# Our story, your help needed to change hospital policy



## SassyLou

Archie was a very much wanted baby, my husband, sons and myself were so excited to find we were having another child, I'm 39 and DH is 47. We'd had an 'accidental' pregnancy which sadly ended in miscarriage at 8 weeks in August 2010. We realised how much we wanted another child and fell pregnant again quite quickly in October 2010. As those who've been pregnant again after a loss will know its a nerve racking experience, however, our 12 week scan was fantastic and there was our little baby, heart beating and wriggling away. I had an appointment with the midwife at 15+1 weeks and heard Archie's heart beating, by this point I'd also felt him moving. Just over a week later whilst going to the toilet I had the tiniest spot of blood, honestly it was a speck. But after having had a miscarriage it worried me. I phoned the midwife and she told me to pop down so she could listen for the heartbeat. She spent over half an hour trying to find it but couldn't so sent me to the hospital. By this point it was early evening so I was sent to the ward where a doctor came and scanned me on a portable scan machine. In that moment mine and my husbands world came crashing down, I could see our baby laid lifeless on the scan. We went back the following day and had a more detailed scan which confirmed the previous evenings findings. I was seen by a midwife who advised that I really ought to be induced.

I went in on the Sunday (two days later) and had pessaries inserted to induce labour. Our beautiful little boy, Archie, was born just over two and a half hours later, I was 17+ weeks. I was amazed by the immence feeling of love I had and the amazing calmness that came over me when he was born. I still marvel at his perfection, he had the most amazing long fingers and chubby thighs. I think both myself and my husband took great comfort from the hours we spent with him after he was born. Leaving him at the hospital was the hardest thing I've ever done. We both said that due to the caring nature of the hospital staff and the time we'd spent with our beautiful son, the experience had been as positive as it could ever have been.

We decided to let the hospital chaplaincy service arrange the funeral, however, I think I always must have had it in my thoughts that I had 8 weeks to change my mind. After a week or so I really did begin to regret this decision and spoke to DH about it. I phoned the mortuary at the hospital where we had Archie and this is when our positive experience turned into an absolute nightmare, which I do still have nightmares about. They had no record of me or our son, basically they'd lost him. Our son was found many hours later at a hospital miles away, in the wrong department, having been treated in a way we neither consented to or wanted.

*The hospital has apologised and we now find ourselves in the position of being able to assist with policy changes within our local hospital maternity services. We have a meeting again with them on Friday. The main change will be to the policy regarding storage of babies however we now have the ability to try and make changes generally to the maternity service. We also hope to highlight these problems across the country.

Here's where I'm asking for help

1 If you have a story where you feel you have been let down by your local hospital, I'd appreciate it if you would send it to me to include in the information we are giving to the hospital, this will be totally anonymous and will not give any hospital details etc. We'd also love to hear any positive stories eg things that were positive that were important to you etc.

My email address is [email protected] or you can of course PM me here.

2 Also below in the spoiler are some questions which are pertinent to our situation, they are quite sensitive questions (hence the spoiler) please don't open and read if you are worried you maybe upset.

Finally, I haven't completely said what happened to Archie as I don't want to upset people, if you would like to know what happened I'm quite happy to tell people via email or PM.*


Spoiler
These questions are for babies sadly lost before 24 weeks, however if you have a story after 24 weeks or wish to answer the questions please, please do so.

*1. Did you have a hospital arranged funeral or make private arrangements yourself?

2. Were you told where your baby would be eg mortuary/histopathology etc?

3. Did you agree to a post mortem?

4. If/when you left your baby at the hospital how do you envisage (or were told) your baby would be stored to preserve him/her? (really important question)

5. Were you told that you could take you baby home after delivery?*


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## hannpin

Hi SassyLou,

I am so sorry to hear about the way Archie was treated. I would like to try and help you with this, as we too agreed for the hospital to arrange the cremation of Harri, and lets just say I am not too please in how things were handled. We are still awaiting the conclusion, and do not yet know when his ashes will be returned to us (as we requested) :cry: So what I am wondering is when you need this information by, as I would like to wait until it is all resolved for us before contributing?

I hope you are able to change things for people who will unfortunatly have to go through this in the future xxx


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## SassyLou

Whenever you feel ready to share your story, that'd be great.

If you feel up to answering the questions in the spoiler I'd appreciate it. Your answers would be really helpful for our meeting on Friday. As I said before everything is confidential, if you don't feel up to it that's not a problem. If you do feel up to answering the questions please feel free to PM or email me.

I'm so sorry for your loss, and also sorry for the way Harri's funeral arrangements were handled. Its so difficult to write about isn't it. I've known for a few weeks that I needed to ask for help on here, but as DH said, its been such a hard thing to do.

Love Sarah xxx


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## MaevesMummy

I will reply to you asap i think you are covering some important issues but I have got myself into a little state about it at the moment xxx


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## SassyLou

MaevesMummy said:


> I will reply to you asap i think you are covering some important issues but I have got myself into a little state about it at the moment xxx

Oh no I'm so sorry, I really don't want to upset anyone. I'm just so determined to make sure things change, I don't want anyone else to go through what we've been through. It was bad enough losing Archie without everything else.

Thanks a lot for reading.

Love Sarah xxx


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## FunToRun

So sorry for the way u've bn treated :hugs:

I've had two late losses. One in 2006 and the other March this year

Q1: We had a hospital arranged funeral for both of my babies. Was very happy in how it was all handled.

Q2:For the 2006 loss we were told when our baby would be picked up by the funeral director, but not where he would be kept (we didnt want a pm as we thought it was a one off). With our loss this year, we were told when our baby would get transferred to another hospital for pm. Dates we were given were wrong by three days and to this day dont know where he got kept.

Q3:For our first loss no, but we were givin the option. For our second loss we did.

Q4: We wernt told where our babies would be kept, but i must addmit i did think of the worst. Them lying all alone without me.:cry:

Q5: No we wernt told we could take our babies home with us:cry:

I hope this helps any Q ur more than welcome to pm me.


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## secretbaby

So sorry that you had to go through this extra trauma with the hospital. We arranged our own funeral at the church where I work. We declined pm as we knew William died dudto pprom and the complications it brings so pm would not have given us any answers. We were not told about storage never occured to us to ask. We certainly were not told we could take him home, if we had been told I would have wanted that so much but k ow hubby wouldn't but would have liked the choice. Hth


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## MaevesMummy

I think maybe what happened to me happens to alot of people, I just never really got passed the point of upset about it. I still feel really angry with the hospital. You see they accidently sent me a copy of the Limited post Mortom we had done, and I hate myself for leaving her at the hospital Mortury. She was there for 2 weeks I wish we had taken her with us where she would have been safe and with us. No one told us we could.
Did this happen to anyone else. I wont go into detail, but the descriptions were horrific. and then she was all alone, they lost her teddy and her blanket. 
xxxxxx


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## SassyLou

MaevesMummy said:


> I think maybe what happened to me happens to alot of people, I just never really got passed the point of upset about it. I still feel really angry with the hospital. You see they accidently sent me a copy of the Limited post Mortom we had done, and I hate myself for leaving her at the hospital Mortury. She was there for 2 weeks I wish we had taken her with us where she would have been safe and with us. No one told us we could.
> Did this happen to anyone else. I wont go into detail, but the descriptions were horrific. and then she was all alone, they lost her teddy and her blanket.
> xxxxxx

I'm so sorry this happened and you have every right to be upset, that's an absolutely horrific thing to happen.

I've sent you a PM before I read this.

xxx


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## hakunamatata

Big, huge hugs :hugs:


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## AngelTwinsMum

hi sassylou, i gave birth to our twin baby boys in feb this year at 17w 5days gestation after a long fighting battle with Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome, if you are still needing help with this topic, please let me know, i will gladly talk to you about our experience through private msg or email... After we left the hospital after having our boys i too found out a lot about the law and hospital policy that we weren't made aware of that time, and will gladly help you in changing things if we can x


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## lindadonovan

I was not told I could take my baby home at any point in time.


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## Laurenleigh

1. I asked the hospital to arrange somthing but not till the very last minute before her due date... My heads been all over and I didnt have a clue what i was ment to do?! 

2. 18March2011 I was told just before I left her she would go to sheffield hospital for her PM .. after the weekend passed and it finally sank in what had happened to me, I went back to the hospital and asked if i could have her back when they had finished doing her PM .. They said this wasnt possible.. I also asked for her ashes and they said I couldnt because there just isnt nothing left after?! after that i heared nothing and was told nothing more as too where she was or is now.

3. We where offered a PM .. We where told that normaly your not offered one of these unless you have 3 misscarriages with the same partner. as this was our first baby and I had no signs or symtoms that i had lost my baby for nearly 3 weeks we accepted.

4. We wasnt told anything?!

5. I dont think they did, all they really said was the caplin could do a naming service and that i could have her hand and foot print but then i was told she was to tiny for them to get a clear print .. :-( 

Me and my partner Joe lost our baby girl Lucy at what we thought was 22weeks (11.MARCH.2011)
We was going to find out her sex and we couldnt wait.. the last few weeks id really started to show and all i wanted to know was the sex now... that day all we saw was a lifeless baby and we wasnt finding out if it was a boy or a girl.... I was in shock...
Joe lost his mum after having MS for 20years only 11months before.. and i knew this ment so much to him after all that pain.. he was crushed.
The hospital pushed me a few times to take the tablets there and then and come back in 2days, I didnt, It hadnt even sunk in yet.
I Went back after the weekend 14.MARCH.2011 and alot of worried family member asking me to go in to hospital.. they thought because my baby died it was harming me inside... im my eyes she had been dead for weeks and I hadnt known so how was it effecting me?!
I finally had my baby who looked very young but still perfect to me I couldnt see why this had happened 18.MARCH.2011 (Joe's Birthday)
After nearly 10 very long weeks we finally got our baby PM results back which showed she was a little girl  and had died at 19weeks... (in short terms) the results showed the amniotic fluid around her had gone?! and this forms an amnictoc band which doesnt grow and baby does.. this had attached to the plecenta, so she never got what she needed... I was right she was pefrect and the problem was with the plecenta.
She was due 26th JULY 2011... thats when we had her service at the hospital...t was very last minute but I really couldnt ask for anything better the chaplin was amazing! My baby girl wasnt there tho.. and i have no clue where she is now tbh, I dont know if there is a time limit on how long they can store babies for?!.

Sorry for your loss.. i agree there should be alot more support for woman after loosing a baby and everyone should be told more to whats happens with your baby once you leave the hospital! xxx
Im glad I found your post.. Its eaten me up not having a clue what happened to her... and feels nice to talk about this... some people dont realise whats happened to us and feel ive 'only misscarried' I never I had a lovely little baby girl! I dont think anyone really can understand how this feels until it happens.. even if you have kids.. you can only really imagine how it feel! Its the hardest thing in the world.. 
xxx


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