Willow
I’ve been trying to find the strength for a while to be able to post my story. So here goes….
In 2012 I fell pregnant. Unfortunately I miscarried at 5ish weeks. It then took us over a year to get pregnant again. I gave birth to my beautiful baby boy in 2014 after a completely normal pregnancy with no complications. We started trying for our second child on the week of his 1st birthday, and were overjoyed to find that we were pregnant within about 6 months (typically normal). Safely, we got to 6/7 weeks and miscarried again. Wanting desperately to have another baby, we got pregnant again about 5 months or so after, but miscarred again at 7 weeks. We could not figure out what was going on. Because we had not had three consecutive misarriages, we were unable to get any help form the doctors.
We got pregnant again a while later, and we really thought we had done it this time – we made it to 10 weeks! Shortly after, I started to bleed a little so went in for a scan. They told me that I had had a silent miscarriage and that my baby had died at around 6-7 weeks again. I had to take some tablets to make things move along as I was no tbleeding. The pain was horrendous, I dditn realise it was like an induction. After the miscarriage, we were finally seen by a recurrent miscarriage specialist. He did bloods and found I have lupus thrombophilia – a clotting disorder where clots get stuck behind the placenta and cause the miscarriage. To help prevent this from happening again, all I had to do was take 75mg of baby aspirin that you can buy over the counter. That one little thing could have saved all my babies! I was so angry and I still am.
After seeing the specialist, despite our anger and sadness, we knew we could have a successful pregnancy, so 3-4 months later we got pregnant again. I was very nervous but I was taking my aspiring every day and I was feeling ok. I got to about 6 weeks 2 days and started bleeding, but had no cramping life before. I went in and they scanned me that day. We saw baby’s Heartbeat! I was over the moon, but still very worried. It ended up being a low progesterone level, but this was after lots of bleeding over a few weeks. I thought I miscarried a few times, and it was hard dealing with that sick sinking feeling over and over again, but we took more progesterone and my bleeding eventually stopped, thank God.
We went in for my 12 week scan and they said everything was ok, but put me back 3 weeks. I knew when we conveived, so I was a little concerned, but they said everything was ok, and so I left and tried to relax a little. I came back a wee or so later to have the nuchal fold scan as they struggled to see on the previous scan. They took bloods as well. I remember the nurse asking why I was having the Downs’ test. I told her that if my baby had Downs’, I’d love him or her no matter what, but that I needed to be prepared. From that week onwards, my life got turned upside down and inside out.
We never got the letter, we got the phone call instead. I was there and all prepared to hear them say my baby had Downs’. But instead she said our baby may have Edwards’ Syndrome. I have no idea what it was. I didn’t even know that they tested for it! When you Google Edwards’ Syndrome, all you seem to get is that its not compatible with life. We immediately went in for a scan. I was pratying our baby was going to be ok and we could finally finish our beautiful family……it never happened. The head sonographer looked at our beautiful baby and told us she had so many problems. There was a massive amount of fluid on her brain, her hands were clenched together and her feet were bowed, her chest and stomach were distended, her heart was only filling a ¼ of the chamber when it should be ¾, her eyes were too far apart and there were some facial abnormalities….This was the worst day of my life.
By this point my sone Theo knew I was pregnant and that he was going to have a little sister. But we had a choice to make. The reason I was bleeding so much in pregnancy was because it was a threatened miscarriage. My baby girl was trying to leave, but I kept stopping her thinking I was saving her, bt I wasn’t! I felt so angry and sad and helpless all at the same time, but I had to be a mother to my son I already have. I felt my baby would not have survived and the thought of waiting every day for your baby to die broke my heard more than anyone could imagine. I had to let my baby girl go.
I gave birth to Willow on 11th October 2017 at 19 weeks, one week before my son’s 3rd birthday. We had her funeral on the 1st November and it was one of the hardest few months I’ve ever been through. We finally got the autopsy report back and Willow was diagnosed with XXX syndrome, not Trisomy 18 as we had expected.
After we lost Willow I got pregnant again. I was on all the right meds and we hoped everything is going to be ok, but I was petrified! I didn’t feel pregnant and I thought it was because I didnt want to feel pregnant because I was so scared. Once again I miscarried at 10 weeks.
Katrina Falconer, Mummy to a beautiful boy and a number of angels.