After a slight delay and apologies for how busy they were, I was shown into an appointment room. Due to the aforementioned clinic mix-ups, this was the first time I had seen the midwife since the diagnosis, so we spent a long time talking about that, as well as the usual urine and blood checks. I also remember discussing the dire state of the hospital parking and how I’d found a useful shortcut from a public car park to avoid the usual wait for a space. Eventually at the end of the appointment she asked me to hop onto the bed so she could listen for a heartbeat.
In both this pregnancy and with my daughter, every time at this point I would feel anxious, and every time I was quickly reassured. Not this time. The first doppler didn’t seem to be working properly, so another was found, then another. I remember joking that I now understood why they aren’t recommended for home use, for both the anxiety and false reassurance they can provide. Behind the jokes I was starting to get frightened now. The midwife went to get her colleague, who was clearly the boss on that shift. They felt my bump to check the baby's position and asked me if I’d felt the baby move that morning. I replied that I hadn’t but that he tended to be quiet in the mornings recently. Eventually after trying again to find the heartbeat, the second midwife turned to me and said “I’m sorry, I think you need to go to the maternity assessment unit” [at the hospital]. I just remember breaking down in tears. They reassured me that this didn’t necessarily mean the worst and that sometimes the baby's position meant they couldn’t hear the heartbeat. I still don’t know how true or common that is, or if they were just trying to keep me calm.
I was now 30 minutes away from my house in the opposite direction to the hospital. In any other situation I would have done the quickest thing and driven to the hospital to meet my husband there, but the midwives insisted I couldn’t drive (quite rightly, but I was annoyed at the time) and so I would have to wait for my husband to pick me up. I knew he was on an important work call but after a frantic “CALL ME” text he rang me back and I had to explain what had happened. I then sat silently on the bed in the appointment room waiting for him to arrive and praying that the baby was just hiding. Eventually he arrived and the midwife explained they had called ahead and we were expected, and my husband could go straight in with me. I remember walking down the corridor to the exit and seeing the glances of a couple of other midwives who clearly knew what was going on.
The journey to hospital was torturous and seemed to last forever, even though there was thankfully no traffic. I felt my bump make some small movements on the way and although I didn’t say anything to my husband I told myself it would all be ok and that evening we would be debriefing the story and be so so grateful for our impending arrival. Eventually we arrived at the hospital and the aforementioned terrible parking. I made my husband drive the wrong way round the car park's one way system to beat the car in front to the space I had seen as we drove in. No time for politeness. We raced past the covid gatekeeper at the entrance - “they told me he could come in” - and into the assessment unit, where we were instantly shown into a room.
The midwife briefly connected a heartbeat monitor to try and find the heartbeat, before going off to find a doctor and the portable scan machine. The first doctor couldn’t find a heartbeat either and said she needed to get a consultant to check. At this point I knew, but while she was out of the room my husband was crying and mumbling “there’s still hope, there’s still hope”. The consultant on call came in - we recognised him from one of the earlier scans - and once more scanned me. After a while he pointed something out to the junior doctor and then turned to us.
“I’m sorry, there’s no heartbeat”
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