We had planned to go out, leaving our neighbours babysitting our 2 year old son, the night we discovered I was pregnant with our second child. We were on cloud nine and spent the entire evening talking about nothing else while I sipped on an orange juice and lemonade.

My first pregnancy had been marred with constant bleeding and I seemed to be at the hospital every few weeks, and so we were expecting much the same for our second child. True to form I started bleeding again at 6 weeks. I was scanned and all seemed fine and, due to my history, no-one was unduly worried.

At 12 weeks however I started to experience very heavy bleeds. After a call to the midwife I was told to expect the worst and go straight to Accident and Emergency. I was concerned but not too worried as I had no abominable pain so was not convinced I was miscarrying. After a 4-hour wait in a cubicle, a doctor came to talk to me and said I had miscarried but they could not confirm this until the morning when I could be scanned. We were outraged to be told this based on no medical checks and then told to go away and come back in 8 hours. After much discussion we managed to persuade a Consultant Gynaecologist to scan us at 1am and she confirmed that the baby was still there and doing well. I was suffering from a large haematoma (blood bruise) in the uterus and it was from here that I was bleeding, and it was also discovered that I had placenta praevia.

I went from normal to heavy bleeds for the next month but then the haematoma seemed to get smaller and the bleeding stopped. At 21 weeks I bled heavily again and was hospitalised for 3 days to be monitored with the possible outcome of an emergency caesarean. We did not even entertain the possibility of losing the baby as we were so positive that it would all be ok, and after a further 3 weeks of bed rest we got to 24 weeks and started to feel even more positive. The bleeding had completely stopped and everything seemed on track.

A scan at 34 weeks showed that the placenta praevia was major and there would be no chance of a natural delivery and I was given a c-section date of 9th January 2008. But it was a shock to find out that I was to be admitted the day after Boxing Day as a precaution, however as all the bleeding had stopped we looked upon the hospital stay as the last chance for a rest and to catch up on sleep. We had been flooded out of our home in the summer 2007 floods so the chance to relax for a while was welcomed.

I spent New Year’s Eve watching the fireworks from my hospital bed over the city and feeling happy with all the expectations a new year brings and a new baby for our family. New Years Day was filled with visits from friends and family and a friend who was being induced on the floor below me. I was waxing lyrical about the fantastic staff we had on my ward that had come from the ward above — the special ward where mothers go after they have suffered a loss — little did I know that I would be their only patient in a matter of days.

I had a restless sleep that night and woke at 3am briefly with a tightening. At 6am I was woken for observations and felt very heavy. A midwife asked if I had felt any movements yet. Unusually I hadn’t, so she listened in for the heartbeat and struggled so got a more experienced midwife who also struggled. They suggested that I go onto one of the monitors in a separate room and I was greeted by another midwife. She gave me one of those smiles that was full of pity. Then it dawned on me what was happening.

I was able to make a call to my husband briefly to get him to come straight to the hospital and I was taken to the observation ward in a private room where I was scanned and the worst news of my life was delivered by 2 separate doctors: our baby was dead at 38 weeks gestation. I had to tell my husband when he arrived and he nearly collapsed on me when I told him the news. How cruel to be in the one place that was meant to save mothers and babies to find out you had a dead baby inside you, only 7 days before your life was to be expanded with even more love. We felt our future had been ripped from us.

We were left alone for a few hours and then we were told our options. The staff were amazing; we were very lucky. The c-section was booked for a few hours time but I was caught between them taking out a dead baby and me wanting to hold onto my precious boy. They discovered the cause of the death pretty quickly during the surgery as my amniotic fluid was filled with blood. He had a velementious cord insertion, which is not rare, but it acted like a vasa praevia and ruptured. He basically bled to death very quickly. The chances of both these situations occurring together without contractions or waters breaking are very rare.

We spent the next week cocooned on the special ward being looked after by the excellent staff. Days rolled into each other with feelings of guilt at eating and smiling when we saw our first little boy and nights spent crying in each others arms. We were able to see our baby boy any time of the day or night we wanted but I could not bring myself to hold him, even directly after the c-section. I was too scared to hold a stiff and cold baby, so I spent agonising hours watching my husband walk around the room holding and talking to him while I could only spend time watching him from the moses basket or on the bed next to me. To add insult to injury my friend delivered her baby girl at approx 3am in the ward below the same time we lost our boy. While she was sending out texts announcing the birth, we were making calls announcing the death of our baby. After a week of constant crying we didn’t have any tears left so when we met friends and family I think some were shocked that we weren’t crying, but they made up for it.

We could not find a boy’s name before his death, so trying to decide on one afterwards was even worse; however we discovered we did not need one for the death certificate which was a huge relief to us. He is now called Baby and is buried in a wild flower meadow in a natural burial ground on the edge of the Cotswolds — a beautiful place to visit.

I don’t think it really sunk in until about a week after the burial and if it wasn’t for my husband catching me I would have hit the kitchen floor. We managed to help each other through the pain and discovered that we had fallen in love with each other again. Some couples are not so lucky.

The worst times were seeing people who knew I was pregnant and then asking what we had — 5 mums in our son’s nursery class were all due at the same time. Some people showered us with gifts, others were so scared at what to say they avoided us, but we had each other. There is no doubt our loss has changed us forever. We don’t seem to have as much joy in our lives and we sometimes struggle socially. We continue to talk openly about our baby boy to our son and we still cry. It does get easier but the pain does not stop, nor do the nightmares, you just learn to cope better.

We are now expecting our third child nearly 2 years on and the emotional rollercoaster is tiring, especially as we moved country and are away from our friends and family. Luckily this pregnancy is text-book but I’m now reaching 33 weeks and even though I know that the chances of the same set of circumstances happening again is a thousand-to-one I’m so much more aware of ALL the possible problems that can occur. They will deliver this baby by c-section again at 37 weeks to avoid reaching the same date as our stillborn boy. It’s hard to stay positive but we’re doing well and even though nothing has been bought ready for the baby yet, we are preparing mentally for a baby that we want so much — a brother or sister for our 5 year old boy, and another chance to bring a new life to our family.

Any advice? Do whatever you need to do to get through each day and don’t suppress your feelings. If you need to breakdown in a supermarket and leave the store crying, do it. If you can’t bear to see your friends new baby or hold him or her, don’t. If you need to take compassionate leave from work ask your doctor to help and take as long as you need. Don’t do things because you feel that it is expected of you — other people have no idea what you have gone through and they never will. You now belong to a club of bereaved parents and only they know the pain that you can feel. Talking to SANDS people can help.

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