Throughout Baby Loss Awareness Week we are highlighting stories. It is one of our key values that stories are important and that every voice deserves to be heard. We are very grateful to this previous client of TimeNorfolk for giving us permission to share their personal story of baby loss.
I found out that I was pregnant unexpectedly, my partner and I took a long walk to decide what we were going to do and came to the conclusion that we were ready to be parents.
It was an exciting time for me, as there were three other pregnancies at work and we were all due around the same time. When we found out I was pregnant I was already nearly 7 weeks, so the wait for our first scan wasn’t too long.
Eventually the day came but it was one of the hardest days of my life.
We saw our baby girl’s little heartbeat and I was so relieved. I didn’t think anything could go wrong. As more people came in to look at the scan, I knew something wasn’t quite right. They took us into a private room to tell us that whilst our baby currently had a strong heartbeat, it was unlikely they would survive outside of the womb.
The next day we saw the little heartbeat again and they confirmed that some of the baby’s organs were developing outside of the body and it was highly likely that they had some chromosomal anomaly. They offered me an amniocentesis to find out more before we made a decision about what to do, but that involved waiting four more weeks.
These were four of the longest weeks of my life. It was so hard watching my friends pregnancies develop when I wasn’t sure if mine was. People tried to be positive for me, but they hadn't had the frank conversations with experts that we had. I got told ‘everything happens for a reason’ but could not think what possible reason this could be happening for.
Eventually the day came and upon having an ultrasound before the amniocentesis, it was revealed that her heart had stopped beating. I was 15 weeks and 2 days.
The next day I went to Hospital to start the process of having my baby. After a few hours of labour, I gave birth to our tiny little baby girl. They took her away to clean her up and then brought her to us. I am so thankful we had the opportunity to see her, however I will always wish we had spent longer together. A few days later we held a very intimate funeral, with just our closest family members. I probably wouldn’t have understood why anyone would do this for such small baby until it happened to me, but it was such a crucial part of my healing.
My friend who had lost her baby a few years prior suggested I referred myself for counselling with TimeNorfolk. I looked at their website and decided it would be a good fit for me.
It was really helpful for me to talk to someone and know I wasn’t being judged about what I said. I was given space to speak freely about how I was feeling and given the tools I needed to help get past some of the hurdles I was facing. I have made so much progress with my emotions and being able to be around pregnancy.
I will never get over what happened to me and my family but TimeNorfolk has helped me get through to the other side and see that there is hope for my future.