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Words for Aerandir blog by Vicki Callanan, of Deal, after her baby dies aged two months

A mother has shared her indescribable grief at the loss of her baby.

Dr Vicki Callanan, of Deal, has created a blog chronicling two-month-old Aerandir's sudden death and the aftermath.

Aerandir Callanan. Picture: Vicki Callanan
Aerandir Callanan. Picture: Vicki Callanan

A coroner at an inquest ruled on Thursday that the tragedy was due to natural causes.

Joanne Andrews, area coroner for north east Kent, was told that he was born on January 2 this year, after just 28 weeks of gestation and by emergency caesarian.

Aerandir was not discharged from the Ashford William Harvey Hospital NICU (newborn intensive care unit) until February 24.

A post mortem examination found that he had no congenital abnormality, with no disease process found, and that he had been well cared for. The pathologist concluded that this was sudden, unexpected death in infancy. Aerandir lived for just 82 days.

A statement to the coroner from police said that Mr Callanan, at home in Quern Road, had found his son having laboured breathing, took him upstairs to Dr Callanan and the baby stopped breathing.

They were satisfied that there had never been any third party involvement.

Ms Andrews formally concluded that the death was by natural causes.

The blog tells vividly of Dr Callanan and her husband Mark's searing pain.

There is a detailed account of the terrible day their baby died, with police and paramedics pouring into their house and doctors struggling to save him in hospital.

Her blog goes into vivid detail of the day Aerandir died on March 24 this year.

His heart had stopped just after 6.30am at their home and the couple rang 999 and kept up CPR until the ambulance arrived minutes later.

Paramadics rapidly worked to try to save the baby and the couple's two other children were left confused in the surreal scene.

"I told him how loved and precious he was, how we needed him to stay..."

Dr Callanan wrote: "I worked hard to rein in the terror. My chest was a solid ball of icy fear. I knew I was already in shock, as everything felt like it was happening in slow motion."

Aerandir, joined by his mother, was taken by ambulance to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Hospital in Margate.

At the hospital Dr Callanan was able to keep holding Aerandir's hand as doctors worked on him.

She writes: "I rubbed his tiny little hand, willing warmth and life back into it. I told him how loved and precious he was, how we needed him to stay."

Despite trying everything doctors found there was nothing they could do to revive him and broke the news to Dr Callanan.

Aerendir died at the QEQM . Library picture: Tony Flashman
Aerendir died at the QEQM . Library picture: Tony Flashman

Mr Callanan arrived at the hospital shortly afterwards and was also told the heartbreaking news.

She believes the doctors and paramedics had done their best and says that police had also been sensitive.

She writes: "When I think about that morning, and the rest of the day at the hospital, it is the most awful day of my life and at the same time it is the moment when we felt most held, most helped.

"Mark and I clung to each other, hopeless and adrift, the bottom torn out of our world, but fiercely together. There is a strength and a depth to our relationship which cemented on that awful day."

Aerandir spent his first seven weeks in an ICU, regularly visited his parents. Picture: Vicki Callanan
Aerandir spent his first seven weeks in an ICU, regularly visited his parents. Picture: Vicki Callanan

Dr Callanan, who with her husband has two other sons, aged two and four, is a former lecturer in English literature and linguistics.

The blog is called Words for Aerandir and Dr Callanan's first entry on March 25, announcing his death reads: "Aerandir was the most beautiful soul imaginable. Thank you all for walking with us these past months, and for continuing to do so through the pain that has happened and is to come."

Aerandir with his mother Vicki. Picture: Vicki Callanan
Aerandir with his mother Vicki. Picture: Vicki Callanan

The following week she writes: "These 12 weeks have been the most wonderful, and now they are the most painful. I can’t articulate powerfully enough how beautiful he was.

"I would give up my whole world for one more day with him."

Aerandir was 11 weeks premature. Picture: Vicki Callanan
Aerandir was 11 weeks premature. Picture: Vicki Callanan

On April 5, she writes: "I still can’t help thinking that two weeks ago, my life was unrecognisable from where it is now.

"I’m amazed that someone so small and so fragile could have such an incredibly deep emotional impact.

"I’m noticing that the initial sharp sting of Aerandir’s leaving is lessening now, but what it leaves behind feels like a dull, gnawing ache."

Aerandir lived for just 82 days, Picture: Vicki Callanan
Aerandir lived for just 82 days, Picture: Vicki Callanan

After visiting the chapel of rest, she continues: "We went to see Aerandir today. I’ll forever be glad we went. I catalogued every moment of the visit in my mind.

"I knew that I would hold him close in the way I always did. I knew my muscle memory would kick in and I would rock him and whisper to him and remind him he was loved and precious and beautiful. I did these things. I will be glad of these things in days and years to come, but today they felt terrible. He didn’t look right – I’ll spare you the details but they are burned into my vision - I didn’t want to see even though I knew I had to.

"I didn’t feel comforted. I felt shocked and sickened and overwhelmed."

"I felt like there could be no comfort in the world. I felt like how could you ever be OK after seeing that.

"I did know that what I was holding wasn’t him... wasn’t the fullness of him, wasn’t the life and warmth and vibrancy with which he lived."

Aerandir's funeral was held on Monday, May 10, with mourners asked to dress brightly and donate to the NICU instead of providing flowers.

"We will never be the same. I don't want to be the same."

Aerandir’s ashes are collected from the funeral director the following week. Dr Callanan writes: "Today is getting added to the list of Terrible Days, where I’ve felt like I couldn’t manage the sharp, spiky corners of this experience.

"The funeral place handed us Aerandir’s ashes in a cardboard tube … shorter than a kitchen-roll tube, but a little wider. It was the kind of thickened cardboard an ornament would arrive in … maybe a porcelain bell, or a glass swan. It had a picture of a teddy on it,

"My brain can’t compute that someone so precious, a human life so full of potential and love and beauty could be squashed down and reduced into a 25cm tall cardboard tube.

"I know it’s not really him, I know it’s only a physical 'leftover.'

"I want it to be him. I want him to be something I can hold and touch. Someone warm and alive."

She continues later: "I know we will never be the same. I don’t want to ever be the same."

"Aerandir is this bundle of paradoxes: tiny and weak, but of cosmic significance. He is somewhere else, but also so close he is almost tangible."

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