Family
May 3, 2024

Purple Butterfly: A little help for a bad fate

A small sticker sticks to the cot, at first glance a cute animal sticker, which should make the children's ward of the English Kingston Hospital a bit more colorful and friendly.

But the background is serious: The sticker is a signal that this newborn was born with a sibling who did not survive the birth.

The idea of the purple butterfly comes from a mother who had to go through this fate herself: Milli Smith herself was the mother of twins, but unfortunately only very briefly. Even in pregnancy, the doctors found that her daughter Skye would not survive the birth due to a not completely closed skullcap. Milli decided to deliver both children to at least give birth to her other daughter Callie.

"We were both devastated," says Milli to the Babble portal about the difficult months she and her partner had to live through. "Knowing that I'm carrying both kids out just to say goodbye right after that was very hard."

Farewell to a little fighter

In the 30th Week of pregnancy then set in Millie contractions, and the children had to be delivered by emergency caesarean section. She had been prepared by the doctors that Skye would be alive for at most a few minutes, and that she would not be able to react or move at this time.

But little Skye gave her parents a small miracle goodbye: "As soon as she was there, she started crying," says Smith about the precious moment with her baby. "That was the most surreal moment of my life, she cried, moved her arms, and was like a normal baby, a thousand times better than anything I expected."

For a brief moment, the family could actually be completely in common, and say goodbye to twin sister Skye, as everyone had thought possible: Three hours Millie and Lewis, the father of the two, could with Skye in a special room of the clinic with her daughter cuddle together. "Everything was perfect in that time," Millie recalls. "Lewis could even go with Skye to her twin sister Callie and put her side by side in the incubator before she died."

An innocent comment that causes deep pain

Long after Skye was born and Millie was in the clinic with her other daughter, Callie, another new mother made a harmless comment that tore Millie's heart apart-and created the idea of purple butterflies.

"None of the other patients knew about Syke and what happened," says Smith about the incident. "It was an innocent, mischievous saying." A twin mother whose babies cried, turned to me and said: 'You're really lucky you only have one!' (...) The comment almost gave me the rest. I ran out of the room in tears, and no one knew why. I simply could not explain what had happened. A small sticker would have prevented the situation. "

A purple butterfly for a difficult fate

The Kingston Clinic promptly implemented Millie's idea with the stickers. Milli is now raising money with its crowdfunding campaign to distribute the stickers to other hospitals. She gets a lot of encouragement from other mothers who share a similar fate. Labeling with the butterfly not only helps to sensitize other patients to the family in question - even the hospital staff working in rotating shifts knows immediately what's going on, and the traumatized parents do not always have to explain anew what happened ,

Milli and Lewis are now home with their daughter Callie, and could once again say goodbye to a funeral of Skye.

Even though their time together was very short, each second was a consciously experienced treasure that nobody in their family would ever forget.