On Monday 24^th January 2022, me and Jim lost our baby, Louis.

I have no idea how to sum up the sadness and trauma of losing a baby in just a few words (especially as what happened to us likely hasn't fully hit us yet, being just two weeks ago at the time of writing), but I’m keen to help raise awareness of baby loss, encourage more open conversations, and support charities like 4Louis who help bereaved parents, so I’ll do my best to try.

It was bang on midnight on Saturday 22^nd January when I was told our baby had died. (Strangely, the clock in our labour room was also stuck on this time for the whole of our hospital stay.) I was on my own in a hospital I’d never been to in an unfamiliar city we’d just moved to while Jim and our toddler Mila were waiting in a car park down the road. Typically, we’d both tested positive for Covid that day so they weren’t allowed in the hospital with me.

I was almost 6 months pregnant, all our previous scans had been fine, and it was completely out the blue. I'd just experienced the smallest bit of spotting, so had been told to go in and get checked over "just in case" but that it was probably nothing. We weren’t expecting this to be the outcome of our “adventure” when we pulled Mila from bed in the middle of the night to head off to the hospital. 

Once I'd made my way through the dark, winding path to the hospital, and had located the labour ward, I was called to a private room. I sat making nervous small talk with a jolly midwife about how lovely her new shoes were while she got the doppler ready to check the baby’s heartbeat. I held my breath as she rolled it back and forth over my beloved baby bump to hear – nothing. 

“It’s probably just because the placenta’s at the front blocking baby,” the midwife said reassuringly. She tried again, pushing the doppler further in, and further down, but still nothing. The silence was deafening. Panic began to set in. 

“I’ll go and find someone to do an ultrasound”, she said. I knew at that moment something was definitely wrong.

I was left in the room for what seemed like an eternity (but was probably only half an hour) before a sonographer came to conduct the scan. She quietly examined the screen - which was tilted away from me - while I watched from the reflection in the mirror. Our baby was completely still. “Move,” I thought desperately. “Please baby, move.”

Suddenly the room began to fill with people and the screen was checked by someone else: a consultant obstetrician I believe. 

I sat there alone, stunned and silent, as the consultant confirmed our worst nightmare: “I’m so sorry,” she said, “There's no heartbeat. Your baby has died.” 

Tears pricked in my eyes and my hand clasped round my mouth as I processed her words. Our baby was dead. And I’d need to give birth to him shortly. Was this really happening?

All the dreams and plans we’d had for our baby and our lives together were shattered in an instant, as I desperately questioned why this had happened, and if it was something I'd done. We'd just moved house, and the removal company had cancelled last minute and the cleaner hadn't turned up, so it was all pretty stressful, and I'd had to help a bit with the cleaning and moving a few boxes. "Could this have done it?" I asked desperately. "Or the stress?" Panic and guilt boiled up inside me.

The kind consultant looked me dead in the eyes as she told me firmly: “It’s nothing you will have done. Often it’s genetic, over half the time at this point in pregnancy it’s an issue with the placenta, and sometimes we just don’t know. There are lots of different reasons it can happen but it won’t be something you’ve done. Please don’t blame yourself. Everyone does - and it’s never their fault.” Tears began to tumble heavily down my cheeks.

They then left me in the room alone so I could call Jim and let him know what had happened. 

“The baby’s dead,” I said bluntly when he answered, not knowing how else to phrase it. 

“What?” Said Jim. My phone signal in the hospital was awful. 

“The baby’s dead,” I repeated. 

“I’m sorry, I can’t really hear you,” he replied. 

“THERE’S NO HEARTBEAT. THE BABY’S DEAD.” I shouted. 

He still didn’t catch it. 

What happened after seems like a blurred nightmare. Like something horrific you’d hear about someone else going through but would never imagine would actually happen to you.

It was only a couple of weeks previously that I’d sat crying at a video I saw on Facebook about a woman who had a stillbirth and had to listen to the cries of healthy babies being born in nearby rooms as she gave birth to her dead child. “Why weren’t they delivered in separate wards if they knew her baby had died?” I thought. “Or couldn’t they soundproof the rooms at least?” Little did I know I'd be in the exact same situation only weeks later. 

To kickstart my labour I was given pills to stop the pregnancy hormones and we were sent home to give them time to work. We were told this normally takes 24-48 hours to work but could be sooner, so to go straight back to hospital if I started bleeding more heavily.  I'd then need to be induced, we were told, which would likely take another 24-48 hours, before I'd have to give birth to our dead baby. I desperately asked if there was another way we could deliver him. A cesarian, surgery, anything. "That's what everyone asks" the consultant replied, "but unfortunately at this stage, it's the best and safest option, which should cause the least damage to your womb, so you can hopefully still go on to have more children." 

After we returned home, it was only a matter of hours until the bleeding increased, and so from around 2am I was frantically packing hospital bags and googling how to tell our nearly 3 year old that the baby had died, and planning where we would leave her while I was in labour. 

We called Jim's parents to tell them what had happened and asked them to come and collect Mila, and as soon as they arrived, we made our way back to hospital, where we discussed pain and birth options, and my induction began. 

Around 24 hours and 4 painful induction pessaries later, I went into labour. As my contractions became more regular and my waters broke, our midwife brought three little knitted baby hats into the room in preparation for the birth: one blue, one pink, and one white. We hadn’t found out the sex yet, but we decided we now wanted to know.

During labour, I cried in pain and fear as the contractions ramped up, and sobbed tears of overwhelming sadness once the birth was over. “It’s a boy” said the midwife, and we both broke down again. Mila would have had a little brother. She’d’ve been the best big sister. “Would you like to meet him? He’s perfect.”

As the midwife was getting him ready in his little blue hat, I suffered a major haemorrhage. The placenta wouldn’t detach and I kept blacking out from the continued blood loss. I was told I needed urgent surgery to remove the placenta and try to stop the bleeding and was informed it carried risks of womb rupture and hysterectomy but there was no other choice – major blood loss can be fatal. As they whisked me out of the room, leaving Jim behind, our eyes latched onto each other, terrified. All I could think was: please don’t let this be the last time I see him.

In theatre, I was met by bright clinical lights and more people than I could count. I felt freezing cold, soaking wet, and desperately sick. I shook violently as they inserted the spinal, petrified I might be left paralysed if I couldn’t still my body.

When it was all over I returned to the room with Jim and we cried tears of relief that I’d made it back in one piece. The midwife left the room to make us some tea and toast, and Jim began to message our family to say I’d returned safe and that the worst was over. Turns out we were wrong.

Just minutes after the midwife had left us alone, my body went into shock from the blood loss and began to convulse. It was the middle of the night, there was no one around, and Jim couldn’t find the emergency cord. He ran to each end of the corridor desperately shouting for help but no one was there – not even on reception. He ran back to our room and I was still convulsing. He remembered there was an emergency cord in the bathroom and pulled it.

I came round to see Jim inches from my face, completely wide-eyed, checking the pulse on my neck. The look on his face terrified me. I wasn’t sure what was going on but I knew something was badly wrong. I'd never felt more ill in my life. 

“HELP ME!” I screamed on repeat as I attempted to rip the blood transfusion and fluid drips from my veins in a state of delirium.

Suddenly, a whole team of doctors, consultants, and midwives came rushing in and began to quickly pump liquids into me to stop my body from shutting down. It was the scariest experience of our lives.

Once I’d stabilised, we then got to meet our baby and say goodbye. Tears streamed from our eyes as I held him and read him a story, and Jim told him how much we loved him and would miss him.

Bereavement midwives helped us with ‘memory-making’ activities funded by the Charity 4Louis. They provide cold 'cuddle cots' and memory boxes to hospitals to allow bereaved parents to spend invaluable time with their babies before having to say goodbye.

The cot and memory box allowed us to take Louis' hand and footprints, get photos with him, and place a heart in his hand from inside a keyring we’ve kept so we’ll always be connected. There was also a teddy in the box for us to give him. I’m welling up as I’m writing this just recalling these moments. This wasn’t how we’d imagined meeting our baby, but at least we could spend some time with him and leave the hospital with a big box of memories, instead of leaving completely empty-handed as we passed happy couples carrying their healthy newborns home.

After saying goodbye to Louis, we were then asked questions no parent should ever be asked about their child: Would you like a hospital arranged or private funeral? Burial or cremation? Post-mortem? With heavy hearts and swollen eyes, we made our choices and signed the sorry forms.

I was given pills to stop my body from producing milk and kept in hospital for almost a week until the side effects of the blood loss became less severe. 

They moved us into a “rainbow room” to recover (which I later discovered is a bereavement suite) which was a beautiful room, far less clinical than a regular hospital room, and decorated more like a hotel. There were books on baby loss in the bedside tables and a journal for newly bereaved parents to share pictures and stories of the babies they’d just lost. It was the most heart-breaking read and I sobbed (once again) as I flicked through each page, but it made me realise how important it is for bereaved parents to talk about their babies and share their stories. Those babies were real. They were sons and daughters. Brothers and sisters. Grandchildren. They had full lives mapped out for them and mattered immensely to their families.  

It was time to leave the hospital and I was given a big bag of pills and needles I’d need to take over the next few months: injections to stop blood clots from the surgery; iron for the anaemia following the extreme blood loss, antibiotics to lower the risk of infection. You name it, I had it.

When we arrived home, our house felt still and silent. No Mila or Bobby dog running around (they were still at their grandparents.) No baby. No pregnant belly. Just me and Jim, sad and shocked, surrounded by sympathy cards and flowers from those we’d told.

In the few weeks that have passed since then, we’ve been completely immersed in the tragic world of baby loss. We’ve learned the difference between phrases like ‘early miscarriage’, ‘late miscarriage’, ‘stillbirth’, and ‘neonatal death’ - and the difficulties and injustices of each. We’ve discovered we were only a few weeks away from being entitled to the full 9 months maternity/parental leave and pay, instead of 5 days’ “compassionate” leave. We’ve realised how taboo it is to talk about baby loss, despite how common it is (1 in 4 pregnancies end in loss). We’ve canceled our antenatal groups and instead joined baby loss groups. We’ve learned how unfair life can be to so many people who suffer from often multiple miscarriages, stillbirths, and neonatal deaths. We’ve learned we had a 0.5% chance of losing our baby at the stage we did – and that we now have a much higher chance of it happening again. And we’re now learning how to cope with the grief and trauma of what happened while attempting to return to work and everyday life, just weeks after we lost our baby, feeling like completely different people.  

In all the sadness and scariness of what happened, we're thankful we were able to meet Louis, spend some time with him, and create those memories we'll always be able to look back on. It’s charities like 4Louis that make this possible and make a huge difference to newly bereaved parents who are going through the most awful time in their lives.

Since having Louis we've come to learn that many UK hospitals have limited, or no, cuddle cots (the specialist equipment that allows bereaved parents to spend this extended time with their babies). And not all bereaved parents receive a memory box and get to create the memories we did - as these cots and boxes are limited and entirely dependent on charity funding. We can't imagine going through what we did and then just having to leave the hospital empty-handed with no memories other than a traumatic birth experience, so we wanted to do something to try to help change that.  

As it’s Louis’ funeral on February 22^nd, and we’ve been asked by some of our lovely friends and family if they can send flowers, we instead thought we’d ask for donations to 4Louis to fundraise in lieu of flowers. Any amount, no matter how big or small, will make a massive difference. It costs £1,600 to provide a hospital with a cuddle cot and just £30 for a memory box. And it only takes one memory box to help a bereaved family heal. 

So if there’s any amount you’re able to spare, please join us in helping support families who’ve lost their babies.  

Thank you,

Jess, Jim, Mila and Louis xxx