Baby Kiera lived for only five hours, but her legacy will last ‘forever’

Kiera was taken away to receive oxygen, accompanied by her dad. For a while, both parents felt they had no reason to be worried. Some babies just need a bit more help, they were assured.

“At no point did we think she’s going to die that day. We just thought she needed a bit more time,” Victoria says.

The chances of it happening are so rare that it took me a long time to stop asking ‘why us?’.

Danny spent the next few hours going back and forth between his wife and his daughter, and every time he saw Kiera, the situation was escalating.

“To the point where I went back for a final time and I was turned away at the door,” he says. “I could see in their eyes something was wrong. [Later] I found out they were trying to resuscitate her.”

Victoria says she felt pure shock and disbelief as she and Danny were brought to see Kiera. The mother had last seen her baby girl in the birthing suite and now she was rapidly deteriorating.

“We just did not understand how … this could have happened,” she says. “There were tubes everywhere and they were giving her CPR. They let us hold her hand and talk to her.”

Kiera couldn’t be saved. An autopsy determined she was highly infected with Group B Strep, a bacteria about one in five women carry around the time of birth and can be treated with antibiotics. Without treatment, one in 200 babies develop a severe infection.

The news stunned Kiera’s parents. Victoria had been swabbed at 36 weeks gestation, five weeks before birth, and tested negative. She later learnt the bacteria can come and go and the postmortem suggested Kiera became infected in utero.

“The chances of it happening are so rare that it took me a long time to stop asking ‘why us?’,” she says. “We had the car seat, we had everything set up, it just seemed so wrong.”

As Thursday, October 15, marks Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day, it’s estimated one in five confirmed pregnancies end in miscarriage and one in 120 births result in stillbirth or newborn death.

Kiera was given a cold cot at the Mater Hospital so that her parents could be with her until the funeral a week later.

The hospital garden where Victoria and Danny spent time with Kiera after her death. Here pictured before the upgrades.

She and Danny spent those days cuddling their daughter, taking photos and sitting with her in a garden of the hospital.

“We wanted to take her outside so she could feel the sun on her face,” Victoria says.

While they have left the depths of their initial devastation, Victoria says she and Danny are now in a phase of “surviving”, avoiding big groups of people or cafes where someone might have seen her pregnant.

Losing their baby during COVID-19 has prevented them from accessing their chief support network because their families are in Canada and Ireland. Both of their parents were unable to visit as planned post-birth.

“It’s definitely compounded things… and it wasn’t just our loss, it was our parents’ loss as well and siblings, who lost their [first] granddaughter and niece,” Danny says.

Victoria and Danny on their wedding day in October 2016.

And, he adds, there was the “eeriness of a funeral that only five people were at”. “It was heartbreaking,” he says.

Danny says their big hope is that they can now turn the tragedy into something meaningful by giving their daughter a legacy, helping others feel less alone and fundraising. They recently launched a website called Kiera’s Contribution.

They previously raised $33,000 and in June donated part of the funds for research into Group B Strep infection and screening.

They also paid to upgrade the hospital garden where they spent many hours with Kiera. It’s here they will have a ceremony on October 15 with other bereaved parents.

This year, six of Australia’s pregnancy and infant loss charities – including Sands and Red Nose – have collaborated for the first time for an initiative called Lullabies and Loss and will on Thursday release a “virtual quilt” video that weaves together messages from grieving families.

“This quilt shows these children remain with us for life,” says Jackie Mead, chief executive of Sands.

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Mead says the isolation of the pandemic has exacerbated the grief and loneliness felt following the loss of a baby, and she encourages people to reach out to bereaved loved ones.

She says Sands’ support services are seeing families contact them much earlier in their journey, while some who lost a child a while ago are being “retriggered”.

When Victoria and Danny remember Kiera, they choose to remember all the fun things they did together during pregnancy.

“It’s not just those five hours after she was born, and not just those few days in hospital after. It was actually from the moment we found out we were pregnant,” Victoria says.

They keep photos of Kiera around the house, have tattoos with her ashes mixed into the ink and keep a yellow orchid for her.

Victoria says they’re devoted to keeping their girl present: “She will be part of our family forever and when we have future children, they will know about her.”

To view the Lullabies and Loss virtual quilt on October 15, visit lullabiesandloss.org.au. Find Kiera’s Contribution at kierascontribution.com.

Sands’ 24/7 national helpline is on 1300 072 637 or visit sands.org.au.

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Sophie is Deputy Lifestyle Editor for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald.