spoon caf) would so dramatically change the course of my life.

Pushing past crowded tables and a two-deep line at the bar, I located Ed and the others at the back of the noisy pub. I pulled up a stool and someone went to get a fresh round of drinks. The evening was a typical Friday night wind-down; we werent particularly talent spotting, as we might sometimes have done.

A couple of rounds into the evening, Andrew started talking about his recent exploit, Saving the Whale, and I had to stifle a yawn. Dont get me wrong its a totally admirable cause, but while he was talking I was thinking about a holiday to Cape Cod, New England when, together with the family friends Id been staying with, I had taken a days boat ride off the coast to watch whales. Aged only twelve, I was fascinated by the experience, watching the whales jump, roll and blow, pointing and laughing with admiration along with my friend Zander and his younger sister (who, like mine, was called Laura). I snapped photos of the whales happily with my simple camera, and only later discovered the disappointment of capturing a whale after it had jumped and was below water again.

I never saw Zander again. We grew up on opposite sides of the pond, and on the one occasion he came to London in early adult life with a college rowing eight, I was out of town. A short while after that he was tragically killed on his way to a fishing expedition when the light aircraft he was a passenger in crashed into the side of a mountain in low cloud.