hi from ireland

[sketts]

Hi guys

as you may know or not it is illegal for termination in ireland here is my heartbreaking story

Myself and my husband were trying awhile to have our 3rd baby we found out at Christmas time I was pregnant and were both thrilled as was our 8 year old and 5 year old boys.

At my 13 week scan the sonographer recognised there was some fluid around the babyâ??s head and asked me to call my husband, this is when I knew there was something badly wrong.

My husband arrived and we were sent to see the consultant. After an hour we went into the consultant room for a more detailed scan there we were told that the baby had a cystic hygroma and very likely to have a chromosome abnormality.

We were told that are baby would either die in the uterus or die straight after birth but more likely I would miscarry before 20 weeks. We were told that baby would not live and that there was no hope. The consultant was amazing, compassionate, supportive and sympathic.

I was offered a CVS procedure (which they can tell what the syndrome the baby has) which I excepted and we would have the results in 3 days.

I turned to the consultant expecting her to offer us an induced miscarriage or termination and I said so what now?

Her response was let nature do its course or you can go to Liverpool to have a termination1 to say we were shocked was understatement firstly to be told your baby has no chance then only to add to the pain that we would have to travel to Liverpool for help. We were devastated and so so angry that we could not receive the treatment we needed here in Ireland.

We waited for the results but I knew in my heart there was no hope.

We received the results and the baby had trisomy 13 (pataus syndrome) which is a cruel horrific syndrome not deemed compatible with life.

So we made the descion to travel to womenâ??s hospital Liverpool. The maternity Hospital gave us all the information we needed so myself and my mother made all the arrangements which was a heart breaking task and also having to leave our 2 boys behind and arrange for someone to take of them. My parents, husband and myself arrived on the Sunday evening and Monday morning I was brought in to have the termination.

The staff were very kind and tried to make the procedure less traumatic for us. I was put under GA and it took 10 minutes.

I left the hospital 3 hours later and we arrived back in Dublin heartbroken Monday night.

I can face the fact that this baby was never going to make it but I will never get over the fact that we had to leave the love and support of our family friends and the staff from the maternity hospital.

It was all very traumatic and extremely cruel to be sent to another country for the termination also the fact that it all costed 2800 euro.

We were lucky to have acess to the money as I know a lot wouldnâ??t. I wont ever forget the very much longed for baby that we lost which we named Skye and I plan to bury the scan photos with my granddad. But I will hold on to the anger of having to travel to another country to receive the help and treatment that we needed so badly at a horrible time in our lives.

I really hope the law changes here in Ireland and no other women or couple ever has to go through what we did.

we in ireland have set up a new forum

www.terminationformedicalreason.com...

i would love love if some of you would join and give some help support please as it is such a tabo subject here and i am trying to change that

So so sorry for all that you have all been through

Best wishes

I wish I could say something to help. You are so brave to talk about this. The fact that you are speaking out will help others.

Hello, like Seabright said hopefully your voice will help others. Last year I went through something similar and had to be induced - only I live in the UK, although my family are irish (live over here). My closet friend lives in Mayo, and was a great support on the phone. I'm so glad i had her support. At the time I was going through all of that, a pal of hers over there had the same thing, and her experience was a total nightmare. She traveled to the UK on her own as her husband had to work - I felt so, so sorry for her. She was also told to let nature take it's course and she would probably miscarry, which she didn't. I could not imagine her pain:(

The whole experience is bad enough for women in the uk, where terminations are legal! I think it's totally unreasonable this day and age to expect a woman to carry on knowing what we know about these conditions. I can understand the emotions involved regarding social terminations, but medical ones are a different matter! Your law over there is ridiculous. I know you know all of this, but I just wanted to know there are women from the uk who would empathise with you.

I hope you and your husband are ok, and get through this ok - it's a hard time, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. All my hugs and wishes xxx

I am very sorry for your loss sketts, I also terminated for abnormalities at 23 weeks. I have to dash now but I just wanted to say that you might want to look at the scan photos in a few years' time, so it might be "safer" to keep a copy as well? Although I completely understand that you need to acknowledge the baby as a little life, I did and visiting her grave now is a peaceful experience. x

Really sorry for your loss Sketts. What an awfully heartbreaking story which really captures the ludicrous head-in-the-sand Catholic idiocy of Irish law.

Coincidentally I'm going for my nuchal fold scan (which of course being in Ireland, I have to pay €250 for) and blood test tomorrow. If it turns out through this and further tests that there is a serious abnormality I will terminate. I am quite open about telling people this because MORE PEOPLE NEED TO TALK ABOUT THIS.

I had to DEMAND information from my (young!) GP about where to get nuchal fold test and other abnormality screening. She tried to fob me off with the "ah sure you're only 27, you have nothing to worry about - they'll pick up anything at the 20 week scan or at birth" answer. If I wasn't as confident or as strong-willed I might have accepted her dismissiveness.

I want to scream at people who look at me wide-eyed and say "you've probably got nothing to worry about, and aren't you better off not knowing"? Irish attitudes to women and women's health are deeply disturbing. Coming from a country with proper first-world healthcare I don't know if I could have another baby here (DH and I plan to leave next year). Thank god I can afford the tests and costs associated with termination, but what about the many women who don't?

When I tell people from my home country about this whole situation they are genuinely horrified and think its barbaric. They ask me why women are not out in the streets demanding proper reproductive healthcare. Then I have to explain to them how rotten Irish society is and the blight of continued Catholic influence.

You have one very staunch supporter here, OP.

Aww Sketts I really feel for you, the situation in Ireland is ridiculous. I can't believe that you had to travel to England for what should be a medical procedure, I don't agree with social terminations but where there is no chance of life I can't see any reason why you would prolong the agony. There are many catholic countries and plenty of them have very liberal attitudes to terminations especially where the pregnancy is not viable. I'm glad that you got the treatment you needed but you're right the situation must be changed. Xxx

I'm really sorry to hear your story, my cousins wife had to do the same (and keep it a secret from her family who would have disapproved).

The flip side is (and I know your baby had a life limiting condition) is that when I had my baby (diagnosed with Downs at birth) the consultant said that there is a large, vocal and vibrant Downs Syndrome community here precisely because people don't/can't
terminate, and that has been of some comfort to me.

OP, I'm sorry you had to go through all that. And I don't know why nothing has been done after those three women took their case to the European court. One poor lady was very ill with cancer, the chemo would damage the baby, but she really had no choice. And despite the fact that she was so ill, she still had to travel abroad for her termination. Having to brave airports etc, is bad enough when you're in full health!

How awful for you. I can't understand why they would do this. There was a Prime Time investigates last year on this topic, it was very informative and heartbreaking. Where I am, in the North west, you don't get a scan until 21ish weeks, which is ridiculous, if the baby has a life-limiting deformity.

SIL was talking to a colleague one day and they were discussing someone they knew who had been told their baby would not live after he/she was born. The lady was around 22 weeks at the time and they were discussing how the poor lady had to carry her baby for the duration of the pregnancy knowing he/she would not survive. SIL innocently asked "Well, why not just induce her now" and her colleague said in a shocked tone "Because that's abortion!" I don't think SIL had actually realised before that, what the implications of the law are.
Now, I don't know whether this lady would have chosen to continue with the pregnancy anyway, some people do. But I do think it should be a couple's own choice. And there are plenty of people who don't have a spare couple of thousand euro lying around.

sketts, are you one of these brave ladies ? Great article.

These ladies on the Late Late show now.