My husband and I are very family orientated, and love children. We have been trying to start our own family for over 5 years. After 4 years of trying naturally, and struggling to come to the acceptance that it wasn’t going to happen this way for us, I gave in to the feelings of failure and we underwent IVF. Most surprisingly it was successful, and only after 5 pregnancy tests did we truly accept that we were actually possibly going to have a baby. Unfortunately, I suffered under severe ovarian hyperstimulation the first 11 weeks, which left me in pain and without energy.
To begin with I was extremely cautious about getting excited about this pregnancy – too many friends had suffered miscarriages, and I kept reminding my husband that we had to wait until the second trimester before we could really begin to get excited. But 13 weeks is a long time, and around 9 weeks I began to fully accept my pregnancy, feeling tingles of joy and excitement just at the thought that our dream was coming true. I began speaking with our child, giving details of the outside world. I played the guitar and would sing, to stimulate our baby. We had decided, because of my fear of miscarrying not to tell our friends until we were 12 weeks. The 12 week scan was circled in red on our, and our parents’ calendars.
Throughout the first trimester, I had regular ultrasound scans to assess the size of my ovaries and the cysts that were causing me so much pain and lethargy. They had reached a colossal 8cm each in diameter, leaving me with a belly that a 7 month pregnant mum would have been proud of. With each scan, I would see our baby, steadily growing, its little heart beat flickering white on the screen, its limbs beginning to move. At 11 weeks I went in, nervous as I hadn’t had a scan in a fortnight and had had no pregnancy symptoms. But the cysts were decreasing in size, and there was my little baby, its heart beating strong, and as if stimulated by my voice, putting on a show of somersaults. I immediately rang my husband and my parents to share my sheer joy and amazement at having seen our little active being inside of me. I remember expressly saying, “even if it doesn’t go much beyond this, what a wonder to have experienced this”.
So, with all appearing fine, my husband and I skipped happily into the long awaited 12 week scan. There our child was, kicking its longer legs up, its heart beating visibly. We began joking around, seeing if we could see similarities in our portraits. I asked the sonographer whether we could hear the heartbeat, whether we could find out how fast it was beating, whether she could tell what sex it was yet. The sonographer remained very still and quiet, looking at various images of our baby. We thought nothing of it – she was doing her checks, her job. And then, in a quiet and solemn voice she informed us that “there may be a problem. A serious problem”.
My heart missed 5 beats, I looked desperately at the screen – but there couldn’t be a problem, our baby’s heart was beating, our baby’s limbs were all there and moving? “What kind of problem” I whispered with the feeling of a squashed grapefruit in my throat. “A problem with baby’s head”.
My husband and I looked at each other desperately, tears welling up, the grapefruit exploding. “The cranium has not formed properly, and the brain is forming outside of the body. I will get a second opinion, but I am afraid the pictures are textbook”.
We were led into a small peach-coloured room, with blue chairs and a picture of a vase with flowers on the wall. Numb and chilled, yet on autopilot, sorting work commitments, ensuring we were excused from work for the day. A midwife explained the condition was fatal, that the brain would disintegrate in the amniotic fluid. It would therefore be best to terminate. We could carry to term, but the child would only be able to survive a few days if that. It was the stuff horror movies were made from. How could our darling so-longed for child have this condition? How?
To have the termination that day would not be possible (even though I had not eaten anything) – there was no room on the list. Due to the Christmas period, I would not be able to be seen before the new year. Initially we were given no medical diagnosis, and having spent around £5000 on the IVF, were now forced into the position of ringing private abortion clinics for availability over Christmas. It was surreal. No appointments were available, and even if they had been we wouldn’t have been offered one because I was over 12 weeks. Eventually a consultant told us that our child was suffering under the condition of exencephaly, a spinal neural defect.
We managed to get a termination appointment for 28 December at a different Trust near to my family.
It was hard waiting seven days, and going through Christmas, pregnant, but knowing there was only death waiting for us at the end of the week. There was no alternative. As a mother, I felt I was a murderer – I was killing my child with intent. I knew that its heart would be beating when the termination occurred. But it also gave us the opportunity to say goodbye, to begin the grieving process. I had opted for a surgical suction, rather than the pill. I wanted to be numb in all senses when my baby was taken from me.
When I awoke from the termination on the day we had reached 13 weeks, it was with such conviction: our baby must come home with us – something we had not considered before. The staff were outstanding, and assisted us with our wish to take our little baby with us for burial. It was with a mixture of unending torturous sadness and pride that we carried our child through the hospital in a small white rectangular box.
The physical act of burying our child (on our 6 month wedding anniversary) was almost too overwhelming yet incredibly therapeutic. We were properly able to say goodbye to our baby, and have planted a magnolia tree in its memory. We did not ask for the sex of the baby, it was our baby. We do not know the colour of the magnolia tree petals. It should begin to bloom around the same time I should have, and will surprise us with its beauty, as our child would have done.
It has been hard going through the motions of coming back to a normal daily routine, going back to work. We had hoped to shout to the world our glorious news, and instead are having to explain why we are so sad. To lose our baby at 13 weeks leaves us with no rights, no benefits, and little understanding – “gosh, you are lucky it was caught so early” “oh, you’ll soon have another one” “miscarriage happens to many, you are not the only one” and most hurtful of all “oh its good you had the opportunity to get rid of it – it was a bad egg”. No one seems to grasp how precious our baby was to us, however tiny and short a life-span it had. We had waited five long gruelling years, and to be pregnant and then to have it so cruelly snatched away from you is inexplicably hard.
Particularly unfair is to then develop an infection following the termination, leaving you gasping in pain and bleeding for weeks after, coupled with an employer unwilling to reinstate annual leave taken during which this all happened, and be told that your paid sick leave entitlement has been fully used for the next 7 months.
However, to be able to cry together, and hold each other, support each other and laugh with each other brings strength to us every day. To have someone to share this loss with is invaluable. And to have a loving supporting family and network of friends whom you can call and just cry on is so important.
And from all this, I take with me a positive: We are able to get pregnant, and had the privilege of being pregnant for over three months. There are so many couples who never have that opportunity, despite so dearly wishing for it. Another positive is that my husband and I have each other, and will from now on always be a family of three. No-one can take that from us.