We lose nine babies every day in the UK to stillbirth. We knew we were going to loose our boy but in most cases stillbirth and neonatal death comes as a cruel and terrible shock. This is why we want to use our story to raise some money for two charities that help Mum's and Dad's remember their short time with baby. Here is our story.

On the 21st of February 2018 I found out I was pregnant with my first baby. I can remember the excitement I felt waiting for my husband George to return home from work to tell him the news. As you can imagine he was delighted and we could not wait to tell our immediate families. Everyone was overjoyed.

The 12 week scan finally came around and it could not have gone better. I felt so much joy looking at my baby for the first time with its perfect little profile. Me and George joked that the baby was lazy (like me) as it didn’t want to move into the right position for the midwife to do her measurements, as such I had to jump around the scanning room to encourage it to move. Finally it got into the right position and we left with the beautiful scan images.

The 8 weeks that followed were the best of my life, we went on a babymoon to Portugal and announced our news on social media by writing our due date in the Portuguese sand, I started pregnancy yoga and bought my first few bits of clothing for the baby. I remember, counting down the days to my next scan, looking forward to finding out the babies sex. When 18 weeks hit I remember being concerned that my bump was rather small but was reassured by other mums on the internet and my nan, who told me she didn’t show when pregnant with my dad until after 20 weeks.

The day of my 20 week scan finally came 6th June 2018 (now remembered as the worst day of my life). Me and George were so excited in the waiting room giggling about almost being late to the appointment.

We were then called into the scanning room, and I lay on the chair shaking with excitement. As soon as the picture appeared on the screen I sensed there was something wrong. I had been to my sisters 20 weeks scan of my nephew a couple of years before and remember being able to see the baby a lot my clearly and larger on the screen, however I dismissed this feeling as the nurse had not said anything and was continuing to take his measurements. After about 5 minutes I was expecting him to ask if we would like to know the sex of the baby but instead he put down the scanner and said “I am sorry but I found a few problems”. My heart sunk and I burst into tears immediately. He continued to tell us that there was no amniotic fluid around baby and that there was fluid around the heart. We were then moved into another room, both in floods of tears. We asked what this all meant, was our baby going to be ok? He said he couldn’t tell us and we would be referred to the specialist consultants for another scan in a few days time. 

The next few days were agonising, not knowing if this could be resolved. The best way to describe it is like being in limbo. After crying constantly for 2 days I turned up to our specialist scan with little hope. We were told our baby among other things hadn’t developed kidneys and had an enlarged heart and as such would pass away before or shortly after birth. We were given the option to terminate the pregnancy or continue, knowing we will eventually have to say goodbye to our baby when the time came naturally.

Although it would be the right decision for many, I never really considered the first option. After carrying my baby for 5 months and feeling him move inside, I could not bring myself to cut short the time we had left together. 

We chose the second option and decided to try to enjoy and savour every second we had left with our baby and to make sure he enjoyed his little life too. So, me and my husband talked to him, played him our favourite music, took him for country walks, to the theatre, for swims in the Cornish sea, and of course, I gave into all my food cravings no matter how calorific! Essentially, I just wanted to be the best mum I could be because who is to say his life, no matter how short is less important than any other babies we my have in the future and because this would be the only time I would get to look after him and be his mum.

As time passed it got harder everyday, wondering will today be the day we will have to say goodbye forever? And not knowing how I would deal with the grief after. We had a couple more scans to see how baby was growing and just to see him, as this may have been the only chance we had to see him alive.

In the early hours of 16th September I started getting contractions, and at 3.58am on 18th September at exactly 35 weeks Florian George Searle was born. He was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, the perfect combination of me and George. Unexpectedly our lovely boy stayed with us for a glorious 2 hours before he peacefully passed. In that time my family came to give him a cuddle and say hello and goodbye. George and myself stayed with him through his birthday, the hospital gave us a memory box which contained print sets to make prints of Florian’s hands and feet, a teddy bear, and a key ring which Florian would keep part of. That evening we decided it was time to say goodbye. Leaving him was the hardest thing I have ever had to do, but it helped to know we had made such lovely memories with the help of the staff at the hospital and the memory box we were given.

It has now been 10 weeks since Florian was born and life after losing a baby is so hard, but what I am sure of is, in the future I will not regret the decision we made, I will know my baby had a lovely little life with so much love, he will be acknowledged as someone who existed, he got a funeral and he will be remembered and spoken about forever. 

The experience of Florian’s birth would have been a lot harder without the amazing work of two charities, Ella’s Memory and 4Louis. This page is for Ella's Memory.

All the money raised on this page donated to:

Ella’s Memory - Ella's Memory provides practical help to parents of still-born and neonatal death babies throughout Cornwall. They completely renovated and equipped the Daisy Suite where Florian was born at Treliske hospital in Truro, and now maintain the rooms and garden. This suite is a specialist room just for people in our situation, people who, sadly will never get to take their babies home with them. The suite is separate from the labour ward so that you are not constantly reminded of the terrible situation you are in. It is decorated like a bedroom and has its own kitchen,  bathroom and little court yard which holds a very special tree. The tree grows metal leaves which detail the names of all the babies that have sadly been lost at the hospital. The families of these babies are able to visit the tree whenever they like, it is a beautiful peaceful place to go to remember them.