Shortly before 12 o’clock at night, my wife died in my arms. A few hours later died also our newborn son in my arms. It was the night of Dec. 22 – two days before Christmas Eve.

I will never be able to forget it.

I sat and wrote on my blog. It was about how to say Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to lot of languages ​​.

It would take almost a year before I was reminded of what I actually wrote that night.

I sat on the edge of my bed and wrote in my notebook in front of me that I had on a small wooden table that could fold up.

Then suddenly, my heavily pregnant wife Marie entered the room. The time was now approaching midnight. The baby that she was carrying in her stomach had been estimated to come on December 22 – two days before Christmas Eve.

When Marie comes into the room so she says to me:

– Christer …

It’s the last thing she says. She crouches a little and I ask:

– Is it time for BB? and I start looking in my head for the phone to BB.But since my wife crouching forward, I go up to her and helps her to lie down in our bed in the foot. I figured I would then go to the hall and call the BB, but I did not get far because my plans were quickly over. You should know that what is now happening, is happening very quickly.

My wife was constantly in her pregnancy perfectly healthy. I was almost a little worried that she could feel so good. She had also felt good this evening.

As she lies there in the foot of the bed, she begins to rattle and it will a gurgling bubbling sound from her. Then I put her up in the foot of the bed, holding her in my arms, but then she slides down from my arms and fall toward the floor in front of the bed and left lying there.

For that she should have a place on the floor, I share our bed by folding the two beds outward so that it becomes like an inverted V. When I fold out one bed so pressed that little folding wooden table together so that my computer, I had written ”Merry Christmas and Happy New Year” on, fall to the floor. I ignored the computer. It was left on the floor.

I called out to my wife Marie several times as she lies on the floor, but she did not answer me, she was quiet.

Now I can not really think clearly because the shock state started grabbing me, but for some strange reason, I realize I should call 112.Which I do. I run over to the desk in the hall and pick up the PS and runs back to my wife.

– A one two, what happened? says a man on the phone.

– My wife’s pregnant and it happened to anything I say on the phone.

What I then said I do not know. Probably telling me what happened.Then it suddenly quiet on the phone and I call hello. I did not understand why it was quiet, but after a while I hear a voice again.The silence lasted only a moment, but it felt very terrible. Today, I understand that the first man linked me further after he had been told what had happened.

– What has happened? asked someone in the phone and I started over again tell you what has happened.

– My wife is heavily pregnant and something has happened, I say into the phone.

I tell her that I put her in bed, she wheezed, I put her up, and he fell to the floor.

You should know that I shout into the phone and it’s complete pandemonium. Besides, I had been running thundering down the stairs to open the front door to the house so that the paramedics could enter.

Because of this, woke up our daughter Desiré, 2.7 years and came out into the hall with a blanket in his hand. She had been asleep in his room along with our bedroom. She stood in front of the doorway to our bedroom and looked wide-eyed. There she saw her mother lying on the floor on your back and with the large heavily pregnant belly facing up.

Then set the man on the phone a question that I have not thought of:

– Breathe she?

I ended up with my screaming in the phone and mount my eye on her.

– No, I said despairingly in my shock.

Then he began to instruct me to do CPR. He said I would put his hands on her and blow air into her mouth.

I was trained to do CPR, but I did not understand anything what he said. I did not realize this had happened could have anything to do with her heart. I was in shock and could not think clearly. I would later come back many times this event to my thoughts.

But somehow, I put my hands on her and pressed and it was not that particularly hard. I bent down and blew air into her mouth. Then he heard it again a rattling and gurgling sounds from her.

– Are they almost here? I asked in the handset.

The man in the handset was told the ambulances were somewhere and said they would soon be there. I later learned that they always send two ambulances for situations like this.

Then came the first two ambulance guys with the first ambulance.They went in through the open door and came up to the apartment.

It did not really take many minutes before they came, but for me it felt like an eternity. They arrived a few minutes before twelve o’clock at night.

When they came in so happened to walk in the front door lock. When the other two ambulance guys came with the second ambulance so they did not come back. Therefore, they pounded on the front door. I rushed again thundering down the stairs and opened for them. Then a neighbor down to me and wondered what had happened. He had woken up in all the turmoil of my screaming and running up the stairs.

He took care of my daughter during the time the ambulance guys were there. He sat on the sofa in the living room with her in his lap.

One of the paramedics was talking to me in the hall outside the room where the others of the paramedics began treatment on my wife.

– What has happened? I asked him.

– We do not know, ’he answered, but it is serious.

– I take it serious, I said in shock.

But I took it really. I thought she would be good again.

When they run her out on the stretcher through the hallway and carry her down the stairs, so I talk to my neighbor with my daughter on her lap.

I told him that he had to fit my daughter a little while, then would Bruno and Elisabeth, a couple friends of Marie and me, come and take care of her. My wife and I had agreed with them that they would take care of Desiré if my wife would give birth at night.

Paramedics calls out to me that I must go with them now.

Just before I must go, I say to my daughter:

– We’ll be back home.

She looked a little strange to me but said nothing. It was as if she did not believe me.

I sat in the passenger seat of one of the ambulances that my wife did not go in. We go to the left, while the other ambulance with my wife go to the right. Then I see that he turns to also go to the left.

– He did not have to turn, it is possible to go around, I said to the driver next to me. I was worried that it would take too long for him to turn around so that my wife would fare badly.

When we are on the way to the hospital, county hospital in Ryhov in Jonkoping, I hear a man in the other ambulance talk about Marie on the radio:

– A woman, aged 44, in cardiac arrest …

Then I began to realize how serious it really was, but there was hope in me that it would be normally. I did not really realize. Or I could not …

When we get to the hospital so everything goes very quickly. I do not hang at all with what is happening. They lead me into a room while others run away Marie to another room.

In my state of shock I do not understand at all what happens.

I sit alone in a quiet neighborhood in a small poorly lit room in a chair and wait. Not so very long, but in this situation I have lost my concept of time.

After a while, the two nurses in the room, I get up from the chair, greets them and one of them asks:

-Is this the father?

”Daddy?” I think and do not get it. I had thoughts of Marie and had no idea what they meant.

Then another one in and asks:

– Is this the father?

I was no wiser. Desperate, I got up this question:

– Liver Marie?

I do not know why I asked that, because I never thought in my wildest dreams that she was dead. So seriously, I did not it was. But I wanted a confirmation that everything was fine.

But they did not answer my question and continued to talk about something so I asked again, desperately:

– Liver Marie?

They did not answer but continued talking.

– Liver Marie? I asked one last time, with despair in his voice.

Then said one of the women with compassion tone:

– No, she does not and the child will probably not make it.

Then there will be a short circuit in my brain and I take kit and start running toward a door that I saw run out of there.

Fast as lightning ran the two nurses right after me and I realized it was no use to run, so I stayed.

They led me into a room. Where was Joel my newborn son. He lay on a small treatment table while the physician treated him.

When my wife was pregnant, I was convinced it was a boy she was carrying. The only other names that we had agreed on was Joel.

The name is after the biblical prophet who prophesied that the Holy Spirit would come. I thought it was good because Joel would point out something positive that would come. Additionally, the name Joel ”The Lord is God.”

Me and my wife had agreed to all the names Joel would have Carl Christer Joel Atkins. Carl after his grandfather, Christer after me.Grandpa filled incidentally year on this day …

Joel was beautiful. A shapely boy, black thick hair and a nice face.They had made an emergency Caesarean section on my wife to get him out. In the rush, they had cut a little bit on his upper lip and nose. But he was alive, he was breathing and both he and the doctor fought for his life.

When I come into the room so the doctor says to me:

– There’s nothing more I can do. Therefore, I have decided to stop the treatment now.

I did not object to him. I had no power to object in the state of shock that I found myself in.

But I have thought about this several times. Why I did not say that he would continue with the treatment of Joel? Why was opposed not I? Why I protested not?

I had no power to it.

When I met much later physician again to talk about what had happened so I asked him if I could have said that they would continue with the treatment. ”You did,” he said ”but we had done everything possible to make you change your mind.”

When I was on my way to the poorly lit room again so I asked the doctor:

– What has happened?

– We do not know, he replied.

That was the answer I got that night. ”We do not know.”

Now I was no longer alone in the room. There were now several of the staff with me. The kvinnlige doctor who had treated Marie also sat in the room.

I learned later that she had been crying over my wife Marie was dead.

– You may anesthetize me down, I say to all of the staff sitting there scattered in the small room with me.

But they just looked. They never said or did anything.

I used to joke with my wife when she was alive, that she would die so they had to put me on institutions with a syringe. But now it was not funny anymore.

One of the nurses said to me that they’ll call for the chaplain. ”But what he’s here to do?” I thought. ”What can he do?” So I did not really want him to come. I myself am a Christian and saved, believe in Jesus, but I felt he did not have to come. But I gave with me, they had to call after him as he came.

It was good that he came, he helped me a lot that night.

The priest made me call a friend who would support me. I called Bruno. It was Bruno and his wife Elisabeth, who took care of my daughter. They saw the ambulances just run when they came to fetch her.

I spoke briefly to Bruno in the phone what had happened.

– Please come, I pleaded with him.

So he came.

That night ruled chaplain me. I could not take initiative. I was paralyzed in shock.

He steered me to go into the room where my wife’s dead body was. I asked them to be alone in there for a while.

They had lit a candle and she lay in bed facing obliquely towards the window. Her hands were at each other on her stomach with a white handkerchief tucked between his hands.

I was not talking to her because I knew she was not there. It was only her body that was there. She herself was with Jesus in heaven.So I talked to God.

I felt her forehead – it was cold. I felt her hands – they were cold.She was dead.

As I stand there, I think suddenly see her breathe. I stared and began to look more concentrated and carefully. But I quickly realized that it was my eyes playing tricks.

Priest and Bruno enters the room. We take a semi-circle around the bed and they pray audibly opposite prayer.

The priest asks if we’re going to sing a song. I suggest the song ”Where two or three come together in my name, I am there among them.” It is after a scripture. The word of the Bible is written in Marie’s and my ring. So we sang the song.

Joel was in a small cart. He had trouble breathing. They had put a blanket around him, but no head.

I was worried that he would freeze on the head as some nurse came and stopped him.

I was also worried that Joel had nothing to eat, so I asked the doctor if he could get something. The doctor looked at him, but he had nothing to eat.

The doctor told me to breath that Joel had was abnormal. It was just hours left before Joel was going to die.

I sat in a chair in the remains poorly lit room and the chaplain got me to keep my son Joel in my arms.

I saw Joel as he lay in my arms in the white blanket. He was so nice.I looked at his black fine hair, his delicate face, lip and nose that was a little cut … And suddenly, in a moment, looked up Joel. This I will never forget.

A nurse photographed Joel and me when I put him in my arms to the chair with armrests. You can see one of the pictures here. There are precious pictures for me.

Joel’s lips were now blue and an air bubble had formed of his saliva on one of his lip.

Just before half past four in the morning died Joel – my son Carl Christer Joel Atkins.

I only got to know him for a few hours, but I will never forget him.

– What shall I say to my daughter at 2.7 years? I asked the priest.

– Do exactly as it is, he replied.

And so I did. I told her that her mother Marie was dead and that she is now with Jesus in heaven. This has given my daughter Desiré great comfort. I have also told her that her brother Joel, who she never got to meet, also is in heaven with Jesus.

Newsweek did a spread, a few days later what had happened.
At half past six in the morning, I got to come home with Bruno and Elisabeth to sleep there.

I got a sleeping pill from the hospital I took before I went to bed that morning but I woke up 11:45 on the day.

When I wrote this blog post on Bruno’s and Elisabeth’s computer that were in the room I slept in:

My wife Marie and our newborn baby Joel died in the night

Last night was my heavily pregnant wife Marie suddenly acutely ill shortly before noon. The ambulance arrived after five minutes. In the emergency room shortly after noon explained my wife’s death.

They gave birth to her with emergency caesarean section.There was a boy that I had imagined. Before, we had decided that he would be named Carl Christer Joel Atkins, where Joel is the given name. Joel died after a few hours in my arms.

If you want, feel free to ask me, our daughter Desiré 2.7 years, and for our families. For me, it has occurred totally unreal and I do not believe it. But I cling to God and Jesus. I have no doubt of their existence. Marie was saved by faith in Jesus. Today she is at home with Jesus in heaven.

I said that soon after the incident and I say it today: Without Jesus, I would never have done it!

 

Me and my daughter Desiré, then 3 year old. It is summer after julhändelserna.

 

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

Brethren, we want you to know how it is with those who have fallen asleep, lest you grieve as others which have no hope. Since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, so we believe that God will bring forth those who have fallen asleep in Jesus with him. We say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain to the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For when a loud command, a voice of the archangel and the trump of God, Lord himself shall descend from heaven. And only the dead in Christ will rise. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air. And so shall we ever be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.

 

Christer Åberg
www.apg29.nu