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In the early part of 2002, still trying to cope with the loss of Michael and Rebecca, we saw our consultant. He encouraged us to think about another attempt at IVF given that I was going to be forty later in the year, rather than using our frozen embryos. The idea was that an IVF would give us a better chance at success, maybe some more embryos and if all that failed, then our frozen embryos would still be there. However, before an IVF took place I needed to have a cerclage put in. After lots of thought and then planning, we finally decided that we would pay to have the cerclage put in, rather than wait nearly a year for it to be done. The cerclage was put in place in March.

We then had to wait for me to heal - both physically and mentally, and prepare ourselves for the upcoming IVF attempt.

I find it strange that I am able to sit here and tell the story of Abigail when I have been unable to face putting together a page for our angel twins. But once again Abigail deserves to have her story told. And for me to share the only pictures that we have of her.

[story not yet completed]

On October 23rd 2002 the wait for our appointment was appallingly long – even a short time when waiting seems to stretch on and on. We started with the anomaly scan and although she was unable to complete it, everything that she had seen was okay. She didn’t tell us at this stage that she had seen fluid in my cervix, saying she didn’t want to comment about the cerclage because she wasn’t sure what she was expecting to see.

Not long before we were due to see our consultant, we heard that he had been called off to a meeting. I started to worry that we wouldn’t get to see anyone, but eventually he returned and we were called in.

It wasn’t the news that I was expecting. The scan showed that my cervix had started to dilate again, the stitch that was put in during March had slipped so that there was very little to hold the baby in, and already fluid was bulging into the cervix.

Our consultant decided there and then that he was going to have to do an emergency stitch higher up in my cervix and that I was to go straight up to the ward for bed rest. I wasn’t even allowed home to collect some things. Left alone for a moment I turned to Stephen, put my head on his chest and bawled my eyes out. I had already given up any hope there and then.

They took me up to the maternity unit where I was with the twins. It was horrible to be back there under the same circumstances, and the only bed they had for me was in the postnatal ward. Stephen stayed with me for a while but had to go back home and fetch me some bits and pieces and to sort out Elizabeth. I felt so lost and alone, listening to the newborn babies cry and the chitchat of the visitors come to see the new arrivals. I wanted to shout at them to be quiet and take their joy somewhere else because my nightmare was just beginning.

Some time later they moved me to another room to be on my own. Room 2. I know it intimately now. There Stephen and Elizabeth came to visit shortly but I was too involved in my own grief and fears to be of much use.

The next morning I waited for the operation to be done. I can’t remember what time it was that they came to fetch me. All the memories of last year came back to me, and I tried to take myself to another place as they put the spinal block in and manipulated me onto the theatre bed. It was like reliving last year all over again. Time expands and contracts and I have no idea when it was that they finished – then we were back once more into the recovery room where I think Stephen was able to visit me.

Later I was moved back to my solitary confinement. Our consultant came to see me the following day and explained that we were fighting a rearguard action and that although he hoped that the stitch that he had put in would work for us, the chances of success were slim.

The following days were awful – waiting to see if things would settle down. And they did – and I was beginning to hope that we would make it. Our consultant just wanted us to try to get to 28 weeks and then the dangers would be much reduced.

Our follow up anomaly scan went well – the radiographer was able to complete the scan. At the end I asked her whether she could see the sex of the baby, and I was delighted when she told me it was a girl – just as I had been thinking. Stephen had changed his mind by that stage and said for the moment he didn’t want to know, but I had already made my mind up that we were going to find out. In some ways neither of us wanted to know because to know was to forge another bond with her, and I was already thinking that we might change the name that we had chosen for her to Abibail Rose, but couldn’t face asking Stephen about it.

We then saw our consultant and the stitch appeared to be holding well. I felt a sense of relieve and although it was still a slim chance that we were looking at, I felt more hopeful than before.

The wait for the next week’s appointment was awful again. Why I thought that everything would be okay from Thursday through to Sunday I don’t know but I would start to worry about things going wrong on a Sunday afternoon and then have the build up to the next Wednesday’s appointment.

On Wednesday 6th November, we saw our consultant again. This time we could see straight away that although the second stitch was holding, there was more fluid in my cervix and it was continuing to dilate. I was sent back up to the ward for complete bed rest – only allowed up to go to the loo. I think that by this time I knew that things were very close to going wrong completely, but had to put a brave face on it because Jane and Elizabeth were visiting and I didn’t want to frighten Elizabeth.

I sobbed and sobbed that evening. Stephen didn’t want to leave me, but had to go in the end. He had been going into work everyday, Elizabeth was staying with Jane, and he has a long journey to work everyday. I was just beside myself because I could see history repeating itself.

Thursday I felt pretty uncomfortable but there didn’t seem to be any signs that things were going wrong. I assumed that some of the movements in my tummy were the baby moving, but maybe looking back it was more serious and the contractions were starting even then.

By Friday night I was definitely having contractions. The doctor examined me but wasn’t able to see anything to worry about and felt reassured that the stitch was holding. They were able to control the pains with tamazepan and indomethicin. I slept well and woke pretty refreshed and hoped that was the end of the contractions. But by Saturday evening they had started again. Once more they were able to control them with the same medication and I felt hopeful that they would start me on regular medication to stop the contractions.

During lunch on Sunday I felt a flood of liquid come out of me. I was convinced that my waters had broken, but the midwife thought that it was urine. It was discovered that I had a serious urine infection. I feel so inadequate that I couldn’t tell where the flood of liquid came from, and I believed them when they said that it was possible that the urine infection could cause me to temporarily loose control of my bladder.

On Sunday evening, after my visitors had left the pains started again. I called the midwife, but it was nearly three hours before a doctor came to see me by which time I was in no doubt that these were contraction pains. I went to the toilet and found a tiny speck of blood mixed in with other stuff when I wiped. I called the midwife again, and when the doctor finally arrived, although he checked me, he could see no sign of anything from my cervix.

During the night there was more discharge. They kept telling me that it was the urine infection and that the bladder and my urethra were very inflamed and might bleed and that was where the blood came from.

On Monday 11th November I woke to more pains. I went ahead and had some breakfast and called the midwife. She spoke to one of the consultants – mine was off filming for the BBC – and it was decided that a scan needed to be done to see how much fluid was around the baby.

The ride down to the scan was awful, I could feel the contractions coming every 3-5 minutes. They were reasonably gentle at that stage, and I could just cope with them. The scan showed that most of the fluid had gone from around the baby and I think then that I went into some other world where I was completely numb. The wait for someone to collect me to take me back to my room was so painful, and I was almost unable to cope with the pain. Back in the room in became patently obvious that things were moving too quickly, the consultant was called and she broke it to me that the stitches needed to come out NOW, before they tore me to pieces and that sadly the baby would probably be born fairly soon afterwards.

I remember crying and crying, yet trying to hold onto some hope that this wasn’t really happening. They realised that the pains were too much for me to cope with and I was whisked downstairs to the delivery suite straight away. There we immediately met Margaret who I remembered from last year and I just sobbed and sobbed as she held me. By that time the pain was unbearable. I was finally given some gas and air which never takes the pain away but does something strange to my head so that I don’t care about it anymore. I think at some stage they were going to try and take the stitches out there in the delivery room, but it all got very strange and I was taken off to theatre where I had another spinal so that the stitches could be removed.

At some stage the pain was so bad that I was breathing in the gas and air all the time, and I started to drift off into another world. I was so confused that I thought they had not been able to put the spinal in and were giving me a general and were going to take my baby away from me without me knowing. I was so frightened that I fought to stay awake and was finally able to realise that just seconds had passed and that the spinal was about to go in.

This is where I suspended myself from what happened. They were obviously having problems removing the stitches – they could find the second stitch but couldn’t find the first stitch at all. They came to the conclusion that it had broken and that I could go ahead and give birth with the rest of it there.

I was 8cm dilated at this stage, and was wheeled into recovery. They wanted to know whether I wanted to go back to the delivery room or stay in recover to give birth, and I think that because the recovery nurses were so sweet that I decided to stay there, but what an awful place for my baby to be born.

I don’t know how long it took – time once again dilated and contracted – how appropriate. Suddenly the pain was all back and the contractions were unbelievably painful. I needed gas and air but they didn’t have any in recovery, so I started sobbing again because I couldn’t cope any more. But suddenly the gas and air appeared again and I was able to get through somehow.

I remember them asking so many times “do you feel the need to push?” and I kept saying “NO” – because I have never in any birth before felt the need to push. It is always just such damned hard work. Suddenly there seemed to be people everywhere – I think the consultant that had seen me in the morning (Mrs Tong) was there, and there was Margaret and Stephen holding my hand, and the recovery nurses trying to help and maybe the paediatrician was there as well. They kept telling me to push, but my body wasn’t giving me any of the right signals and I kept trying to say “I don’t know how”.

Margaret leaned down and said to me quietly “Karen, I want you to listen to me” and I said “I know what you are going to say, I know what you want me to do” but I didn’t want to goddamn do it because that meant that my baby was going to die and I wanted her to remain with me, inside me where she was safe.

So I did as I knew I had to, and my beautiful daughter shot out so quickly that I screamed in fear and shock and all the rage that this was happening again. My whole being went into that scream and I will never forget it.

Abigail was born at 4.07pm. They quickly wiped her and placed her in a towel and blanket and placed her in my arms. She was perfect, just so perfect.

Whilst I held her they checked her heartbeat. I heard them say “100” so  I had to ask them if she was alive. And she was. . The paediatrician was there as soon as she was placed in my arms and he explained to us that there was nothing they could do for her. Because we were sure of our dates because of the IVF, and they could see that her eyes were fused shut, they knew that any attempt to keep her going was going to be wrong and there was nothing to be done but keep her warm. I thought that this meant that she would live longer, but he told us that when babies got cold, their heartrate went up and it would just prolong her dying. She was in no pain.

We spent a precious 45 minutes together, Stephen, Abigail and I, and she slowly faded away. She tried to take a few breaths – it scared me. They would check her heartbeat every few minutes and it gradually slowed down until they could not find the beat anymore. I held her for the longest time; they just left us to be with her. Unfortunately I was becoming very ill – the urine infection had spread to the uterus and this is what caused labour – my membranes had probably broken at some stage and the infection got in. I was linked up to all sorts of drips and stuff.

I remember during the birth, one of the recovery nurses standing at the side of my bed, but slightly out of my eyesight. The other nurses would ask her every now and again if she was okay, and I think that she was crying for us too. Margaret was just the best and let us do what we wanted.

Someone asked us what name we had for her and I turned to Stephen and asked if we could call her Abigail. He said yes. They wanted to know if we had a second name, and I said that I wanted Rose, but Stephen hated that idea and so for the time being we left it at just Abigail.

Some time later I was moved to one of the labour wards with four beds, but they kept the room free for us all the time that I was there. They called the chaplain and we had her named and blessed and I began to feel that sense of peace that the worst was over and that all I had to do was keep going. Was it then that we were asked again whether we had a second name for Abigail? I’m not sure now. It’s strange how the events of those days are already turning fuzzy in my mind and I am struggling to get the order of what happened.

Our consultant visited and said how sorry he was that things had not worked out for us and that Abigail was gone. He talked briefly about what we could do next; he can refer us to a specialist in Bristol who could do an abdominal cerclage, but he could see that it was the wrong time to talk about it when we had just lost our daughter. I think he always likes to leave you feeling that all hope is not lost, but it doesn’t seem right to talk about trying again when we are in the midst of the pain of loosing another child.

Stephen went to collect Elizabeth. I didn’t feel well enough to see her really, but I think that Stephen needed to fetch her and explain to her what had happened. Whilst he was gone, they let me see them give Abigail a bath and they took her hand and foot prints. They were also able to take some photos.

When Stephen came back with Elizabeth I was adamant that she not see Abigail. I thought that it would horrify her. Stephen wanted her to see her, and said that Elizabeth wanted to see the baby. Margaret explained to me that it might be a good idea to let her see the baby as it might help her to understand and come to terms with what had happened. And so we got Abigail dressed in some lovely preemie clothes and Elizabeth was allowed to see her.

I am not sure that she really understood. We tried to tell her that she looked just like a little doll, but she thought she was yucky. I wasn’t offended, understood what she meant. She wouldn’t touch the baby, but did sit next to Daddy for some photos to be taken.

Once they had gone the night passed slowly. Despite two sleeping tablets I found it very difficult to sleep. Abigail was in a cot next to me and I spent the night holding her hand as best I could with a drip in both my hands. She looked so peaceful, so perfect. Several times I thought she moved and then had to realise that she was gone.

The next morning I was still not allowed to eat as there was a possibility that I would have to go back to theatre to have the other stitch removed to avoid the infection spreading. After a long wait, they decided to do a scan to make sure that it was really there and had not come out of its own accord. I had several visits from the midwives that had been looking after me for the previous 2 ½ weeks and from Donna who was our midwife when the twins were delivered. They were wonderful, but they made me cry every time they spoke to me. They all went to hold Abigail and told me how perfect she was. And how sorry they were that we had lost her.
 
 

By this time I had been able to have a wash and Stephen had arrived, so he was able to go with me to the scan. They eventually were able to see it there still, but then the question was whether to remove it straight away or wait for one of our consultant’s scheduled operations. I made it clear that I would prefer to have it removed whilst I was in hospital rather than having to go through coming back again as it was traumatic enough, and I think that they listened to that because they came back later to say that I was having the operation that afternoon. I was finally able to have a bath and Stephen went to fetch Elizabeth.

The anaesthetist visited at some point to tell me that they had decided not to use a spinal or general, but to do the operation under sedation. I made it clear that the last sedation I had had for an operation had started to wear off before the op was completed and it was awful. So she promised to make sure that the sedation did not wear off.

Whilst he was away they arrived earlier than planned for me to go to theatre. It was a lot less traumatic than before and the sedation worked because I suddenly woke up in recovery not even remembering falling asleep. I was in a lot of pain so I was given morphine, which I don’t find particularly helpful, but after a couple of doses the worst of the pain went away.

At some stage Stephen came in with Elizabeth and she was briefly allowed to see me. Once they were sure that I was okay, I was taken back up to Alex Ward, but this time they put me in the SANDS room (Stillbirths and Neonatal Deaths Society), where there was a nice double bed, fridge, armchair and television. Thank goodness I did not have to go back to Room 2, or one of the postnatal rooms. Abigail was still with me at that stage and we took some more photos of her, and then her with Elizabeth and some with me. Afterwards I realised that I had to let her go sometime, and I asked Sue the midwife to take her away to the Chapel. Thank goodness that Elizabeth was there because if she had not been there to distract me, parting with my baby would have been too hard.

Stephen and Elizabeth had to go home at some stage. I was trying to fight off how tired I was by watching the tv, so that they could give me the last lot of that days IV antibiotics. Once that was done I was so tired that I fell asleep really quickly, but still woke at 4am and was unable to get back to sleep. I managed to get up to go to the loo, but found that it stung really badly, and each time I went the pain got worse, so when the midwife came in to see me, I told her. She had a look and said that I had a few grazes from the birth and from the procedures I’d had done, and that the best way to cope was to pour warm water over myself whilst I pee’d. It made a huge difference. We also had a long chat about what had happened and how I was coping. One of the things that we discussed was my guilt over trying again, knowing that this might happen and also my heart stopping fear of loosing Elizabeth and being left with no children. But she explained to me that we had not chosen to have a baby that would die, that we had every right to try and have another child. And that having another child would never make the pain of loosing Elizabeth any better – that we would grieve over Elizabeth in the same way for her and not for whether there was a sibling who would never take her place.

The day passed slowly, with more of the midwives coming to visit me. They told me that I was probably going to be allowed home once I had been reviewed by our consultant but that he couldn’t get to see me until after 5pm. When he came, Stephen and Elizabeth were there and she danced around the room when she heard that I could leave that evening. We were also visited by the chaplain Sandy, who will be doing the service next week as Phil (who looked after us last year) is away. Normally a birth at 22 weeks would be considered a late miscarriage, but when the baby is born alive they have to do a birth and death certificate. Last year we had problems at the registry office when despite forewarning them why we were coming and making an appointment the reception still greeted us with the words “ah, you’re here to register the birth of twins aren’t you?”. This time Sandy was going to try and organise that we didn’t have to go in to the Registry Office, but sadly they wouldn’t allow it and Stephen and we were told that it has to be one of the parents. At least she tried for us.

Our consultant was wonderful as always, though I do find it tough that both times I have lost a child/children he has not been there to help us through. Still, he told us that there are other things that we could try – an abdominal cerclage for one, but that it was too early to think about it. He wanted us to go home, get back to as normal as we could, get through Christmas and then come to see him at the Assisted Conception Unit in the New Year.

Stephen has already been adamant that he doesn’t want to go through all of this again. I am ready to throw in the towel as well, but I do not want to say no, without knowing all the facts. I think it is too early to decide what we want to do, to make any life long decisions, so I am trying not to think about it for the time being, though just by mentioning it here seems like an acknowledgement that it is on my mind. I hate this feeling of disrespect to the child that I have just lost to even be looking ahead. It is time to mourn Abigail, to think of her and not the future. She deserves much more than that.
 
 
 

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