Baby Harris

We had been trying for a baby for nine months (the irony!) before finding out we were pregnant very early on at about three and a bit weeks. 

I have a very poor history of miscarriages with unknown causes, so the minute I got that second line - I was straight onto the GP and on the Progesterone, blood thinner injections, and aspirin, all daily.

We attended a few scans prior to 12 weeks for reassurance and to check for any issues. The only issue we came across, was each scan the due date was pushed back a few days at a time. This can be normal prior to 12 weeks, so no one was overly concerned. We had our screening at 12 weeks, low chances for Down's Syndrome, Patau Syndrome and Edward Syndrome - however we flagged for Low PAPP-A. 

We were kept on the blood thinner injections and aspirin for this until 16 weeks. We were told it's not overly concerning, but we were put under the pre-term birth clinic due to the low PAPP-A, which is apparently normal procedure for our hospital.

At our 12-week appointment, we were referred to fetal medicine as our baby had a large bladder, possibly megacystis. After a re-scan, we were further referred to fetal medicine again for the same issue. The third scan, bladder was normal size, however the kidneys were now swollen - a further referral to fetal medicine. Our due date was also pushed back again due to our baby being smaller than the dates suggested.

We were never actually seen by anyone at our fetal medicine unit, we were scanned by standard sonographers each time who just kept referring us back to fetal medicine. 
We have since found out that megacystis is a soft marker for Patau syndrome - which our baby had a 1 in 740 chance of at the screening. 

It was 19 weeks 4 days when we found out our baby was a boy, we named him Harris. It was also this same day at a private clinic for a gender scan, that his heartbeat had stopped.
I raised it to my midwife a few days prior that his movements had stopped, but I was reassured it was normal as he was still small, and my placenta was at the front. Turns out he had passed away and I was oblivious. 

Our forever baby was born on 22nd September 2024, 00:48am. Five hours of labour in the special room no parent wants to be in. We got to spend some time with him afterward. We have loads of photos of our precious boy, as well as hand and footprints.

He was born with a cleft palate and cleft lip which was missed on all of our scans, so it was a massive shock when they gave him to us. He was also missing one eye, so was born winking - again missed on our scans. 
No one knew it was Patau Syndrome at the time, it took three weeks after an autopsy at Great Ormond St Hospital to confirm what happened to our precious boy. 

We held his funeral on 24th October 2024 - attended by his mummy and daddy, his big sister, nanna, and great nanna and grandad. 
We have his ashes back in a special teddy bear - now called our HarryBear - that stays in our bed, and we cuddle him every night. He sits on his daddy's lap when he is gaming so he is always so involved. 
There will come a time where we don't need to hug the bear all the time, but for now, we get to love our boy in a slightly different way to what we hoped, but we get to love on him regardless. 

Amanda Varney, November 2024