....Sorry Liz there's no heart beat....

These words will never leave me as long as I live. 

January 7th 2009 the date for what was meant to be a routine pre-op prior to an elective caesarean scheduled for the following week.  Nothing could have ever prepared me for the hours, days, weeks and months that followed.

 

Lying on the examining table with my big bump and my two year old son jumping on the end of the bed I just remember thinking "come on nurse lets crack on with this, I need to get home get the tea on and get my son out of here before he completely wrecks the ward. As the nurse started her routine checks I could immediately sense something was wrong, the startled look on the her face and her hurried walk back to her seniors office.  I was taken to another room by the senior consultant who carried out an ultra sound and a scan, Will my son was scooped up by the nurses and taken to get some sweets,  I was starting to panic, what was wrong "...Sorry Liz there's no heart beat.... those devastating words. 

 

How could this be happening to me, I was fit and healthy, my pregnancy had been completely trouble free, this must be a mistake, the equipment must be faulty.  Total disbelief took over, shortly followed by realisation.  There are no words to explain the feelings I experience over the next 24 hours. Leaving hospital without your baby is impossible to put into words.  The first weeks where the worst, very dark days and even longer darker nights. Luckily I was surrounded by the most fantastic friends and family especially my husband who of course was in as much pain as I was but was obviously trying to hold me together.  The days turned into weeks and the weeks to months and slowly we picked ourselves up and carried on.

 

My life will never be the same again, not a a day passes where I don't think of Lucy, all the ifs, whys and should have beens.  Time is a great healer but it never completely heals, Mothers Days, Christmas, Birthdays are days that come along every year and they still fill me with sadness.

 

I find it hard to believe that around 17 women face this same experience every day.  SANDS is a charity who offer help and support to families going through the same devastating experience.  Walking 46 miles seems the least I can do to help this great charity and I hope you feel you could offer up a couple of quid for me and my magnificent team of walkers.

 

Liz xx