NEWBORN HEARTACHE

What should have been one of the happiest moments of Shandale Ballentine’s life ended in heartbreak on Good Friday.

Instead of leaving the Cornwall Regional Hospital cradling the baby boy she had spent months preparing for, the 33-year-old first-time mother said she returned home “empty-handed”, struggling to make sense of how her long-awaited delivery ended in tragedy.

Ballentine said she lost her son, Ramontay Rakai Ranger, during labour at the Montego Bay, St James-based hospital during what she described as the “worst” ordeal of her life.

“That was the worst experience anybody should go through,” Ballentine told The Gleaner as she recounted the traumatic hours leading up to the baby’s birth.

“I was looking forward to this baby with all of my heart, all of my might. I set up my nursery before I got hospitalised. Everybody go in there, go have their baby, and come back out. Why me was the only one to come back home empty-handed? What kind of punishment was that?” she pondered.

Ballentine said she had been classified as a high-risk patient due to persistent blood pressure issues throughout her pregnancy.

According to her account, she was admitted to hospital last Thursday and doctors attempted to induce labour, but despite hours of contractions, her cervix remained barely dilated.

“It never worked,” she said.

“I was in pain and feeling contractions, but the cervix wasn’t opening. It stayed at one centimetre all day Thursday.”

The induction process was repeated Friday morning around 11 a.m., she said, but progress remained slow.

Ballentine told The Gleaner that mid-afternoon, a nurse checked her and told her she had reached four centimetres dilation and that her water had broken.

Shortly after, she was told she would be taken to the delivery suite.

Ballentine said she was forced to walk to the delivery ward because a wheelchair was not available even as the pain intensified.

“At that point, the pain was intense,” she recalled. “I could barely walk. I was bouncing off the wall.”

She explained that the maternity ward was full and she had initially been placed on a surgical ward, requiring her to make the difficult walk to the delivery area.

Ballentine said the delivery began around 6 p.m., but she was alarmed by how little assistance was present.

“It was just me and one nurse in the delivery room,” she said.

On a nearby bed, another mother was also giving birth and had multiple nurses assisting her, Ballentine said, while she struggled largely on her own.

“My weight with the pregnancy was about 240 pounds,” she explained.

“I was struggling to hold up my foot while pushing. I begged her at one point to ask somebody to help hold my foot because I couldn’t manage.”

Help eventually came about 8 p.m., she said, but by then, the labour had already been prolonged and exhausting.

Ballentine said the baby’s head had been visible for some time, raising concerns that he was stuck in the birth canal.

At one point, she said she pleaded with the nurse to intervene.

“Me beg her to cut me,” she said. “I tell her clip it because me know the baby stuck too long.”

But instead, she said the nurse made a troubling remark about the instrument being used.

“She was joking, saying the scissors so dull it couldn’t even cut cloth,” Ballentine recounted.

Despite her pleas and worsening condition, she said there was no immediate escalation for additional medical support.

Eventually, another nurse entered the room and applied pressure to her abdomen during contractions.

Moments later, at 8:34 p.m., her baby was delivered.

“The cord was wrapped around his neck two times, and he wasn’t breathing,” Ballentine said.

“He didn’t cry at all.”

Medical staff worked to resuscitate the baby, she said, but the outcome was devastating.

After the delivery, Ballentine said she remained in the room for hours in shock.

“I was just sitting there looking at the wall – totally traumatised,” she said.

She did not see her baby again until later that night when hospital staff returned to attend to her.

The emotional toll of the experience, she said, has been overwhelming.

“When I went to eat afterwards, my brain start attack me,” Ballentine said.

“It was like voices in my head saying, ‘You can’t eat food and your baby dead.’”

Her partner has also been struggling with the loss.

“A while ago, he come home bawling like a little 10-year-old,” she said.

“He pull up at the gate crying, and I had to run out and help him. Him bawling. Him bawl, him bawl. I had to go out there and reverse his car.”

Since leaving hospital, Ballentine said she has tried to get answers about what happened during the delivery but has so far been unsuccessful.

She returned to the delivery ward before being discharged to ask for the name of the nurse who assisted her but said she was unable to obtain the information.

“They get tight up when me start ask questions,” she said.

Ballentine believes closer monitoring during labour might have made a difference.

“When you know it’s a high-risk case, they should have been checking the baby heartbeat more often,” she said. “They should have called a doctor.”

Attempts by The Gleaner to get a response from Cornwall Regional Hospital on Monday were unsuccessful.

Calls made to the facility were not returned and a representative indicated that inquiries should be made again at a later time.

Now grieving the loss of the son she had waited 38 weeks to welcome, Ballentine said she hopes speaking publicly will prevent another family from enduring the same pain.

“Nobody should go through this,” she said.

“I was looking forward to my baby ... and now I have to live with coming home without him.”

andre.williams@gleanerjm.com