So I went and I said to [husband]you know, I’m bleeding And he said, Oh shall I ring the labour ward then So he rang the labour ward, and the midwife said, Oh well, just make your way in, but if it gets worse phone an ambulance And by this stage I’d never heard of placental abruption. I didn’t even know what a heavy blood loss in late pregnancy would be an indication of. I had no idea.

So as [husband] sort of went back to go, well he had to go back to get his wallet together and phone and stuff to drive me into the hospital, I said, Ooh actually I think I’m bleeding a bit heavier. Could you phone an ambulance And although I am prone to a little bit of neurosis. It would be very unlike me to say, Phone an ambulance Because I would normally, oh no, I don’t want to trouble anyone. I’ll make my way i.

But, so anyway, they turned up about fifteen minutes later, took me downstairs to the lounge where they did a sort of very quick examination and said, I think we’ll, we’ll take you in I still had no idea that what was going on was so serious. Even though I was in considerable pain, by this, by this stage, it was agonising, continuous pain. And so I lay in the back of the ambulance and I remember the paramedic, she kept saying to me. Do you feel like you’re in labour I don’t know. I’ve never been in labour before. I haven’t got a clue Do you feel like you want to push And I said, I was clear that no I really, do not want to push, and it was. I’m still amazed even now. I think it must be an instinct or something that I knew that pushing would be a very bad thing to do. But I knew that panicking would be a very bad thing to do. And ordinarily, I quite like a bit of a panic, but I just, I just knew that I had, I just had to stay calm.

The ambulance seemed to take forever to get to the hospital, because they got lost coming out of the village. So we trundled along and eventually got there and everything was still quite calm in the ambulance, the paramedics hadn’t put their siren on or the lights on. So I just thought oh this is just a routine journey.

Anyway as we pulled into the entrance of the hospital, I obviously passed a massive blood clot at that stage and then the ramp got stuck on the back of the ambulance. They couldn’t get me out very quickly. But even so I was just sort of lying there thinking, okay, something, something is happening here. And as soon as, the minute that they got the ambulance door to work, as soon as the wheels on the trolley hit the ground, then there was sirens and an awful lot of people, and running down the corridor. Like, well it was like something off Casualty really, and I heard someone shout, Crash team.

It sounds quite dramatic [laughs]. At the time I was thinking crikey, crash team. Whose dying? Is it me? Am I dying? I don’t feel that bad. I mean I’m in quite a lot of pain, but I don’t think I’m about to die. You know, is the baby okay?

And, and then they cut my clothes off. I remember getting hold of my crocs and throwing them across the room. And waving a consent form in front of my face, saying you know, Do you consent to yourdquo; Well I don’t even remember what the consent form was for, but, and they put the Doppler on my on my tummy which was, I’m so glad they did that, because then they made a point of really saying to me, You can hear that can’t you? You can hear him can’t you I was like, Yes

And the next thing I was be

Yes, and the next day, I just kind of, I just got on with it. I remember the enormity of what had happened just didn’t hit me at all. I just thought, oh well, I had something, something happened yesterday and I just got on with it. And there was a girl opposite in the, the post natal ward said, Oh is this your second baby I said, No, it’s my first She said, But you seem to know what you’re doing

You know, and I just got on with it, but I was just left in a corner and literally I was in a corner and there seemed to be no allowance for the fact that I’d gone through something really horrific. I was, you know, I was routine. I was the same as everybody else. They kept trying to get me to take painkillers. Even though I was quite clear that I’m not in pain. That was then, that was their only concern, Oh take these paracetamols So I was sort of hiding them because I wasn’t in pain.

I wasn’t given. I had about five minutes breast feeding support. Which was pitiful really. No one explained, no one explained anything to me really. They were worried, the physio came round and said, Oh you know, you must do your pelvic floor exercises And I thought, Well okay Yes. I just, it was pretty rough in the hospital actually. Afterwards.

I remember one night. I was in for a few nights. I pressed the buzzer, which was the first time I pressed the buzzer and I don’t know whether she was a midwife or a midwifery assistant came through and just yanked the curtain back, What’s the matter And I can’t remember what the problem was, but you know, the baby was crying and I was quite distressed and I knew, my son wasn’t, he wasn’t a happy bunny. There was nothing physically wrong with him I think, other than being starving because I was trying to feed him. And obviously my body’s priority at that time was not lactation. It was, you’ve just lost an awful lot of blood and had a bit of a trauma so breast feeding’s not going to be happening very well. But I was so adamant that I wanted to feed him myself. They just, the hospital just said, You can give him 4 ml if you want And that was it. They were happy just to shove a bottle in my hand, but not actually sit down with me and say, you know, we understand you want to try, but realistically when you’ve had something that dramatic happen, it’s going to, might take a bit longer and that kind of thing.

So I was desperate to get out of the hospital. I felt I was getting no support there at all. And then when I went home, I didn’t really get any support from the community midwife was concerned. I just got a lot of, Oh you’ve been very lucky. You’ve been very lucky And that was it really.

I think I felt, and I still do to a degree actually if I’m really honest, feel slightly detached. I mean I love him dearly, but I think it was because I had, you know, this, it was so sudden. It was so quick, his birth, that I actually think, well how do I actually know he was mine. I wasn’t there. [Husband] wasn’t there. He doesn’t look like me, you know, there’s all these funny things go through your head and when you sort ofand I just think, oh how do I know? I just have to trust them, that they gave me the right child. And it’s really, really hard and especially where my daughter was born, because I was conscious and I was, you know, I saw her come straight out. And I felt awful. I thought well I didn’t have that with him. And it, you know, it really has. I mean I know in future I’m going to have to work a lot harder at my relationship with him because of it. So yes, its, I think what happened is, its, so there I’m finding it much, much easier to talk about now. I think it still will be there for different, it’ll come up at different stages of my life I think. I think it’s a bit simplistic to say, oh you know, I’m over it now, because I’m not, I am over it to a degree but I don’t think I’m going to forget, you know, that day or the implications of that day, ever, I don’t think.

I suppose I started having the flash, I had flashbacks, probably when he was about, it started happening when he was about three or four weeks, where I had these awful. They weren’t exactly hallucinations, but a kind of, I might sort of turn round and just imagine seeing him, [son], in the pram all covered in blood and things, and actually it was really quite bleughBut then I think I was sort of aware enough, I was telling myself, I know what this is, this is post traumatic stuff, I’ve got here. And I thought well, I didn’t actually mention it to anyone because I knew what it was. I knew why, I sort of knew why it was happening. So I felt you know, I could sort of control it myself really, which probably was a bit of a silly idea in hindsight. But I thought well he’s not lying in the pram covered, the pram covered in blood you know, so
Acutely like that for a few weeks. I think it was more, you know, part possibly influenced by hormones, so you know, the usual, usual, length of time that, you know, first two, three months something like that. And then it sort of changed into something else. It wasn’t that kind of graphic feeling. But it was more manifested itself in my relationship with [son] actually. Because I think I felt, and I still do to a degree actually if I’m really honest, feel slightly detached. I mean I love him dearly, but I think it was because I had, you know, this, it was so sudden. It was so quick, his birth, that I actually think, well how do I actually know he was mine. I wasn’t, wasn’t there. Mark wasn’t there. He doesn’t look like me, you know, there’s all these funny things go through your head and when you sort ofand I just think, oh how do I know? I just have to trust them, that they, they gave me the right child. And it’s really, really hard and especially where my daughter was born, because I was conscious and I was, you know, I saw her come straight out. And I felt awful. I thought well I didn’t have that with him. And it, you know, it really has. I mean I know in future I’m going to have to work a lot harder at my relationship with him because of it. So yes, its, I think what happened is, its, so there I’m finding it much, much easier to talk about now. I think it still will be there for different, it’ll come up at different stages of my life I think. I think it’s a bit simplistic to say, oh you know, I’m over it now, because I’m not, I am over it to a degree but I don’t think I’m going to forget, you know, that day or the implications of that day, ever, I don’t think.

And did you feel, I mean how did you feel about the pregnancy? Did you feel anxious about it?

Oh terrible. I think every day I cried. Usually in the shower for some reason. I suppose no one was there to see me. Every day, I thought is today the day my placenta’s going to fall apart again? Yes, it was, from the moment, you know, she was conceived, to literally the moment she came out I was anxious.

Six weeks into the pregnancy I started a new job which was just when the morning sickness kicked in and I was a teacher at the time, in a special, a new special needs school which had brand new carpets throughout which smelt vile and my sense of smell was just, well I’d never experienced anything like it. So I spent the whole of the first few weeks in my new very stressful job dealing with this vile smell of carpet and various other things.

The job, my job, was very demanding I was teaching post-16 students with profound and multiple learning difficulties. Which was often very physical. Emotionally challenging, you know, there was a lot of battling. There was issues with the people I was working with as well. So it was an unhappy, working time really.

Which consequently I was often finding myself very stressed very upset, just generally not very happy and ended up taking quite a bit of time off work, through sort of stress and anxiety really. Which obviously when you’re pregnant is not, is not ideal.

In hindsight, looking, you know, having had a subsequent pregnancy where I felt fine throughout, I realised actually that with my first pregnancy I really wasn’t feeling well. But I couldn’t have pin pointed what it was. It was a general kind of malaise, just really not feeling right. And, so, actually for the first six months of my pregnancy, there was nothing, there was no, there was no problem. My blood pressure was fine. Everything was fine. There was a bit of a glitch with my glucose tolerance test. I went and re-did that but then that was fine.