Bobby’s story – born sleeping at 36 weeks.

On 7th October 2018, I was 42 years old and 36 weeks pregnant. Trevor and I had been in our new home in Chichester for one week. We’d registered with our new doctors, checked into our new hospital, St. Richard’s, Chichester and booked a c-section, as advised by our previous consultant because I had polyhydramnios (which means I had too much water in my womb). We were so excited! We’d finally moved and were able to prepare for our new arrival. So we headed off to Ikea, Southampton to buy the nursery furniture. On the way home from Ikea, I remember saying ‘Bobby’s not moving around so much today babe’.

Bobby was our nickname for bump because he (yes, a confirmed boy) kept bobbing around. He was very active throughout our relatively smooth pregnancy so he became ‘Bobby Baby Bump’. Then we progressed his nickname to ‘Big Bobby Baby Bump’ then towards 37 weeks, ‘Bl**dy Big Bobby Baby Bump’!

When we got back from Ikea I rested to concentrate on Bobby’s movements. He wasn’t kicking but I could feel bigger movement, so figured that’s OK. Then throughout the evening he was still more quiet than usual. Through the night I turned over; Bobby always kicked when I turned in the bed, but this time there were no kicks.

I woke Trevor at around 3:30am and told him I was worried, so we called the labour ward at St Richard’s and within minutes we were in the car on route to hospital. Just looking forward to hearing Bobby’s heartbeat and some reassurance – with no clue about the trauma we were about to face.

We were taken as quickly as possible to a quiet ward where a midwife connected me to the heart and contraction monitors, but she was struggling to find the heartbeat. She tried and tried… we thought we could hear it several times, but actually it was my own heartbeat, pumping so loudly and fast as we waited in anticipation.

After a few minutes, she said, ‘One moment, I just need to get some help’. She went to find a colleague who connected me to a scanning machine and began scanning … it seemed like an eternity as we waited for him to say something. In the end, after what felt like an eternity, I asked, ‘what can you see?’ ‘I’m so so sorry but there’s just no heartbeat there’ was all he could say. Thud. That’s all we felt. Thud. Like a bang inside.

From there the hospital staff were incredibly supportive and life became a blurr. Bobby, although sleeping (I still struggle using the ‘D’ work) still needed to be born, of course. I persisted in having a C-Section. We can’t begin to explain the comfort and care the midwives provided. They deserve medals, all of them. We met Bobby and cuddled his beautiful and perfect warm body when he was born and he stayed with us a while so we could remember his beautiful face. We will always love our baby Bobby.

We would like to thank our family, friends, colleagues and brand-new neighbours (who took it in turns to walk our dogs while we were in hospital), who I’d never even met and checked in on us a lot over the next few weeks). Also, inspired by a book my cousin sent me by Elle Wright, who lost her baby Teddy, we would like to try and raise money for the labour ward at St Richard’s hospital to support their fabulous work and to raise money for equipment, services and facilities.

On Wednesday 7th November, we face what will undoubtedly be the hardest day of our lives, laying little Bobby to rest and saying our final good-byes. We have decided on a very low-key close family only funeral, as there is no life to celebrate.

All of our friends, family, colleagues and people we have shared our story with, have said how helpless they feel, although of course have helped simply by being there for us. However, if anybody would like to, rather than sending flowers for Bobby’s funeral, make a donation to help the wonderful team at St. Richard’s, please do so here. It might just help to save another baby’s life one day.

Thank you for reading. Lots of love,

Trevor and Karen x