I felt so desperately sad that I wasn’t able to take her home

A happy surprise

When I fell pregnant last Christmas my partner and I hadn’t been together very long but it was a very happy surprise.

After just two days of nausea, I felt good. I took vitamins, ate the right things, went to the gym and really embraced my pregnancy. I felt so grateful that I was finally going to be a mum.

Our 12-week scan was perfect and that was when it hit me we were going to have a family. It was such a positive moment.

A threatened miscarriage

At 16 weeks and 5 days I started with, what felt, like a stitch in my left side. I went to bed and in the morning it had gone.

At 17 weeks, to the day, the stitch was back but not painful. I was giving a talk at a training day when I felt an urge to go to the toilet, when I did there was a gush of blood. I panicked, called my mum who said to go immediately to the nearest hospital in Cardiff. I cried all the way there.  

They scanned me and said it looked like a ‘threatened miscarriage*’ but reassured me my waters hadn’t gone. They needed to keep me in until I’d gone 24 hours without bleeding. The next morning I was scanned and felt her moving around like a little ballerina, the bleeding had stopped, so they sent me home.

At our 20-week scan everything looked fine. They couldn’t get her neck measurements, because of the way she was lying, so I was to come back a week later. 

Nobody prepared me for what was to come

A few days before that appointment I started bleeding a little, called the hospital and they said to come straight in. Again, they kept me in overnight. In the morning I was told my waters may be going but, being under 24 weeks, there was nothing they could do. The consultant said to go home, rest and come back if anything changed.

That Saturday night I started bleeding again so left my partner at home with his daughter and went to hospital where they said the waters were intact. The next morning the consultant, again, said at under 24 weeks there was nothing they could do so I was to go home and rest. I had a scan booked for the Tuesday when they’d see where we were. Nobody told me that my waters were likely to go in the next couple of weeks. Nobody prepared me for what would come. 

Giving birth

At Tuesday’s scan the sonographer’s face dropped. Our daughter had a heartbeat but was really low down. I was registered high risk and referred to a specialist team in Cardiff. Still, I didn’t know what that really meant. I remember just praying to get to 24 weeks.  

Back at home Mum headed off and my partner went back to work at around 2pm. By 3.30pm I started experiencing shooting pains in my pelvis and, an hour later, the pain was so bad I could barely speak.

By half five, when my partner got home, the pain was sharper, more frequent and I’d started throwing up so my partner called the hospital and we went straight there.

By the time we got there I was in so much pain I could barely breathe so, when the consultant arrived, he said they’d scan me straight away.

It was as I stood up to walk to the room for the scan that I felt a pop and a gush, my waters had gone. They did an internal scan and said she would be here anytime.

 I didn’t really understand what they meant when they told me she’d have a heartbeat but wouldn’t really be ‘with us’.

I was in shock and so much pain as they told me that, if I felt like pushing, I should go with it. As soon as I felt that urge to push, I did and she was born. 

They asked if I wanted to hold her but I was in pain, too traumatised. I felt so guilty after. There really needs to be more honesty, more information. If I’d been slightly prepared for what was happening, I would have held her. I should have held her.

She was so perfect

The placenta was stuck and the team struggled for hours to remove it. Then they took me to surgery for a manual removal.

After surgery is when I saw Lily for the first time, that’s when I held her. 

She was so perfect, little hands, little eyes, a little nose, and I felt so desperately sad that I wasn’t able to take her home.

The midwives were phenomenal, they’d changed her and dressed her and a chaplain came and blessed her. We stayed with her, held her and then said goodbye. Leaving hospital without her was the most painful experience of my life.The first week after that just wasn’t real, the shock and trauma was so great. 

Thankfully I’ve always understood the importance of taking care of your mental health so I knew that I needed to work out how to navigate my way through this loss. For me that meant walking every day no matter what, so I walked and I cried. I told family and friends that I needed space and I spoke to my therapist.

Dealing with the loss

At first a bereavement midwife called every week and the hospital arranged the funeral, within 12 hours of our daughters birth we had to decide on burial or cremation. 

I was offered bereavement counselling but told there was a three-month waiting list. I also didn’t feel ready for group counselling, just couldn’t bear to hear other people’s stories of loss at that point.

So I walked, leant on my mum and partner and talked to a therapist. I’ve also joined a fitness group because I found how I felt about my body was one of the hardest things. I couldn’t fit into pre-pregnancy clothes but couldn’t bear to wear maternity clothes because I wasn’t pregnant. My whole wardrobe was a painful reminder of what I’d lost.

I came on my period for the first time last month and cried every day. The last day I was stuck in a queue in Aldi behind a woman with a new-born and it really hit me.  

I’m sharing my story because I want Lily to have a legacy. I want women who’ve suffered loss to know the importance of taking care of their mental health, of doing what they need to get through. For me that’s treating myself with compassion and grace. Finding a sense of peace.

We’re currently planning how we will decorate her grave. I’m also planning to fundraise for a cold-cot for my local hospital because I only had a box, I think a cot would have given us that sense of normality, of family, if only for a moment. 

I am a mum

I joined a new gym and found a new hairdresser because I didn’t want to return to someone who had known I was pregnant. It’s strange, like you’re trying to spare others from your loss. I struggle with pity as I don’t want to be defined by my loss.

I also struggled to define myself as a mum at first but I don’t anymore. Lily is my daughter, I am her mum.  

Notes

*A threatened miscarriage is when a person has vaginal bleeding during pregnancy, but scans and tests confirm that they have not miscarried. Being diagnosed with a threatened miscarriage does not always mean that you will lose your baby. 

In many cases there is no known cause for the bleeding, but sometimes a reason may be found, such as an infection. Your care and treatment will depend on why you are bleeding. If you have miscarried before, you should be offered progesterone.

Being diagnosed with a threatened miscarriage can be a very anxious time. If you need to talk, you can call the Tommy’s midwives on 0800 014 7800 (Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm), or email us at [email protected].