OK, some detail about what happened. Kathryn Rose was stillborn at 25 weeks of pregnancy. It seems that I contracted a virus when I was pregnant and it passed to Kat. Her poor little body couldn't cope with it and her growth slowed and then stopped. After about 10 weeks her heart stopped. The first we knew of a problem was at the 18 weeks ultrasound. As everyone always is, we were so excited to be seeing our baby at the ultrasound. The pregnancy had a bit of a bumpy start and I'd already had three ultrasounds by 12 weeks. That scan at 12 weeks was amazing! What had been this blurry white blob had turned into a baby! There had been waving, kicking, stretching and rolling over and most importantly of all our baby was fine. And Michael had missed it because of work. He made sure he could come to the 18 weeks one and we were just so looking forward to sharing the experience of seeing our baby. The first sign that there was a problem was that Kat was measuring about 16 weeks instead of 18. Because of the early scans we knew the dates were precise. From there we had three more ultrasounds in five weeks and the news got worse each time. There was very little amniotic fluid and there was fluid around Kat's heart. Her growth was slowing down. I had amniocentesis at 23 weeks - something I had always sworn I'd never do. I had always said that amnio couldn't tell me anything to make the extra risk of miscarriage worthwhile. When we were faced with it though, it seemed to be the only option. It was the only way to get any further information and she was being tested for viral infections as well as genetic disorders. The viral infection seemed the most likely problem. She had a bright bowel on the ultrasound and we were told that it indicated either a virus or cystic fibrosis. I'd been tested for the CF gene 12 years earlier and I had neither the carrier gene or anything that could mix with it to create a problem - so we knew it wasn't CF, which left a virus. Also, the placenta apparently had characteristic signs of a viral infection.
All the genetic tests came back clear. The full results came into the hospital while we were waiting for what would be our last appointment. The doctor told us while we were walking down the corridor into the ultrasound room that the genetic tests were all clear. She then put the ultrasound on...but turned it off again very quickly and told us that our baby's heart wasn't beating. She was gone.
More tests were done both on my blood and on Kat's after she was born but they all came back clear. No virus was detected but the tests were done eight and ten weeks after the virus would have been present.
It was only in hindsight that I even realised I'd been sick. The doctors kept asking me if I'd been sick and I kept telling them that I'd had whooping cough but nothing else. Whooping cough is bacterial though, not viral. I'd never realised the difference before. Looking back, at 15 weeks I had a rash. It was pimply bumps over my face, chest and arms one day. The next day they were white and pussy and the day after that they were gone. I thought I'd had a break out of pimples and put it down to pregnancy. At the same time I started throwing up more, just when it had been trailing off. I was a little concerned since I had just about been over the vomiting, but even so it was nowhere near as bad as what I'd experienced in my other two pregnancies so I wasn't really worried. I had a few nosebleeds that started either with the vomiting or in the shower under hot water. Again, a bit weird but not an alarm bell for me. Finally, I crashed out and slept for three days. I thought it was probably some post-illness fatigue and stress getting on top of me. The kids had been going through a very bad time following their father's move away and they weren't letting me in to help them. I was studying and getting all Ds and HDs. Michael had been travelling for work for three weeks right when the kids and I all had whooping cough so I'd been dealing with it mostly on my own. If I hadn't been pregnant and I broke out in a pimply rash, vomited until my nose bled and slept for three days I would have gone to a doctor. But all of it I put down to pregnancy and stress. It absolutely stuns me to think that I didn't even realise I was "sick" but I had something that killed my baby.
Strange as it may be I don't regret not seeing a doctor at the time. We have read as much as we can about viral illnesses in pregnancy and at 15 weeks it is extremely improbable that anything could have been done to treat and save our girl. I believe that if I'd seen a doctor at 15 weeks pregnant and had been diagnosed with a virus we most likely would have been advised to terminate the pregnancy. Given the choice between terminating at 15 weeks and losing her at 25 weeks I'd take the extra 10 weeks with her every time. We wouldn't have been without getting to hold our baby girl. We wouldn't be without her hand and footprints. Her birth certificate. A funeral. Since we had to lose her I wouldn't for a second not feel the pain of her death. We will never know for sure what the virus was - or with one hundred per cent certainty that there was a virus. There is very little doubt that there was one, but we can't put a name on it. To our minds though, our baby died from an illness. The fact that I was 25 weeks pregnant at the time, the fact that she had not yet drawn breath or felt the touch of our hands or fed from my breast doesn't change the fact that our daughter died from an illness. It's no different to us than if it had been one of my older children. We grieve for our daughter and we mourn for her the life she never got to live.