By Nicola Bradshaw, Nottingham EnglandI had been so desperate to have a baby, its something I've dreamed of for years. Then I met my husband 4 1/2 yrs ago. We got engaged after just 1 year, but left it for 2 1/2 yrs to get married. We always said that as soon as we got married we'd try for a baby, but we were both impatient and started trying 3 mths before the wedding. We were married in July 2002, and found out we were pregnant in March 2003. We were so happy, and couldn't wait to tell everyone.
PROM at 20 weeks + 3 days. Delivery at 22 weeks.
Story added: 2003-10-15
For the first 12 wks I did nothing but worry, it seemed to take forever to get over the danger stage, but when I got there I still didn't stop thinking what could happen. Everyone kept saying that I had to stop it, and enjoy being pregnant, but I just couldn't. When I had my first scan I was so pleased that everything was ok. All was going smoothly, and at 16wks I joined a aqua natal group,which was really good fun. At 16.5wks I felt our baby move for the 1st time, and I absolutely loved it.
At last my bump was starting to show, I had looked forward to this bit for ages. We went shopping to get me some maternity clothes, and I loved wearing them because they made my little bump look really obvious.
Then one Sunday we went to my parents for dinner, and afterwards decided to go for a walk. When on our walk my mum said that I was starting to woddle like pregnant woman do. I was so pleased. Later when we got back, I said I was going for a sleep. While I was half asleep I suddenly gushed with what looked like water. I got up and shouted for my mum and husband, I was wet through. When we contacted the emergancy midwife, she told me to go to the hospital, which I did. When I got there they did an internal examination, and told me that I had urinated while sleeping, which I thought strange because it was just coming away freely and I'm not incontanant. But because I liked to think they know what there doing I trusted there word, and went home. The following morning I woke up, and I was wet through again. Knowing that this is really not right I went back to the hospital, were they decided to admit me for investigation. After yet another day they discovered that it was my waters that had broken, and told me I had to rest as much as possible, because there was a chance they may heal and come back.
My consultant told me that I should go and have a scan and see how everything is going on in there. Everything showed up as being fine on the scan, and the baby had all the water there, which was great. I thought things might be ok, if the sack was to heal itself. Over the next week things were going from bad to worse. I started bleeding, and losing clots, but all I kept thinking was, please can we get to being 24wks, so that the baby has some chance of survival although not much.
The next Monday I had to go for another scan to see if my placenta was still in place. But when I got there it wasn't good news. Our baby had lost all the water through the course of the week, there wasn't a drop. But my consultant said we could still have some chance. Over the past fews days I had been having like a period pain in my abdoman and this was getting gradually worse, and then by the Tuesday it was really painful. They then said that I was probably in slow labour, and then offered us some medication to induse me, as they had done when we were first told that the waters had gone. But there was no way I was going to doing that , I had to give my baby every chance at life that I could, and I was propared to do what it took to do that, were there's life there's hope!
But then on the Tuesday afternoon I lost a huge clot, and that was the time they took me to labour suit. We stopped there for another day, and althrough this I was in slow labour. The most horribe moment was that they said, should our baby be born alive they would not do anything to try and keep it that way, they would just let him/her die. I said that they could not do that to my baby, they had to at least try, but they said no, our baby was to young to survive.
Then at 6.20am on 24th July 2003 I gave birth to a little girl, but she wasn't alive. This was the worst day of our lives, and hopefully will never have it happen again. We named our daughter Lucy, and she was really gorgous, she weighed just 375grams. 1 week later we were burying her next to my grandma, were she will look after her until we can.
The good news is that our test results all came back ok, so we stand as much chance of this happening to us again as anyone else does. So hopefully it won't be to long before we're pregnant again, to give Lucy a little brother or sister.
Thank you for reading my story,
and God bless to our little girl, we love
you sweetheart.