Baby Leo is forever in dad Rory Sloane’s arms
Belinda and Rory Sloane’s son Leo was perfect in every way, and the first time they held him the joy was overwhelming. The brave footy couple say while their boy never drew breath, he still inspires them every day, writes Hamish McLachlan.
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You meet a lot of really good people meet through football. Rory and Belinda Sloane are two of them. Rory is as tough as they come on the field, and as soft and caring and sensitive as you will meet off it. Belinda is an absolute gem who I’ve had the privilege of working alongside on air at Channel 7.
A year ago this week, they were excited about the birth of their first child. Then, sadly and unexpectedly, they were given the news their little boy Leo’s heart had stopped beating.
From excitement to despair. From birth to a funeral.
HM: Where did you two first meet?
RS: We met at a bar in St Kilda called The Saint.
BS: We met through a mutual friend, and we were just friends for a little bit, about a year, and then I realised that he was OK and I should see if I could keep him around!
RS: I came back from a surf trip one year, and we bumped into each other at the airport, just randomly. It was really bizarre, but there were little things like that, that were always happening. It was just meant to be.
BS: We hit it off, and it was just a mutual love and interest in each other that hasn’t stopped.
RS: She was always very funny, and she made me laugh from a very early stage. It’s hard to believe, Hame, but I was attracted more to her personality than her very good looks. She made me laugh so much. If a girl can make you laugh and smile, that’s a pretty good way to start.
HM: It’s a nice part of the recipe. From starting to see each other, to the proposal: how long?
BS: I think it was four years.
RS: Four years with plenty of questions in the meantime. When are you going to propose? That was a common question in the last two of those four years. We got married in 2016, in Byron Bay, up in a little place up the hinterland there.
HM: The three of us spent some time together at Byron Bay probably a year or so before you got married. You both just took to our kids, and my wife said to me, “They will be unbelievably good parents”.
BS: That’s so sweet.
RS: 100 per cent. We’ve both always loved kids, and I’ve worked with kids since I was a young fella. I was a tennis coach when I was younger and loved working with kids from about the age of 14 through to 18. Playing football, a massive part of our role is to educate and teach kids not only skills in football, but in life. I’ve always loved doing that, and Belinda has always been a great babysitter for all her friends.
BS: Rory’s good with children, but he hasn’t spent a lot of time around babies. I’m probably more babies, so we’re a good mix. One of the things that I love about Rory most — and you’d know this as well — is that when he is having a conversation with someone or interacting with someone, he’s so genuine about it and he gives them his undivided attention. That’s something that is so rare these days, when you see adults around children, and they’re so busy on their phones, doing this, doing that, but I find watching Rory with children, he just gives them his absolute all. I really admire that about him, and it’s something that I really love watching.
HM: You were married in 2016 — did you try and start a family as soon as you could?
BS: We did. We had a few troubles, but then we sought some help and went down the IVF path.
RS: We did a bit of learning. We didn’t realise what some people do go through, but that was a part of our journey, and that was our path. We were pretty happy to accept it. We got onto our first round of IVF, and we were very lucky to fall pregnant with Leo after our first round.
HM: First egg?
RS: We did three rounds of IUI first, and then we did IVF and our first embryo was little Leo.
HM: How fortunate. Soph loved pregnancy, others don’t. Did it agree with you, B?
BS: 100 per cent. I had no issues during my pregnancy at all, I was super comfortable, kept really active, no real discomfort. I just had the thought that I was just so lucky to be pregnant. I never took it for granted.
HM: We were the same and felt it was such a privilege to be pregnant.
BS: Exactly, and I don’t think people realise that until they have a hiccup along the way.
RS: She was incredible, mate. There were a couple of the other girls who were pregnant at the same time, and you could just see how much those three enjoyed it and enjoyed each other’s company. She was glowing, and she looked beautiful pregnant. I thought it was incredible. It suits her a lot, I think.
HM: All of the early check-ups and the tests went really well?
BS: There was never anything that looked out of the ordinary. Leo was a big boy, I think in the 80th percentile, so he was a big boy and going really well, and he was healthy. We had our regular check-ups and our obstetrician, Chris, was amazing. He would always talk us through absolutely everything in terms of how Leo was progressing. We never contemplated anything going wrong — we just thought we would get to about 38 weeks and take our baby home. But one Wednesday night, I didn’t feel any movement.
RS: We had a routine. Every night we’d lie there in bed, and I’d roll over before bed and put my ear to Belinda’s belly and chat away. We didn’t know we were having a boy, and I’d chat away and feel for kicks. Normally he’d respond to my voice, and then we’d nod off to sleep afterwards. This one Wednesday night we went to have those chats, and we couldn’t feel any movement and he wasn’t responding. We didn’t know what to do, so we rang our obstetrician and he said, “Go in to the hospital, I’ll meet you there, and everything should be fine. Just go in and they’ll run the CTG (foetal heart monitor) over Belinda’s belly”.
BS: The trip to the hospital felt so long. It’s only 15 minutes from our house, particularly at that time of night. I kept saying to Rory, “I don’t feel good about this”, but in our heart of hearts, we both always thought everything would be fine and I’d get a big kick from Leo as soon as I walked through those doors. We’d go in, put the scanner on my belly and he’d wake up. You do those antenatal classes, and everything is about preparing for when you take your baby home. A stillbirth wasn’t on our radar at all.
RS: Once you make it past 12 weeks you start telling people, and when you get to a 22-week scan you think everything should be fine. At 34 weeks you think you are home.
BS: We were in the hospital and when they did the CTG, they couldn’t hear anything. Then they went and grabbed the ultrasound machine, and when they did that, it set in.
HM: That there was a problem?
BS: Yes — we thought, well, if they can’t find anything on the CTG, I don’t imagine that we’re going to find anything on the ultrasound machine. We were in a state of shock, so we just sat there and were guided by the staff at the hospital, who were great.
HM: Just feeling helpless.
RS: You’re just waiting.
BS: Holding your breath.
RS: You think you hear a heartbeat, but then you think, “Sh--, that’s too slow, that’s Belinda’s heartbeat, but surely a heartbeat will pop up!” You have that many ultrasounds throughout pregnancy, and you know exactly where to look for the heartbeat.
HM: The flicker.
RS: Exactly. I remember Belinda looking at me, and I was starting to well up because I could clearly see there was nothing there. Belinda turned to one of the nurses and said, “There’s no heartbeat, is there?” And the lady just said, “No. There’s no heartbeat”. That’s when our worlds came crashing down.
BS: I remember they said, “No, unfortunately there’s no heartbeat”, and then Rory said, “I heard something!”. That was heartbreaking, because I knew he was holding on to any little bit of hope that they could have got it wrong. It was just so heartbreaking.
HM: Had you had a scan six days prior?
BS: Yeah, we’d had a check-up six days prior, just a routine check-up, and I’d felt movement and everything that week.
HM: The heartbeat was OK?
BS: He was great. He had a perfect heartbeat, great amniotic fluid levels, just everything was perfect. I think that’s why it was such a shock, because there wasn’t anything that the doctors thought they needed to look at twice. Everything was textbook, he was growing really well, so there were no signs that were pointing towards anything going wrong.
HM: Who delivers the worst news of all?
BS: The nurses said that our obstetrician, Chris, had just arrived. They went to get him to have a look as well. They walked out of the room, and Rory and I were left in the room together. I just said, “It’s not going to change anything”. It was nice to see a familiar face. Chris came in, and he was in as much shock as we were. His heart broke for us as well, and he had a look. I can’t even remember what was said.
HM: No one prepares you for that moment.
BS: You can’t prepare for that moment. The next conversation we had to have was: “What do we do now?” We had no idea what the next steps were. What a lot of people forget about stillbirth is that the baby still has to come out somehow, whether that’s by a caesarean, or you’re induced and go natural with a natural birth, which is what we chose to do. We had the option to stay in the hospital that night, because by then it was about 11pm. We could stay in the hospital and go ahead with everything the following day, or we could go home and spend some time together. We chose to go home.
RS: We knew it was the last little time at home together for a few days, just to be with each other. We’ve always been a really close couple, and we just wanted that closeness before making some big decisions and having to say goodbye.
HM: I can’t imagine how you coped — you’re making some of the biggest decisions you’ll ever have to make in your life.
BS: I lost all confidence in my decision making. I’m usually pretty set in my ways, and confident, but I turned into a shadow of myself. If someone asked me, “What type of coffee do you want?” I wouldn’t have known. I didn’t trust anything within myself anymore.
RS: The first instinct for me personally, and a little bit for Belinda, was trying to establish the most painless, physically and emotionally, and unobtrusive way to give birth. It was already going to be very traumatic anyway. That was my first concern. We thought caesarean, but we had some really good guidance from our obstetrician and the nurses. We obviously want to add to the family at some point in the future, and you’ve got more options if you have a natural birth to begin with.
BS: They also touched on the mental healing process. We weren’t going to get to take our baby home, but I was going to go through that whole birthing process, as mothers do. I think that was the best decision we could have made, because I’m still so happy that I gave birth naturally to Leo, and we got to have that experience, and do that for him.
BS: It’s so weird — when he first came out, it was such a peaceful time, and it was just beautiful. Our obstetrician, a midwife, Rory and I were in the room, and you just think it’s so peaceful, but then you remember why it’s so peaceful. There was no cry, and sadly no life, but the love in that room was absolutely amazing — like nothing I have every experienced.
RS: I remember the whole birthing process, seeing Belinda in bed just waiting for her waters to break, nodding in and out of sleep, I was a mess, mate. I was by her side the whole time, and Belinda was so strong. I think she knew what needed to be done. There was so much to go through just so she could meet her little boy, and sitting by her side and watching her push Leo out knowing what the result was going to be is the bravest, most courageous thing I’ve ever seen anyone do. It’s pretty incredible what not only Belinda, but other mums out there can do, when they know what the result is going to be, but still have the courage and strength to push their little ones out. It still just blows me away.
HM: And when Leo arrived?
RS: That was one of the most incredible moments when Leo came out. I got to cut the umbilical cord which was a really nice dad moment for me. Leo was then passed into the Belinda’s arms, and I’ll never forget the joy that she had holding her little son. It was matched with such sadness, too. It was a very emotional moment.
HM: A mixture of joy, sorrow and heartache. Bittersweet.
BS: Exactly. We got to meet Leo, hold him, have those moments with him, and although he wasn’t breathing, it was still so special. He made us parents for the first time.
RS: I was looking at him in Belinda’s arms, and he looked like a perfectly normal baby. I’ve seen a lot of our friends with little ones, and he looked absolutely perfect. He had no deformities, he just wasn’t breathing. That was something I found really hard to fathom at the start. It still blows my mind a little bit that it can happen, and hopefully with a bit of research and funding we can find some answers for some families out there.
HM: We still don’t know why many babies are born still. We don’t know with Leo?
BS: No, we don’t. They did all the tests that you do, plus more. We donated Leo’s tissue to a study that the geneticist from Women’s and Children’s Hospital in Adelaide is doing with Harvard, and there’s just no answers. That’s because, in Australia, it hasn’t been a priority to get funding for resources and research, whereas in other countries they have made it a focus. Their numbers have reduced dramatically. It can be done. In Australia it’s funny because we are so advanced in so many ways, yet when it comes to stillbirth, we’re behind. Our rates are some of the highest.
HM: It’s terrifying. Six a day. When I read that I didn’t think it could be right.
BS: It’s absolutely crazy. It’s more than the national road toll!
HM: From having this bittersweet moment, these horrific decisions need to continue to be made by first-time parents. How long do you spend with your first son; how do you say goodbye; who does he get to meet?
RS: We wanted to get some family and friends in who had come over to support us, so the first decision was to get everyone in. A lot of hospitals now have cuddle cots, which are cold beds, so Leo could lie in that. Because it’s cold, it preserves the little ones for a little bit longer so that they don’t change too much over time. Family and friends came in, which was really nice, but then the next decision was: how long do we spend with Leo?
BS: The hospital was amazing. They pretty much said to us, “If you want a week in here, you can stay a week in here with him”.
RS: A week is too long, and he’d start to change by that time, so we wanted to have a really nice period of time where we still remembered him as he was. It was about a day and a half to two days, where we gave birth to Leo, and then we unfortunately had to say goodbye to him. That was the hardest decision to make. I can’t imagine making a harder one. In 24 hours we went from “how do we want to give birth to our son” to “how do we want to cremate our son”. It’s not a decision-making process you think you’d ever have to go through.
BS: Our families were great, and they helped us organise a lot of different things that we needed to do. We organised the funeral director to come and get Leo. In doing that, essentially, we had to pick a time for our son to get picked up and taken away, knowing that we would never get to see him again. That was really tough. You’re literally putting a time on the last time you’ll ever see your little one.
RS: It’s not something you think you’ll ever have to do. Or want to do. Or wish on anyone.
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HM: My grandmother had four children and she outlived two of them. I remember at the funeral of my aunt, Gran said to me as I was holding her hand, “No parent should ever have to bury their children”.
BS: Your gran was right. You think, “They’ll have to say goodbye to me one day”. You never even consider it the other way, particularly that early on. We are supposed to be able to protect our children! You feel so guilty, like you have failed somehow. There’s a cloud of guilt that follows you, always, because as a parent, you want to do everything you can to protect your child. It was really hard looking at Leo just lying there, feeling so helpless. There was nothing we could do to bring him back. It was gut wrenching for both of us, and for our families as well. They lost a grandson, a nephew — it’s been so tough for everyone.
HM: Horrific. I’m so sorry. I was reading this morning about how, after a stillbirth, couples struggle and families really battle. Have you two managed to get through well? Have you become closer in some way?
RS: 100 per cent. We definitely felt like we were grieving differently at the start. Again, that’s something you never know, how you’re going to handle things. We decided to seek some help straight away, and get a grief counsellor or psychotherapist. Her name’s Rebecca, and that was the best decision we could have made as a couple, to go and seek some help to understand why we were grieving differently and understand that it’s more than OK to have completely different feelings, and to grieve differently. I was pretty angry at the start about the situation we were in, and extremely sad and really drained. I wanted to try and look after B and she wanted to look after me, and through getting help we realised you’ve just got to be really honest with how you are feeling, because if you don’t, you can’t get any better.
BS: That’s definitely one thing we recognised. The moment we got home from the hospital, we both said to each other, “I didn’t think I could love you any more, but I love you more now than what we did 48 hours ago”. If we can take one thing from this, it’s that Leo has brought us even closer together than we ever thought we could be. He made his mum and dad just appreciate and love each other even more than they did before. That’s pretty amazing, to think that he’s done that for us.
HM: What a gift he’s left. Rory, every time I watch you play, I look down to your arm and know that he’s always going to be with you.
RS: Yep — absolutely, he’s with me forever. I’d never really contemplated a tattoo, but I had this vision of what Leo would look like. One of our development coaches at the footy club messaged me after I showed Leo to the boys, and he said that the translation and derivation of Leo Sloane is ‘lion warrior’. That was unbelievable to me. It was only a couple of days after everything had happened.
I just had this vision of what Leo looked like, and with a tattoo artist over here I helped design a piece of artwork that I could look down on, and know he’s always in my arms. That’s something I’ve found an enormous amount of comfort in, carrying him in my arms wherever I go, on the footy field, out in the ocean. Wherever I am I know he’s with me, and all I have to do is look down, Hame, and it brings a massive smile to my face knowing that he’s there, and with me, and in a way, he’s looking after me too.
HM: That’s cool. Is there anything that you two have learnt that might help others in the same horrible situation?
BS: With Rory and I, we always find talking about Leo makes us the happiest. I think it’s really healthy to talk about people that you’ve lost, and babies that you’ve lost, because it wasn’t what could have been, it’s what was. Leo was here, Leo is our son, so just open up about it. If you open up and talk about stillbirth more, it becomes less taboo. With that comes more funds, and research, to find answers of why this is happening and hopefully prevent so many more stillbirths from happening.
RS: The biggest thing that I’ve learnt is, as a male, you can sometimes struggle, but you can’t get any help from people if they don’t know how you’re feeling. For me, it’s been about opening up and actually letting people know. If someone comes up to be and asks, “How are you going?”, instead of giving them the generic answer, I’ll actually open up and share exactly how I am feeling. The other part we’ve learnt is Leo will always be with us, he’ll always be talked about by us and his future siblings. We really do look for the positives in life. We’re really grateful to have had Leo, and although Leo unfortunately won’t be here to have a crack at life, we’ll be living life for him. There’s definitely grieving, but in a really nice, positive way now. That’s how we want to live our lives.
HM: Amazing how Leo has taught you, and helped shape you.
BS: So much. Everything we do, I feel like we do with him in mind. Just living through us, and inspiring us in everyday life, which is so special. He’s living on, he’s just living on in a different way to other babies, and how we would have thought he would.
HM: If there’s ever a little brother or sister — fingers crossed one day there is — how would you describe Leo to them?
RS: Beautiful and courageous. We tend to look at it too as whoever comes next are a result of Leo.
BS: If there’s no Leo, whoever comes wouldn’t have been there. You’re here because of him, your strong big brother.
RS: I think they’ll find comfort knowing that they’ll always have someone watching over them, too. We’ve found comfort in that.
HM: You two are a remarkable, strong couple — I hope that we’ll be having a celebration some day soon, because you both deserve it.
BS: Thank you so much, Hame. Fingers crossed.
RS: And for all your support over this year too, mate. We love you.
For more information and support head to sands.org.au or stillbirthfoundation.org.au.
And donate to Lion Warrior by visiting rednose.org.au
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