for Laurie's 3rd angel anniversary. (Miscarriage in general)

Member Name: HonestBob

Product:	Miscarriage in general
Date:	18/02/09 (122 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Some miscarriages end a non-viable pregnancy.

Disadvantages: Some, like this one, end a perfect life.

Miscarriage is defined as the spontaneous loss of a pregnancy before 24 weeks. Sadly 10-20% of pregnancies end in miscarriage, most before 12 weeks.

My first miscarriage occurred at 5 weeks. I took a pregnancy test on the Monday and lost the baby the following Saturday. I spent a night in hospital, it was very upsetting but as I hadn't quite adjusted to the idea of being pregnant I made a quick recovery and continued with my life. The baby hadn't been planned and although I was happy to continue and have the baby, and I certainly wasn't relieved at miscarrying, I was able to rationalise the loss. My OH and I hadn't been together very long, the time wasn't right, there must have been something wrong with the baby etc....

Fast forward a year and OH and I realised we were in it for the long haul. We both had children from our previous marriages, but we mourned the loss of what could have been and decided the time was right to have a baby together. My OH has three sons and desparately wants a daughter, having lost his only daughter to stillbirth 13 years ago, a wound that has yet to heal.

So we set out on the journey to joint parenthood, enjoying the ride along the way, until the day in November 2005 when I joyfully sent him a picture message of a digital 'positive' on a clearblue test. Fabulous!

The pregnancy progressed. I had a scan at 12 weeks and we saw our baby on screen for the first time. Clearly loving the limelight the baby even waved at us. For the first time I experienced the yukkiness that is morning sickness, not particularly pleasant when experienced over myself in the bath, but I found Ginger Biscuits and sips of water helped, and it was a small price to pay.

February half term 2006 approached. I was 18 weeks pregnant. I did what I do at the end of every half term. I tidied my classroom, filed worksheets (in my favourite place, the bin, leave any piece of paper around long enough and that's where it will get filed) and I carried boxes of files and exercise books out to my car to take home to mark.

I got home at 4pm on the last day of school and cleaned my ensuite. I had a plumber coming to give me a quote for a refit and I wanted the place sparkling. At 5pm, an hour before the plumber was due I went to the toilet and saw what all pregnant women dread, blood on the tissue paper. It wasn't much, but it was there.

I called my OH and told him what was happening. En route home from work there was little he could do. I sat and waited for him to get home. The plumber arrived just as OH did. I rushed the plumber around the en suite and then I waited for my ex-husband to arrive. It was his weekend with my other children, so I sent them off with their Dad. I didn't tell them what was happening.

OH and I rang the hospital to let them know we were on our way and we were told to go up to an antenatal ward. Once there we sat around for an hour before finally being seen by a midwife and a Senior House Officer. An internal examination was performed but the doctor could find no cause for the bleeding. She also listened to the baby with a monitor and both she and the midwife said they could hear a heartbeat. OH also agreed that he heard it. All I heard was a whooshing sound. It didn't sound like a heartbeat to me. I asked for a scan. I knew there was portable scanning machinery in the hospital, but was told that no scans were performed on weekends. The doctor said I wasn't miscarrying, that many women bleed during pregnancy, and sent me home.

And so I went home. I had some cramping and backache, the bleeding had increased, but I was told this was due to the internal examination.

The following afternoon we went to a tile shop to choose the tiles for the en suite refit. While there the cramps I had began getting stronger. I noted the code for my new tiles and told OH we needed to go back to the hospital but would have to return home for my notes first.

Once again we phoned ahead to the hospital and were told to go back to the antenatal ward. This was among many mistakes the hospital made with handling my miscarriage. At 18+2 weeks pregnant I should have been sent to labour ward.

I was given a room of my own on the antenatal ward where I waited for a Doctor to come and examine me. A portable scanning machine was brought in. Funny that, considering I was told the previous evening that no scans were carried out on weekends. The midwife from the night before also came in. She apologised, saying she really had though that I would not miscarry my baby.

After about an hour a registrar came to see me. He carried out an internal examination and said he was very sorry but my cervix was completely open and I was going to lose my baby. I never had a scan. He said there was no point.

I was then left along in the room. A commode chair was brought in and I was told to pull a cord in the room and buzz every time I used it. I used it alot. Each time the nurse came and collected the cardboard bowl to check the contents.

I sent OH home to bring me some night clothes and toiletries from home. Whilst he was gone I delivered our baby into the commode. From the commode I could not reach the buzzer cord and as the baby was still attached to me by its cord I could not get up to pull the cord for help. I had to shout for help for what felt like ages, but was probably 3 or 4 minutes before a midwife finally came in to help me. She cut the cord and helped me back in to bed before taking my baby away.

The midwife then returned to help me clean up and she asked if I would like to see my baby. OH had returned and was distressed at missing the birth, but also annoyed that I had never been taken to labour ward or offered any pain relief. To complicate matters I had not delivered the placenta and was on a drip to increase my contractions and progress to the third stage of delivery. These contractions were much stronger than those I had during the birth, but I was still not offered any pain relief. I was so upset at losing my baby that it didn't cross my mind to ask for any either.


The baby was brought to us resting in a tiny wicker basket with a small white crochetted blanket over it. At 18+2 it is difficult to discern gender. Our baby was still very small, just over the length of my palm. We were asked if we would like our baby blessed, and although neither of us is religious we agreed. Our baby never got to choose whether to have faith or not, so we decided not to remove the option. Now we had to select a name. Not knowing a gender made it difficult, we'd selected a girls name but were still undecided over a boys, and in the circumstances we needed a gender neutral name. We made a list of suitable names and then it came to me, we should call the baby Laurie, a mixture of my name (Laura) and daddy's name (Kenny). It seemed fitting that the baby take part of each of our names as it still felt part of both of us. The blessing was arranged for the following day.

After five hours on the drip I had still not delivered the placenta so at midnight I was taken for an emergency evacuation of retained products of conception (EVAC), also known as a D&C. The staff in theatre were very kind. I cried the whole time they were preparing me for surgery.

The following morning the registrar came to see me again. He explained that I had lost a lot of blood and offered me the option of a transfusion or a course of strong iron tablets. I took the tablet option as a transfusion would mean another night in hospital and I just wanted to go home. He also told me that my late miscarriage was probably due to an incompetent cervix and that I would be seen by a consultant next time I conceived and would have a stitch placed in my cervix to reduce the likelihood of it happening again. I was also asked if I would like a postmortem to be performed on my baby. My OH and I agreed that we would like to find out for certain the cause of our baby's death. We were talked through various bits of paper work, including a sheet on retaining organs and/or slides for research purposes. In the light of the Alder Hey scandal hospitals are much more open regarding postmortem procedures. We agreed to slides being taken, I know that we can only prevent other parents going through such a devastating experience if we allow medical research into prevention, but we asked that the body be returned so that we could hold a funeral.

My baby was brought back to me and a priest came and performed a blessing. We said our last goodbyes and left.

Nine weeks later, and still bleeding heavily, I was readmitted to the hospital. The EVAC had failed to remove all of the placenta so I had to have another one. I remember coming round from the general anaesthetic and hearing a nurse say to the doctor that she could not get my blood pressure to rise. For a fleeting second I actually hoped it wouldn't, but then I thought about my children at home and forced myself to take some deep breaths, much to the relief of the nurse.

A week after the second EVAC I saw my consultant obstetrician. The postmortem results were not back but he told me there was a three month backlog at Alder Hey. He gave me the green light to get pregnant again after my next period. I took him on his word and littlest HonestBob was conceived. At six weeks I saw my consultant and littlest HonestBob on screen. Now the real hard slog began. Most women feel 'safe' when they get to 12 weeks pregnant, I knew I would never feel safe.

At the six week check Laurie's postmortem results were still not available. My consultant promised to follow them up. A month later, still no results, a further month, still no results. Finally in August, six months after losing Laurie, the postmortem results were in. The examination had been carried out in early March but a new computer system had been installed and my baby had been 'lost' within it. The body had sat on a shelf, location unknown, for six months. The postmortem revealed the baby had not died because of an incompetent cervix, but because of a sub-placental haematoma. A blood clot had formed behind the placenta and had grown so large that it had pushed the placenta away from the uterine wall. In later pregancy this is known as a placental abruption. Thankfully the results came through just before I would have had an unnecessary cervical stitch. My consultant promised me that procedures for documenting the location of miscarried babies would be changed, that no other mothers baby would be 'lost'. Recent national news reports about the hospital I lost my baby in suggest that any changes, if any were made, were not sufficient.

We buried Laurie on September 2nd 2006. She, yes - the postmortem revealed we had a perfectly formed daughter, was born on February 18th 2006 but became an angel about ten days beforehand. The doctor, midwife and my OH did not hear her heartbeat when we first went to the hospital. Shifting those boxes did not cause her death. She had already slipped away. Starved by a placenta fighting a blood clot twice her size.

Summary: For Laurie on her third Angel Anniversary. I'm on my way with flowers and a lilac windmill hunny x