My name is Charlie and I live in Buckinghamshire, England and have been with my husband for 15 years. We were married in 2018 and started trying for a family straight after the wedding. It took us 19 months to fall pregnant and we were over the moon. I didn’t think anything would go wrong; I was so excited to meet our baby.
Everything seemed to be normal apart from horrible ‘morning’ sickness that lasted all day all the way through the pregnancy. I went to our 20 week scan alone as COVID meant I wasn’t allowed anyone with me. They couldn’t get the measurements they needed so I had another scan and was then sent to a specialist. At 23 weeks I met with the specialist, and she confirmed that our baby (Samuel) had Fetal Ventriculomegaly (excess fluid on the brain that doesn’t drain properly) and part of his brain hadn’t formed properly. Going to the appointments alone made things even harder as I had to tell my husband the news after. We were able to see a second specialist together for a second opinion and he confirmed the diagnosis. Our world fell apart.
The specialists told us that if we continued with the pregnancy, Samuel could have brain damage, not survive birth or have other complications at birth. We made the decision to terminate the pregnancy for medical reasons, it wasn’t an easy decision as we have wanted a baby for years, but we couldn’t bring a baby into this world just for them to suffer and be in and out of hospital and possibly not survive. I’d rather be in pain than for Samuel to feel even a second of pain.
We went into hospital to have the procedure to start labor on Monday 23 November 2020. I was admitted on Tuesday as I had light contractions. We were given a private room in the hospital but we could still hear the other pregnant women giving birth to healthy babies while we were there and it was heart-breaking. I was in hospital for a few nights, my waters broke on the Wednesday morning but I didn’t have Samuel until early Friday 27 November. I knew we wouldn’t hear him cry when he came into this world but the silence broke me. I’ve never heard myself cry like that before, it was almost primal.
Samuel was perfect in our eyes; he was so long and had huge feet which surprised us as we are both relatively short. He had my husband’s nose and my eyes. We were able to spend time with him in the hospital and then later at the funeral home and this calmed me so much.
The next few months were a blur of tears and therapy and trying to understand why this happened to us and why this has to happen to anyone. I always thought you got pregnant, you had a baby. I never thought of the thousands of bad things that could happen.
6 months later we found out we were pregnant again. This journey has been totally different, my anxiety levels have been so high and I don’t think I will believe it until we have a healthy baby in our arms. I’m 16 weeks pregnant and have gestational diabetes which is caused by the hormones in the placenta. It’s an additional risk to the pregnancy so we are having extra scans but it’s still a scary journey. We are hoping to welcome our second child into this world in February.
Thank you for reading my story.
I really didn’t think I’d be sharing another story like this again, you may have read my story in 2021 about my son Samuel. We lost him due to Fetal Ventriculomegaly and we made the impossible decision to end the pregnancy. He was stillborn at 24 weeks. My pregnancy with Samuel was during COVID and we had very little emotional or physical support afterwards. We were desperate to be parents to a baby who could stay earth side and so 6 months later we became pregnant with our daughter, Ava.
My pregnancy with Ava was filled with anxiety and I thought we wouldn’t make it past the 20 week scan. As a mother you feel its your job to protect your baby from the moment you know you are pregnant and when you feel your body has betrayed you before its very hard to trust in anything anymore. We had more consultant appointments with Ava to make sure she was ok. I developed early Gestational Diabetes which is caused by the placenta, but it was well managed. We nervously attended the 20 week scan where they check physical development of the baby, we were told that everything looked as it should and we were discharged from the consultant. I remember the sonographer telling us ‘we just needed to enjoy the pregnancy now’, as if it was that easy. But I tried my best to look forward and even thought about buying clothes and other bits for our little girl.
Less than a week later the unthinkable happened. On the Monday I didn’t feel well so I took the day off work and decided to rest. It wasn’t anything specific, just feeling a bit ‘off’ but I promised myself that in this pregnancy I would put me and my baby first. My husband (Les) had gone to a wedding a few hours away that day but was home by the evening. I had some discharge throughout the day but checked online and everything I read said it was normal. In the evening I decided to run a bath to relax and have an early night. That’s when I noticed I was bleeding and with a total disbelief I told Les, and we rang for an ambulance. This was 2021 and COVID was still impacting our health services so Les had to follow in the car behind us with my mum and aunty which made the experience even more scary. When I got to the hospital, we had a scan and Ava’s heartbeat was still going strong, I remember Les dropping to the floor in relief and I was sobbing. The next thing the doctor did was an internal exam, and she said my membranes were bulging and it was likely I would miscarry. We were moved to the Primrose Room in our hospital, and we knew what that meant, it is their bereavement room and I had the daunting thought that I would have to give birth to another stillborn baby.
The next few days we saw many different consultants and it was a rollercoaster of emotions. One minute I thought there was no hope for my little girl and the next I thought it would be ok and they could do a rescue cervical stitch to save her. On the Tuesday everything had stopped and I had no bleeding. We had to go to a different hospital for a second opinion and they did an amniocentesis. We were then put on the antenatal ward where we had to wait for the results. I tried to settle in but I had a horrible feeling in my stomach that everything was not ok and we would lose Ava. That on top of the fact that they put us on a ward with excited pregnant mums waiting to go into labour was too much for me and I had a panic attack. They took me into a empty side ward and I calmed down and we waited for the consultant. He confirmed that I had a serious infection called cytomegalovirus and if we did not end the pregnancy then I would die along with the baby. I remember Les saying he couldn’t lose me and the rest is a bit of blur. We went back to the first hospital and waited for them to have time to induce me. I was told they couldn’t be sure if the baby would be alive when I gave birth. A day went by and nothing happened, the hospital was so busy that they didn’t have time for me. On the Thursday which happened to be our wedding anniversary, they were able to induce me. The induction started at 10am and Ava was born at 11.34am with signs of life. I had gas and air as pain relief as it all happened so quickly. We were lucky enough to spend 2 and half hours with her and have skin to skin, give her a bath and Les had a dance with her. I will always remember how lucky we were to have that time with her. She passed away in my arms at 2.06pm and our world fell apart again.
As you can imagine I was terrified to get pregnant again. We both wanted a baby so much but my body just didn’t seem to work. I went through a lot of therapy and nearly a year later we decided to try again. I fell pregnant fairly quickly and every day seemed to drag, 9 months felt like an eternity. We decided to keep the pregnancy fairly quiet and only told close family and friends. I had so many consultant appointments to keep an eye on the baby and I thought my anxiety would get better when we reached the 25 week mark but I was wrong. My anxiety became so bad that I was signed off work for the last few months of the pregnancy. This time we were lucky enough to bring home our little boy, Theo. I am so grateful to be his mum, even on the hard days with no sleep. I think Samuel and Ava would be proud of their parents and I can’t wait to tell Theo about his siblings when he’s older.
Photos taken by Leslie Pitt.
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