On 22 March, we lost our baby girl at 23 week after a preterm delivery. We don’t know the exact cause, but suspect it was due to a weak cervix. I took our older one for activity that morning, went grocery shopping and even spent an hour in the gym as usual. After lunch when I used the bathroom, the baby membrane dropped to my vagina without any major symptoms. We called an ambulance immediately and I was then administered at the maternity unit of the hospital. The midwives and doctors did a series of examinations and tests to look at the cervix and position of the membranes, and look out for possible infection. After several hours, I was told that the only way forward is to wait for my body to naturally process this. If I’m stable till the next morning, they could consider an emergency stitches on my cervix. Unfortunately I started contracting that night. Then everything just advanced so quickly and I gave birth to my little girl the next morning. The baby was strong. My water didn’t break all night long. It was only when the doctor decided to intervene and accelerate the process that they broke it manually and in seconds the baby came out. We chose comfort care. She was perfect, beautiful little thing and passed away peacefully in my arms. It was heartbreaking, traumatic and is still tearing me apart days after.
Later, the hospital found high white blood cell and Streptococcus in my smear test. They suspected this caused my cervix to open. However I don’t totally agree as people usually experience contraction then cervix opening if there was an infection first. I might be wrong, but I truly wanted to find out the cause.
I have been expecting her arrival so so badly. She had been part of everything I planned for the future - our family life, our new home… it’s so hard to now have to take her out of everything. I’m 40, so it was such a blessing that she came. I had a stressful first trimester, with a raised NT followed by amnio test and several heart scans. I only felt relieved after 20 week when all tests and scans had came back normal. We have a 6 year old boy at home and we had been talking a lot about how he could bond with his little sister, and how much she would learn from her older brother.
My partner was not supportive of this 2nd pregnancy from the beginning. I had been carrying mostly everything on my own, finding help at home, taking care of the older one, planning for refurbishing work of a new larger flat we bought and moving home, while working a full time job and somehow still finding time for regular exercise. I thought the second one would just be as smooth as our first one. I’m not sure if it’s my age, the stress, or me always running around without enough rest that had led to this incident. I can’t stop thinking if I had paid more attention to myself and the baby, had let-go of the less important things, could I have noticed the change in my body and have it checked by the doctors early on.
I understood the likelihood of having a normal preganancy for 40+ and the higher risk of chromosomal abnormality. We succeeded at our first try and had made it all the way through to 20+ weeks when I thought things had stabilized. Yet suddenly I lost her, and together gone was a part of me…
I’m not sure if I could get pregnant again with a healthy baby, as I know the odds are not our our side the further I go into 40s…and I’m not sure if my partner would want another try and another pregnancy, or he may just call it a stop. I feel so helpless when I think through all these.
I miss our little angel. She was a blessing, but we let her go.