A marathon, not a sprint

My husband's step-sister is running the London Marathon later this month. It's not the first time she has run a marathon and she has run the London race before. She is part of a running club but runs to raise money for charity as well as for fitness.

Normally, she raises money for Cancer Research UK in memory of her mother (who was also a distance runner). This year, she has kindly agreed to seek sponsorship to raise funds for Southmead Hospital maternity unit, in memory of Monty. Donations can be made via Virgin Money Giving.

Since Monty was stillborn, we have raised over £700 for the Mum's the Word appeal in support of the hospital's planned developments. It would be fantastic if Becky's marathon run could help us get that figure closer to £1000!

I still feel a huge debt of gratitude to the maternity staff at Southmead for they way in which they have helped and supported us. I hope that one day, I will enjoy their care again (and their new, improved maternity unit facilities) under happier circumstances.

Brokenhearted

Today, by rights, you should be 8 weeks old.

Today, fourteen weeks after the last time I heard your heartbeat and felt you moving inside me, I went back to the hospital to find out why you died.

It seems I picked up a viral infection in early pregnancy. A virus that is carried by the majority of the population and which causes asymptomatic infection in most adults. A virus that is not routinely tested for in antenatal bloodwork and which cannot be treated or avoided. A virus which took hold in the placenta and prevented you from growing.

I am so sorry that there was nothing I could have done to save you. There is nothing anyone could have done to save you. There was no sign to suggest anything was wrong until it was too late...

******

Even before your big sister was born, you were on my mind. I knew I wanted children: more than one. You were an idea long before you became a reality. I planned you. I wanted you. You were conceived on purpose. You would have been loved but I never had a chance to show you how much.

I lost you and now I am lost without you. You are the hole in my heart that will never heal.

My precious baby boy.

Mum's the word

I am so grateful to our family and friends who have donated funds to the Mum's the Word appeal in memory of Monty. Together, we have raised over £700 (not including the gift aid!) and there's more to come as we have a promise of sponsorship from someone who is running the London Marathon in 2013. I am proud that we will have a hot air balloon dedicated to Monty's memory on the hospital's fundraising wall.

We feel so grateful for the kind and tender care we received when we found out that our baby had died and would be stillborn. All the midwives, doctors, and hospital staff made us as comfortable as they could and were sensitive to our feelings, needs and wishes. I can look back and remember the very special (albeit heart-breaking) experience of giving birth to my precious son and am glad to have received such excellent care.

I hope that our contribution will go some way to helping ensure that high-quality care will continue to be provided to other mothers, babies and families at Southmead Hospital...

...and, perhaps, one day, we will be lucky enough to receive their care again?

One month on

This seems to have been the longest month of my life. Hours and days have elongated yet the weeks have passed quickly. How can one whole month have passed already since Monty was born?

It's hard to describe how I feel. I mourn the intimacy of maternal love for the baby growing inside and the lost potential of a life that never came to be. I am exhausted from lack of sleep and the effort required to get through each day. I feel incredibly sad and burdened by the thought that I have let everybody down.

The chaplain told me that it is perfectly normal for mothers to feel it is their fault when a baby dies. I have replayed over and over in my head the hours between my last midwife appointment and the scan at the hospital, looking for a missed signal that would have told me something was so terribly wrong. I feel I have failed as a mother in not being able to save my son, although medical advisors have said that, in all likelihood, no action on my part would or could have changed the outcome.

We are waiting for the results of the tests carried out postnatally on me and Monty and the results of the post mortem. We will be called back to the hospital to meet one of the consultants to go through all the results but have been told that, in the majority of cases, they are unable to determine the cause of death. It is important for us to understand if there was an identifiable reason for the loss of our baby and to consider the possibility of maybe trying for another child at some point in the future.

The world continues about its business but my life has been turned inside out. Plans, hopes and dreams have been shattered - the rug has been pulled from under my feet. I have never before felt so uncertain about my future. In a practical sense, we can continue where we left off but I know there will always be something missing and the unspoken, unanswered question - what if? When people ask me how I'm doing, my first answer is usually "OK" but friends who probe deeper and ask the right questions soon find out that I'm bewildered, confused, cast adrift, tearful...

Someone said to me "It's as if your life is a beautiful glass vase on a windowsill. One day, when the window is open, a breeze blows your vase onto the floor and it smashes into pieces. You collect up as many pieces as you can find but even if you try to glue them back together, there will be some pieces missing and it will never look the same again. So, melt the glass and make a new vase which, although different to the first one, can be equally beautiful."

And time goes by so slowly...

It seems as though time has slowed to a crawl this past fortnight. I hardly know what day it is, let alone the date or time. Two weeks ago, I waited for a call to attend a scan at the hospital and then my life was turned upside down.

There has been so much to do, think about and agree to. The only way I've been able to 'cope' is to break it down into chunks: deliver my baby; meet him and say goodbye; give consent for tests and a post mortem; register his birth; speak to the chaplain about funeral arrangements; and so it goes on...

I have never cried so much or so hard or drunk so many cups of tea.

I feel so desperately sad that I don't have my baby to hold, that my husband doesn't have his son, that my daughter is a big sister with no sibling. Our baby felt my love and care for 34 weeks but never got to enjoy the love of his extended family. If only I could have known that something was wrong - perhaps I could have saved him?

I have bad days and better days. One thing is certain, I couldn't have got through these last two weeks without the excellent and tender care received from the hospital and community midwives, love from my family, and support from our friends. We have received so many cards, texts, emails, letters and flowers - I am touched and comforted to know that people are sending us their thoughts and prayers as we try to understand what has happened.

The strength of love I feel for my husband and daughter is amplified; they keep me going.

The community midwife is coming to visit me today. I was supposed to be going to the clinic for my routine 36-week appointment but, instead, she is coming to see how I'm doing at home. I'm expecting to be discharged from midwife care and handed over to my GP and health visitor until my 6-week postnatal check. Somehow, over the coming weeks and months, I will have to find my "new normal" and learn to live in a different future to the one I had planned.

My husband said "The past is ours to remember, the future is ours to create..."

Goodbye before hello

I went for my routine 34-week midwife appointment not suspecting that there could be anything amiss with my pregnancy. I have been relatively fit and well (bar the bronchitis and sinusitis about a month ago) but had been quite busy on appointment day, so hadn't noticed much foetal movement. The midwife was concerned that I was measuring small for my dates and had difficulty finding the baby's heartbeat, although she did eventually get a strong signal on the doppler monitor. She referred me to the day assessment centre at the hospital for another scan and said I would be seen within 24 hours. I went home to have cold drinks, something to eat and take note of baby's movements. I did feel some movements during the evening and, although I was feeling a little anxious, I went to bed as normal.

The hospital phoned the next morning and I went in for the scan. Unfortunately, the ultrasound could not detect a heartbeat. My baby had died.

The sonographer and doctor were very kind and phoned my husband who came to the hospital straight away. I told him what had happened and they made us some tea. We were moved to a more comfortable room and several people came to see us and explain what would happen next. I don't remember everything that happened that afternoon but we decided to go home for the night, collecting our daughter from nursery on the way, to have as normal a family evening together as possible and try to process the news that we were losing our baby.

We told our parents and they told our sisters the sad news. We invited a midwife friend to come and sit with us for an hour in the evening and it really helped to have it all explained to us again by a friend. We arranged for my mother-in-law to come the next day and stay for a few days to look after our daughter whilst we prepared ourselves for more hospital appointments and the loss of our baby.

I didn't sleep very well that night. Butterflies swarmed around my stomach and I felt incredibly thirsty. I was up every hour and eventually got up at 5.30am to try to eat some breakfast. It's hard to eat when you have no appetite and feel queasy but an empty stomach somehow feels worse. Plain food, eaten cold, little and often helped to keep the edge off my hunger.

We had been told to return to the hospital once we had childcare sorted for our daughter. After my in-laws had arrived and been settled in at our house, we took my overnight bag, toiletries and a few extras to make us feel more comfortable to the hospital to speak to more doctors and midwives and start the process of delivering our baby. I hadn't realised there would be so many decisions to make and so much  time to wait between different stages of the process.

We spent a couple of hours in the hospital. I took the first set of medication and managed to get some sleep. The hospital made two rooms available to us - one was like a hotel room (double bed, comfy chairs, tea/coffee making facilities, fridge, tv); the other like a hospital room (with hospital bed, medical equipment and en suite bathroom). We were told that these rooms would be available to us all weekend and that we could stay as long as we liked. We stayed in the comfortable room and then, when I woke up, decided to go home again because the second set of medication could not be administered until at least 24 hours had passed.

My mother arrived that evening. She wanted to help with the delivery and see the baby born. I went to bed early and despite my churning stomach, I managed to get some sleep (more likely through exhaustion than anything else).

The next morning, after a small breakfast, my husband and I went for a short walk to get some fresh air. Having spent so much time indoors, sitting or lying on beds and chairs, it was good to stretch our legs and feel some sunshine. After lunch (not that I could eat anything), my mum, husband and I went to the hospital for the induction.

Our baby boy was stillborn that evening, six weeks ahead of his due date. Mum helped the midwife to wash and dress him for us. They took hand and footprints as a keepsake. We named him and were given some quiet time alone with him to take photos before he went to the chapel of rest.

I am the mother of two beautiful children but my baby son is never coming home.