Baby with heart defect, labour at 22 weeks. Help me prepare **Title edited by MNHQ**

[whyhastherumgone]

A severe heart defect was found at our 20 week scan and after much discussion, talk with specialists and research we have made the heartbreaking decision not to continue with the pregnancy.

I will be speaking with the midwife monday to talk to her about where we go from here but wondered if anyone could give me an idea of what to expect/ any questions i should ask or think about and anything i should think about taking with me

Thanks so much.

Thank you all. I'm obviously not looking forward to it but i'm looking forward to it being over with. Just hoping it doesn't take ages and ages.

I’m so sorry for you. I hope it goes as quickly and as pain free as possible for you. I can’t imagine how you feel but just wanted to send you my thoughts and prayers

Just wanted to say thank you to everyone who shared their story and advice.

We are home now after the induction at the weekend. It took 15 hours from start to finish and the care we received was astounding. It wasn't as bad as I was expecting, and am now trying to focus on the next stage of our recovery - feeling a little weepy and emotional obviously, and a little uncertain of what the future will bring depending on our test results, but staying positive and focusing on the fact that either way we will know.

I just wanted to come back and update for anyone else in this horrible situation who is searching out advice.

You can do it, no matter how hard it is, you will get through it. It might be painful, but the staff will help you through and you should be offered pain relief as you need it. If anyone ever has any questions, do PM me and I'll be happy to answer if I can.

Thanks again everyone. x

You’re strength and bravery is amazing. They’ll be good and bad days in the coming weeks and months, and make sure you make the most of the help available to you.

One thing no one warned me about was my milk coming in a few days later. There are tablets the doctor can prescribe you to suppress lactation if that’s what you want, but they left me feeling quite anxious and jittery

Be kind to yourself and feel free to PM if you need to

Hi rum I hope you're OK and I'm glad you had good support to get through what is an astonishingly difficult experience. We had exactly the same thing in May. We were also lucky to have great support, the best bit of advice I had was to stay off work for as long as possible (2 months in the end), grief does some very strange things to you and you need time to heal physically and mentally. Things do get better.