Well I spent the night in hospital after having the termination. Actually I had quite a good, good rest, having been through all the, the trauma of the decision-making and giving birth and losing the baby all in. And when we got up in the morning I wanted to see her again, I wanted to say goodbye to her. So we, the nurses very kindly brought her in for us, and we had a cuddle and said goodbye.

One of the in, enduring memories I have was leaving the hospital, it went against every ounce of instinct in my body to leave my baby in a fridge in a the hospital. I just so desperately, desperately wanted to take her home with me dead or alive, I just wanted to keep her warm and look after her and… its one of those sort of almost out-of-body experiences, walking away from the hospital to the car. I can remember every move, every movement, every muscle I was aware of all of the bits of my body, and it was like trying to walk with lead, pulling myself away from the hospital.

I just wanted to run back and get her. It was a really intense experience leaving, having said goodbye, to actually do that, walking away.

That night was very difficult because there were live babies on the ward and I could hear them crying and the nursing staff were lovely they were very sweet, they came in from time to time and visited me, I wasn’t very good company. And one of them said, I mentioned something about one of the baby’s crying and she said there was a lady who’d just had twins and they were very unsettled.

And I had said to her that one of the things that was so difficult was that when you have a labour and you give birth to a baby you have an overwhelming physical feeling of needing to hold the baby and I think that was very much my physiology taking over. And I actually needed to hold a baby. And she was, I told this nurse and she went next door to the lady who’d had twins and asked if I could borrow her baby for a little while [smiles] and she said the babies were awake anyway and that she had explained to this lady the situation I was in. And the lady had said that was fine, I could cuddle her baby which, I’ve never met that lady but I so appreciated.

That was probably the hardest part. And that, we, I would say we were, we were told we could told about 10 in the morning, and it probably took us 2 hours, or me, 2 hours to say, ‘Right, I’m ready to go now. As soon as, wed get ready, ‘No, I can’t go, I need to have just a bit more time.

And it was, it was sort of, it was very difficult to leave her because I knew that was it then; that I wouldn’t see her again. She was, she was going off to the regional hospital where shed first been diagnosed, for the post-mortem, and we were told that it would take some weeks, so I knew that there was no way of seeing her when shed come back. Being so tiny to start with, they’d explained to us that it wouldn’t nice to see her when she got back.

So it was kind of, ‘Right, well go… just 5 more minutes… just another 5 minutes. And that’s how it went on as I say, for about 2 hours. And actually walking out of the hospital was probably, was horrible. It was like I’d, it, well I had, I’d left part of me behind and, and it was very difficult. It was, we got about half way out the sort of hospital doors and I said, ‘I need to go back,’ and he said, ‘no, were not going back now, weve done it. And, and I’m glad he did because I think I would have been backwards and forwards all day because I think, you know, he knew that he needed to tell me that, ‘No, were not going back now, were going home now,’ or you know ‘Were going to go and get the photos’ or, and that did me a favour, I needed that sort of gentle shove in the right direction, to say, ‘No, come on, it’s time to go.

We stayed overnight in hospital, you know, lovely bed with nice rubber sheets, so we didn’t get much of a sleep anyway on a nice hot night like it was. We stayed overnight, our little boy was with my wifes parents, and the following day once wed signed whatever needed to be signed, and given permission for the post mortem and it had been explained to us that if we wanted a funeral we could, and where the crematorium or the cemetery that the hospital used was… this one and we could go and have a look at it or whatever.

So we came home, we went round to my in-laws to pick our little boy up. Which was… I was emotional enough as it was, I mean just to walk in and just try not to be upset because he would wonder why we were upset, but kids aren’t stupid are they? He knew something was up, even at the age he was so.

Yeah, and then just sort of try and get on with life. But [sighs] it’s very difficult to, knowing that there wasn’t a baby inside my wife anymore, and her tummy wasn’t big anymore, she couldn’t feel the baby moving anymore, there wasn’t going to be a happy ending in another, another 18 weeks or whatever.

And then you know you try and get on with normal life, and come into contact with people who, who know or knew that shed been pregnant the last time they saw her, and now shes not pregnant, and it’s answering all the questions that might come up then.

So I think I phoned a few of our closest friends just to let them know what had gone on. Just to let them know that wed lost the baby. And I think the grapevine starts working a little bit, and people start to hear that’s what happened. And from a personal point of view, what I didn’t want to happen was for the house to become full of flowers. So everyone I was speaking to I was saying, ‘If you want to, by all means send a card if you, if that’s what you’re going to do, but don’t send flowers, don’t.

And finally we went and we came home. And, [swallows] and my mother was there and my daughter and my daughter came running up and she said… [sighs] and she started touching my stomach and asking, talking to the baby again. And so we straightaway took her upstairs and told her that the baby had died and that it had been born too soon and, it was just awful. I can’t, I don’t know, it was awful.

And shes, I mean it was, it was good as well because she immediately said, ‘Oh when can we have another one?’ and you know all the sort of things that a little 3 or 4 year old would say. And, ‘Well where is it?’ and I thought well that’s a really good question. And, ‘Can I see it?’ and you know, ‘Where is it?’ and I didn’t feel up to explaining coffins I just, so we kind of, you know we, we tried to answer her questions but, anyway we told her straightaway. And I just thought ‘oh if only we hadn’t told her I was pregnant. However, so she knows that shes got a dead brother or baby who didn’t grow to be a baby properly.

And, so we talk about that sometimes and that’s actually, I’m quite happy that she knows that. And one day well explain about the decision we made. But it was just good to get home and at the same time I sort of was very aware that this baby was still in a fridge in the hospital which was pretty bad. And it was, unfortunately it was 18th of December so it was one week before Christmas, there were going to be no cremations at the end of December, they had put them at the end of January. So there was going to be a 6-week wait, plus I had Christmas to face and I was supposed to be going to [place] to see my… we were all going to [place] and it wasn’t Christmas you know we hadn’t bought any presents, we kind of just said ‘Were not doing Christmas this year.

But we decided we should still go to my parents for Christmas, partly because of my daughter and just you know can’t just completely blank everything out. But it was the wrong decision it was just awful, absolutely appalling.

I think one that just springs to mind was coming out of hospital and a neighbour ringing up and said, ‘You had a… – this was after the termination – ‘Oh, you had a car seat for that baby, didn’t you? I know somebody who needs one. Could they have it?’ And this was about, I don’t know, the day after I came out of hospital. And I swallowed hard and just said, ‘I don’t think so’ [laughs]. And she had no idea, I do know she had no idea that it was an insensitive comment, just no idea, just wasn’t thinking. And I thought, ‘Oh well, that’s her problem,’ and I thought, ‘Why should I make it worse for her?’

I’m sure sometimes other people are more uncomfortable than me. The classic is, you meet someone for the first time through work, through whatever, and they see you’ve got a little boy, ‘Are you planning anymore?. And it’s a question that, that you ask, we don’t, we as a couple now don’t ever ask that question. If people want to tell us that they might be planning more or, or not, or whatever then well let them tell us but we don’t ever ask because you don’t know the situation or.

What do you say if they ask you that?

When they ask if were having any more? I’m like, my initial reaction is normally, ‘That’s a difficult one. To which they’ll ask, ‘Why?. And I say, ‘Well we lost a baby, x months ago. And the usual response to that is, ‘Oh well you never know what might happen. To which I say, ‘Well [laughs] it’s not as simple as that because our little boy is an IVF baby, and yeah, it’s not as simple as that. Which normally shuts people up [laughs].

No, I mean when people, people then will, will apologise and they’ll say, ‘Oh sorry. ‘Well what are you saying sorry for? Because you didn’t know.

And they took her away again. And we just kind of left there and they brought us some food – it was morning by that time – and it was kind of you know, ‘whenever you’re ready, just time to go home. And that was weird, because you didn’t really know what to do with yourself. So I got up, I went and had a wash and got dressed and I dozed for a little bit, and then it was afternoon and we just kind of left. Now they brought us this book, where people had written things. And I think we wrote something, but I don’t really remember.

And then you just leave, and it’s the strangest feeling in the world, because you don’t want to go, because you know when you leave that it’s over. It’s like the weird things that go through your head, you just think that like, ‘If I don’t leave, maybe theres still a chance everything can be okay. Stupidest thing – it’s done, it’s dusted – but it’s just that sense that you just can’t go. It’s just you’re not supposed to leave. But you do, you leave and you go home and…

And I went home with the maternity pads – and that was another thing that was a real problem. They give you a packet to go home with, of these maternity pads, but you don’t realise how much you’re bleeding, and how many you’re going to get through, and then you have to go to the supermarket and go down the baby aisle to get these pads. And neither of us could do it.

And that was just, you know and I just thought God it wouldn’t cost them much just to send you home with a bag full of them. But yeah, having to go – because you know you need them for about a week – and having to go through Tesco’s down the baby aisle, because they don’t stock them in the sanitary towel section, you have to go to the baby section. And the last thing you can deal with is seeing bibs and nappies and formula and stuff like that.

I think the hardest part was leaving [the baby] at the hospital, and not bringing her home. And then obviously with any pregnancy your body gets ready to feed the baby, so 3 days later your breasts are engorged and you’ve no baby to feed. So again that’s quite an upsetting thing which you don’t anticipate until you’re in the hospital and the midwife is discharging you know saying you’ve got this to expect.

And coming home without a baby – your arms have nothing to do – theres nothing to hold, and theres a big ache and a huge void that says ‘well wheres my baby to hold, you know’?