My Story

On Monday 1st September my husband and I drove to Worthing hospital for our routine 20 week scan. Even though we had had the routine 12 week scan and everything was ok, in the back of my mind I still hadn’t let myself get over excited about this pregnancy as my 1st pregnancy last year ended in a miscarriage at 8 weeks. This, coupled with the fact I still had not felt any flutterings in my tummy as so many other expectant mums at my stage of pregnancy have described, made me a little anxious. I would lay in bed each morning in stillness and think ‘can I feel something, was that it’?

As we sat in the waiting room, I immediately got a bad feeling in my gut as I recognised the sonographer to be the same one who delivered our bad news last time. He called out my name and we followed him into a dark room, the same room as last time, and I lay on the same familiar bed. The cold gel was rubbed into my tummy and the scanner was placed upon it. There was a deathly silence as the sonogragher examined the screen. I looked at my husband and could see by the look on his face that he knew the bad news too. After 2 minutes of silence the sonographer said “I am sorry to tell you this but your baby has died”. Deja vu I placed my hands over my eyes and cried. This can’t be happening again. The sonographer took measurements and said that our baby had died some weeks ago as it was only measuring about 15 weeks old.

We were then taken upstairs, still in shock, to the midwives office. I can’t remember much about what was said and discussed as I was just numb and not really listening at the time. They gave me a tablet to take and I was told to come back in 48 hours to have labour induced. I had imagined I would be put under general anaesthetic and have a D&C where they perform a small operation to remove the baby. I did not like the idea of having to go through all those labour pains for nothing and having to give birth to my dead baby just really upset me plus having to go to the labour ward where there were going to be many happy mums holding their newborn babies. I asked if I could have a D&C but they said I was too far into my pregnancy and it was only possible to do this procedure before 12 weeks.

The following morning I woke up early and started to think about what lay ahead the next day. I was scared to death as I didn’t know what to expect. I tried to call my midwife for some reassurance and to talk about what lay ahead of me. The midwife who answered the phone was abrupt and unsympathetic, even though I was in tears and struggling to string a sentence together. She said they were busy and I couldn’t be fitted in for an appointment on that day as I had requested, she didn’t even take my name! I was more distressed after this call as for someone like me that normally bottles up my emotions, this was my outreach for help and support and I felt I had been let down.

Wednesday came and we arrived at the hospital. Firstly, the doctor inserted a needle through my belly and pierced the amniotic sac to take a sample of the amniotic fluid. He said there was hardly any fluid left and together we watched the tiny black bubble on the screen, cradling my baby, get smaller and smaller until it disappeared when all the fluid had been withdrawn. There was only about 2 cubic centimetres in the bottle when he had finished.

I was then taken to the maternity ward and given a private room with a bathroom attached. The midwife inserted 4 tablets into my vagina and explained these would bring on the labour contractions and I would continue to take them orally every 3 hours. Within 15 mins I started with some pain, which felt like bad period pains but not contractions like the midwives were describing. They gave me an injection, a cocktail of morphine and something to stop me from being sick. The morphine completely relaxed me and it was like I was not really in my body anymore. When I was given my second dose of tablets, the pain started to come back. I laid there with my eyes closed and tried to meditate. I needed another 3 doses of tablets throughout the night and waited for the contractions to come which never came. I wasn’t sick with the subsequent tablets either and the pain seemed to subside rather than get worse which I and the midwives had expected. The midwives told me that I had one more dose of tablets left to take and then I would have to have a break for 12 hours and then try again. As I lay in bed I felt a trickle and so I went to the toilet to see what it was. Some blood came out but not much and the midwife said this was the start of things. I felt anxious about the contractions yet to come.

15 minutes later I needed to go for a wee so I put the bed pan over the toilet seat to catch anything that may come out. I suddenly felt a lump in my vagina, it wasn’t painful or uncomfortable I could just feel its presence. I pushed and squeezed my muscles together and out came a lump the size of a grapefruit. The midwife examined it and confirmed it was the baby, born sleeping at 5am on the 4th September 2008. It was still in the amniotic sac complete with the placenta; umbilical cord etc., so no further operation would be necessary. The sac that contained my baby was a dark mucky grey colour and you could not see anything through it. It just looked like a lump; it reminded me of a kidney. I was tempted to tear open the sac to see if I could see my baby’s face inside but I didn’t want to be left with a bad image in my mind.

The midwife said she could clean it up a bit and bring it back in a blanket if we wanted to say our goodbyes but we decided not to do that. It would have felt wrong wrapping it up in a blanket when it really did not visually look like a baby. It would have been different if it had been bigger and resembled a baby more, then I would have wanted a cuddle to say goodbye, and probably would have wanted to attend a cremation and have it buried in a place that we could visit later on. As far as we believe, our baby’s spirit left its body when the heart stopped beating and is now in heaven with all the other angels, watching over us, waiting for its next chance to meet us.

We decided to send our baby for a post-mortem so we can find out any possible reasons why this happened which might help any of our future babies to make it full-term. We are naturally devastated and gutted at what has happened to this pregnancy and our dreams have been shattered once again. It has reminded us that not all things in life are simple or work out as we hope they do.

In the weeks following my last miscarriage, in amongst the turmoil of my emotions, I wondered what my baby looked like beneath its cocoon, whether it was a girl or a boy, whether there was any resemblance to my husband and I in its little face and I felt guilty for leaving the hospital so soon and not really saying goodbye. I bottled up my emotions to support my husband who was going through a tough time at work and with the added stress of our miscarriage he needed to talk a lot. I spoke to the screening co-ordinator at the hospital and she told me our baby was back from the post-mortem. I asked if she had any results yet or if it had been deformed and she told me the results would take 10 weeks to come through and she had seen the baby herself and it was not deformed, just a small baby. With this information, knowing my baby was no longer in its cocoon and still resembled a baby even after the post-mortem, I couldn’t help myself but to go and see it at the hospital and say my goodbyes.

My husband and I drove to Worthing hospital and were led to the Chapel into a quiet room and there laid our little angel all wrapped up in a cosy blanket in a little basket. I wasn’t too sure what to say or do at first as I have not had much experience of death in my lifetime so far and I wasn’t even too sure how I felt. We sat there in silence for a little while and I uncovered the blanket so I could see my little one. I moved my eyes over every part of its body and traced every little detail and stroked its delicate miniature hands. With a feeling of sadness and emptiness, in my mind I told it I was sorry and that I would try to bring it into this world again one day. I kissed my fingertip and placed it on my little ones forehead. We left the quiet room and went into the Chapel and I felt a sense of happiness that I had the opportunity to say goodbye to my little one. I sat down and quietly said a prayer and then wrote a little prayer and clipped it onto the tree with all the other prayers. Before going home we went back to the midwives office and she handed me a photo she had taken of my baby snug in it’s blanket plus the little muslin blanket that my baby was wrapped in previously. I was so grateful to her and so happy that now I have these keepsakes and memories of my baby to treasure forever.

Lisa