Tuesday 4th November

I have decided to start this blog in memory of little girl Hannah Grace who was born just before the 37th week of pregnancy. I had a healthy pregnancy. At 34 weeks I had a scan as the midwife thought she was breach. I'm sure she properly was but she did a summersault on the way to the hospital (I nearly had to pull over she moved so much). The scan showed she was head down. Everything was going well. They check her over looking at her heart and placenta etc and everything was good. She was a little big but within the 95th percentile. I was expecting a big baby however. My husbands and his siblings were all 10 pounds plus.
When I was 35+4 weeks I woke in the night. I had had a busy Monday and had been sick after dinner so had gone to bed early (sickness was pretty common with me and pregnancy). It was 2am in the early hours of Tuesday however when I woke suddenly and realised I hadn't felt my little girl move all day. I had been very busy so wouldn't have noticed if she had. I had however had lots of random tummy pains all day. I had had them before in the pregnancy but they hadn't lingered all day like they had that busy Monday. I spent 90 minute trying to get my little girl to move that Tuesday morning and eventually rang the labour ward. On the way to the hospital to have babies heart beat monitored I decided it was far better to look foolish and waste the midwifes time then to sit a home ignoring the lack of movement and there be an issue. I seriously just thought I was being silly however. I arrived at the labour ward around 4am feeling a little foolish. I said to the midwife I was properly being a paranoid mother and was sorry for wasting there time. The midwife was lovely and said they never think that but I did get a slight sense from her of 'here comes another one worrying about nothing'. Well I lay down in the room and the midwife got the foetal heart rate monitor and placed it on my tummy. She felt around my tummy from one corner a another. I wasn't sure if this was normal but I tired not to let it worry me. I'm sure it was. After a little bit she asked the trainee midwife with her to go an get the doctor, again I tried hard not to worry. I'm sure this was normal. I never really imagine at this stage anything would be wrong. My very worst thought was that I would be rushed in for an emergency section. I always had a strong sense our little girl would come early. While waiting for the doctor the midwife continued to check for a heart beat. At one point she found a faint heart beat, it was all ok. I responded with 'that sounds good' (still believing baby was fine and that maybe she wasn't very good at finding foetal heart beats). The doctor eventually arrived with a mobile ultra sound scanner. He scaned baby and I can't remember his exact words but it was something like 'the pregnancy has expired'. I wasn't 100% clear what the meant, the midwife clarified that our little girl was gone, she had no heartbeat. He said it would be confirmed tomorrow with another scan but that he was pretty baby had gone. Gone. Goodness I couldn't believe it. I knew that babies could die so late but that was due to a condition. A genetic condition, growth issue, preeclampsia, a growth defect that would of been picked up in the scans or if during the birth there were complication. For me however I had none of those thing. I was healthy, my baby was healthy. There was no reason for Our baby's heart to stop beating. My husband had stayed at home with our 19month old daughter. It had seemed silly to wake her up and anyway Rich had to be up for work the next day. I thought I'd just go in for 2 hours to be monitored and be sent home in time for Rich to go to work. I rang Rich. Understandably very upset. It took a long time for him to arrive. He had dressed Esther before leaving. Before Rich arrived I was taken to another room. A very unclinical room, obviously used for 'cases' like ours. It had a double bed in it, TV, coffee machine and ensuite. The doctor came in. It was funny he didn't speak to me. He spoke to Richard, about me, in the third person. Very odd. Upon reflection I wonder how many conversations like this he had had and if in fact he just felt a little nervous? I did say to Rich however I would speak to him if he blanked me again! We were told we would have another scan to confirm that our little one was now gone but at this stage he was pretty sure she was. They left us in the room. We named our little girl Hannah Grace. Hannah had now left us and it felt only right to give her identity as although she would never breathe on this earth she had very much been alive. To say goodbye to someone you need to know who they are. Giving her her name was us saying hello, we love you, you are precious, we will miss you our beautiful Hannah Grace.