Part two of the diary of my pregnancy and Kat's death - as written three weeks after she died. (gonna try to finish typing it all up today instead of today and tomorrow)

I was asked to bring in the other three ultrasounds - they'd been done at the private clinic on the doctor's referral and I was now beeing seen at the hospital through the antenatal clinic, so the radiologist there didn't have the earlier scans and reports to cross check what he was seeing at 18 weeks. After seeing the early scans he went straight up to maternity to consult with the obstetrician in charge of the unit. I was in the waiting room right outside where they were talking with the door open and heard them discussing the possibility of a chromosomal abnormality. I'd had a blood test at 15 weeks to determine my own likelihood of, for example, the baby having Down Syndrome and my result came back at one in twenty thousand, so they knew that it was only a tiny risk that the baby's size was due to something chromosomal. I was called in to see the doctor and referred to John Hunter hospital's Maternal Fetal Medicine unit for a more specialised ultrasound. He explained that the small size basically raised a flag, that they wanted to investigate further and that a specialist would be able to provide a more accurate service.

I didn't really know what to think afterwards. I sent Michael a text saying "I've been referred to Newcastle for another ultrasound", but then I left my phone at home while I went shopping with the kids. I knew Michael was in a meeting all afternoon and assumed I would speak to him when he got home. I got back from the shops to a frantic Michael, who had left the meeting early to be with me. I remember feeling numb. I knew that the doctor was concerned but I didn't know what was actually wrong. I thought that being stressed was the worst thing I could do for our baby and that I didn't know if there was anything to stress about - or if there was, I didn't know how bad it was. All I could do was wait and see what happened. I did some reading online - which proved to be more frustrating than anything when most hits on "small foetuses" were about foetal alcohol syndrome - but I did evenutally discover that in eighty per cent of cases where the only symptom was a symmetrically small baby, the cause was simply that the baby was a constitutionally small person. The other twenty per cent was comprised of malnutrition in the mother, disease and chromosomal abnormality. We confidently assured ourselves that statistics were on our side and started looking at 00000 sized clothes instead of 0000.

We left for Sydney for the long weekend the day after the ultrasound. On the second day in Sydney I noticed while I was in the shower that my tummy looked bigger than it had the day before. I don't remember ever noticing growth on a day-to-day basis in the other pregnancies. That same day, Kat was suddenly a lot more active than she had been before. We went to an Egyptian exhibit at the Australian Museum and she kicked and kicked and kicked. I loved every second of it and I loved that my baby was "responding" to me seeing Egyptian things. We saw a reference once to - I can't recall if it was a goddess or a person - someone called Ka and when I felt yet more movement as I looked at the name I said "it must be a girl - it's Kat". All in all, we were both convinced that weekend that the best case scenario from the ultrasound was in fact correct - that our baby had just had a growth spurt.

I was contacted by the local hospital to go back there for a follow up ultrasound at 22 weeks. A referral had been made to John Hunte and the doctor there wanted me to have another scan first to check on growth.

At the 22 week scan Kat's size had gone out to a full three weeks small for dates. I was quite depressed after that scan and very worried about our baby. We still didn't have any information and it was very frustrating to then be called back for another ultrasound before receiving any details from the last one. We didn't know at the time that at the 22 week scan there was also very little amniotic fluid and it had been difficult to get all the pictures they required. I hadn't had an overly full bladder before the scan and it was thought that may have been the reason for the difficulty in some of the imaging. It turned out that was the only reason I was called back in for that scan - to try again to get some pictures.

The news got worse at the next ultrasound. It was confirmed that Kat was now three weeks small for dates, there was too little amniotic fluid and there was some fluid around her heart and on her skin. I was asked if I'd been sick with a virus, to which I responded that I'd had whooping cough. But whooping cough is bacterial, not viral and so not a concern. The doctor told me that the symptoms being present all together indicated a major problem - but that he simply didn't know what that problem was. Everyone at the hospital - the doctor, radiologist and midwife - seemed to be preparing me for the worst, while also saying that these were all "soft symptoms" that just needed to be investigated. I was referred to John Hunter and got a call from them that day with an appointment for two days later.

At John Hunter the results that had been found at home were confirmed, except that no fluid was detected on her skin. That was good news as fluid in two or more places would mean a diagnosis of hydrops. I didn't know what that was but was told it was a major complication. The lack of amniotic fluid was a big concern because it acts as cushioning for the baby and is vital for lung development, which was the stage of growth Kat was at. And the slow down in growth was of course alarming. Again, doctors seemed to be preparing us for the worst while still saying that they simply didn't know for sure what the outcome was going to be. Even in hindsight I don't believe they expected her to die. I truly think they didn't know what to expect, but that they had a professional obligation to prepare us for the fact that our baby may not survive.

Everything they saw seemed to be pointing to a viral infection. There was a bright patch showing in her bowel, which is apparently indicative of one of two things - cystic fibrosis or a virus. I knew it couldn't be CF. The kids father has a nephew with it and so he and I were both tested for the gene. He was a carrier but I wasn't and my blood was then tested to two further levels to see if I carried anything that could mix with that gene to cause a problem, which there wasn't. We knew then that it seemed most likely that I'd had a virus. We agreed to an amniocentesis being performed to test for genetic disorders and viruses. I'd always sworn I'd never have an amnio because there was nothing I could find out from one that would be worth the risk of miscarriage. In this case though it was teh only way to get any more information and we very much wanted more information. I didn't experience any negative effects from the procedure, not even any cramping. I'd been told to take Panadol or Panadeine for teh pain and so was expecting it to be quite bad overnight, but there was no pain at all. I just felt a little fragile and wanted my feet up. I was also very sleepy and continued to be for a few days afterwards.

The next day we got a call from the hospital saying that the first round of genetic tests were clear, meaning that what is referred to as "the big three" were ruled out. I still don't know what the big three are, only that Down Syndrome is one of them. Another appointment was made for two weeks time - and we were having a girl! That was such a joyous moment. We would have been equally happy to have been told that it was a boy. The point was that we had been given some definite news when all we'd had until then was ifs and maybes. Our baby was our daughter and she was Kathryn Rose. We told our families and friends and started referring to her as Kat. I'm still so pleased that we had that time of her being "Kat" instead of "baby". She seemed more real. I remember saying to Michael that these few months of pregnancy might be all we ever get to give our daughter and so she would be celebrated and loved and she would have a name.

On our way back home we stopped in at Mum's grave. I've never had teh sense that Mum is "there" and I've always talked to her wherever I happen to be. However, her tree is very special to me. I always touch it when I go there and it was very special to take Rory and then Sienna there for the first time and place their hands on her tree. I stood next to it with Michael and said "Mum, our baby needs help. Please watch over her and help her". Two days later, on the Monday that Michael was back at work, the ladies from the Court gave him a crystal flower to give me. It was presented in a purple treasure chest-shaped box that was padded with wadding. I will never know why I pulled the wadding out as soon as I saw it, but I did and on the inside of the lid was a poem called "Grandma's Love". As soon as I saw it I was certain that Mum had heart me that day at her tree and this was a sign from her that she was looking after our baby. I remember her often saying that she was going to be called "Grandma" when she became a grandmother. She was so looking forward to grandchildren. Her first one, the beautiful Michelle, was born six months to the day after Mum died.

Another two weeks passed without anything of too much note happening. I didn't feel very much movement from Kat. Right throughout the pregnancy I had only felt very small movements and often only once or twice a day. The lack of amniotic fluid restricted her movement and combined with her small size, doctors weren't surprised when I said I didn't feel her move much. I had a clinic appointment on the Friday before the appointment in Newcastle. The heartbeat couldn't be detected on the machine they have for that purpose and so the midwife performed a quick ultrasound in one of the examination rooms. I saw her heart beating, I saw the shape of her head - still the same as it had been at 12 weeks - and the curve of her cheek. I saw her turn her face.

The weekend before our next appointment in John Hunter we went to see Michael's parents. The six of us went to see Jon English playing in the Warrumbungles. It was a brilliant night and just a wonderful weekend. It was a very special time and I will always treasure it. Michael's mum had bookmarked a pregancy website taht she and I very excitedly looked at together, commenting that if Kat stayed three weeks small it wasn't going to be a very big deal at full term and marvelling at the week-by-week pictures of a developing baby. The kids had an absolutely fantastic weekend. Rory was his normal self, but Sienna was shining. She spent most of the weekend playing with the dogs, which she just adored and she was giggling and smiling the most genuine smiles I had seen in over two years. It made my heart soar to see her so happy. At the concert - I can't explain it other than to say that we were a family. I remember walking with Michael and Sienna over to where Rory was playing and it just felt so right to see her holding his hand and for me to be pregnant. We were a family. As the sun was setting I remember seeing a mass of orange butterflies. Rory and I were both fascinated by them. When some of them fluttered around my feet, I don't know why but I felt like it was significant to Kat. I felt very peaceful.

The night we got home I finally got out the book we had bought for Kat in Newcastle - the T.S. Eliot poems of cats that the muscial Cats is based on. I lay in bed and read aloud to Kat and got the first kicks I'd felt all day. And there were so many of them! After a while I got the urge to watch the musical so I dug out my DVD copy and Michael and I watched it. That night I dreamed of the song "Memory" and I woke up with a momentary feeling of being consumed by sadness. In that moment I was sure that Kat had died - but I very quickly dismissed it. Over the next few days I didn't feel any kicks but I did have some sensation at least once a day that felt to me like a baby moving. I continued to feel that sensation daily after delivering her.

By the time we went back to Newcastle we had convinced ourselves that the situation may not be as dire as we had thought. I had by then put together the rash, sleeping and increased vomiting at 15 weeks and figured that Kat may have stopped growing altogether for three weeks and that we just happened to have an ultrasound at the tail end of that halt in growth. I assumed that she had then started growing again and would stay that three weeks or so small for dates. I knew that the amniotic fluid posed a threat and one that was unpredictable as to the outcome of the pregnancy. The fluid on her heart didn't really enter my mind. The amount was just on the outer limit of what doctors consider a "safe" level of fluid and on its own wouldn't have been a problem, but I still didn't see it as a big worry. We believed that our baby was going to require specialist treatment when she was born, and possibly for quite some time after that. I assumed that her lungs might have been adversely affected by the lack of amniotic fluid. The last one was one of the only ultrasounds - the other being at 18 weeks - that I went into honestly expecting to see our baby's heart beating and see her moving. At the others I'd gone in holding my breath until seeing her heart beat. The day of that appointment I got increasingly anxious as we waited for 2.30 to arrive. I was imagining what I considered to be "the worst". I imagined that there would be even less amniotic fluid than there had been last time or that she hadn't grown a full two weeks' worth. But I still fully expected to see her heart beating. As we sat in the waiting room I saw baby after baby being carried down to the paediatric clinic and I kept thinking "that will be us soon".

On our way down the corridor to the ultrasound the doctor told us that the rest of the genetic tests had come back in just that afternoon and that they were all clear. Viral tests hadn't come back yet.

The doctor started the ultrasound and I tried to see Kat's heart beating, but she didn't leave the image on the entirety of Kat's body for very long before zooming in on the head. Again, it was only a short time before she turned the image off altogether and turned to us and said "there's no amniotic fluid around your baby". I answered quite sharply "none at all?" and was told "no, none at all". She continued - "and I've seen then heart" (at which point I held my breath and clutched even tighter to Michael's hand) "and there is no heartbeat. I'm sorry to tell you this baby has passed away". I wrapped my arm around Michael's shoulders, let out a cry and then lay like that sobbing into his neck.

The doctor and a midwife were coming and going from the room but I only remember seeing the doctor twice more. The first time she told me that I had the choice of delivering the baby in Newcastle or driving back home and doing it in the hospital there. The thought of driving the seven hours back and presenting at hospital all the while knowing that my daughter lay dead inside me was abhorrent. I asked when I could deliver if I stayed in Newcastle. The second time I saw the doctor again was when she told me that I could deliver at John Hunter the following morning.

We were taken out of the ultrasound room by the midwife and a social worker was called to come and see us. The midwife went over the procedure with us, explaining the tablets I'd be given to induce labour and that it would likely take several hours. The tablets are administered vaginally and apparently are ulcer medication. Women were having miscarriages after taking this medication for their ulcers and now it's used to induce labour in situations like this. It's gentler on the uterus than the oxytocin that is given at full term and so unlikely to cause any damage that may then harm a future pregnancy. We were warned that Kat might have been dead for quite some time and so her skin might have started to peel and because of the lack of amniotic fluid her face might be squashed. We were told that when we saw her we might see all the problems she had and might understand a little better why she hadn't been able to survive. The midwife said that I could have self-administered pain relief, or if I wanted to, an epidural. I remember thinking that I didn't care about the pain. I knew I'd think differently once I was there and actually in pain, but beforehand I thought "giving birth to her is the last thing I'm doing for my daughter - I don't care if it hurts". I sat and stared at the curtain. It was white with bands of colour around the hem. I can't remember what colours they were. When someone spoke to me I looked up and vaguely in their direction then went back to staring. The social worker had her ID badge clipped to the waistband of her pants and she was smiling in the photo. We have called her "Smiley ---" ever since. We left the hospital, I called Dad and Michael called his parents. Then we drove back to Michael's aunt's place to spend the night there before going back to John Hunter the next morning.

We cried most of the night. I will never forget waking up through the night and reaching out to Michael as I let out a sob. I will never forget the way his arms felt wrapped around me as I clung to him and we both wept. One of the main things I recall from that afternoon and night is that my instinctive response to being told our baby had died was to turn to Michael. I'd always felt very close to him and very honest with him, but now it was on a new level. I can only describe the honesty, the closeness, the emotion between us as raw.

Throughout the night and then throughout the next day I thought a lot about funeral plans. Michael wasn't ready to talk about them yet. For him, getting through the birth was all he could focus on. But we did agree on a couple of details. I wanted her coffin to be covered in roses - I wanted a mass of rainbow roses. And I wanted The Beatles song "Golden Slumbers" played. It's a long-time favourite of Michael's and when we were on our way to Newcastle the first time I had said that hopefully one day it could be his lullaby to our baby. From then on it was "Kat's Lullaby".

I don't really know where to start in describing the next day. It's mostly clinical details. We went to the hospital in the morning and were led to the labour ward with me crying loudly all the way. I remember feeling sorry for the people in the waiting room. People are only at that unit because there's a complication of some kind in their pregnancy. There I was obviously distressed and I imagined that they were all imagining the worst for their own baby. Two young registrars came to see me to administer the first tablets. That was the only time I saw a doctor all day. I started to feel mild cramps that were coming and going like tiny contractions within about ten minutes. After about four hours I requested the self-administered pain relief, which made me drowsy and I ended up sleeping for almost two hours. Michael stayed right beside me the whole time. He read the only magazines that were in the room - 15 year old home decor ones - and kept pressing the button to deliver the pain killer while I slept. I woke up just before the second lot of tablets were due to go in. Again, I felt the effect within about ten minutes. The cramping got a lot worse and the pain killer got a lot less effective. For the next hour and a half I was moaning through the pain of each cramp - still more like cramps than contractions, but painful enough. Then, after one of the cramps I felt a lot of pressure in my groin and felt some fluid pass out. Suddenly, as I had been told would happen, I felt the urge to push. Michael pressed the call button for the midwife to come back in and we were down to business. She got her gloves on, told me to give a little push and just like that I felt Kathryn leave my body. She had still been lying cross-wise and even though I'd been told that at her size I'd deliver her easily regardless of her position in the uterus, I was surprised that she came out with one small push. It felt like what I remember of delivering the placenta after Rory and Sienna. I was given the needle to bring on the delivery of the placenta, which was more difficult to pass than Kathryn had been. It took two pushes. I was told that at 7 1/2 hours this was a very quick delivery. Women have been known to take two or three days to deliver.

Michael watched her birth. We were both crying and I asked him if he could see her. He didn't speak but nodded that he could. Kathryn was wrapped in a blanket and I was aked if I wanted to hold her, which I did, very much so. And so she was placed on my chest. She smelled like a newborn baby. The way Rory and Sienna smelled the nights they were born has been a favoured memory. I've always found that smell absolutely intoxicating. She weighed about a tenth of what Sienna did at birth, but as I felt her lying on my chest I didn't notice how little she weighed. She felt, looked and smelled just like a baby. Some kind of primal, animal force took over my body and I thew my head back and howled.

Through my tears I spoke to her. I told her that we wanted her so much and that we loved her. I told her that I loved her. I don't know how long I lay there with her on my chest, but I do remember asking Michael if he wanted to hold her. Together, we took her out of my arms and placed her into his and he sat down beside my bed with her. He had already been crying but as he sat with her, looking at her, I saw that primal force come over him as well. He repeatedly looked from Kathryn to me and his face was grief. I remember looking at his face and realising that the way his features were set was exactly what I could feel in my own face. There was no control over what our bodies and faces were doing. I remember him saying to me "this hurts so much" and looking at her and repeating that he loves her over and over again.

We spent two hours with Kathryn in the room with us. I only held her once more, for photos, but I couldn't take my eyes off her. She was weighed and we were told she was 300 grams. The same she had been two weeks earlier at the ultrasound. She hadn't grown at all in two weeks. She was 21 centimetres long and her head circumference was 16.5 centimetres. She was given a brief wash, laid out on a blanket for a photo, then wrapped back up and we held her for pictures. The things I remember most about her appearance are her head, mouth, hands and feet. Nothing prepared me for how small her head was. Maybe the size of an apple or orange. Her mouth was open and I could see her tongue and it was so - finished. Her tongue was perfect inside her gorgeous little bow-shaped mouth. I stared at it thinking that my nipple couldn't fit inside her mouth and at the same time imagining that tongue curled around it and her lips around my breast as I fed her. Her hands and feet looked big compared to the rest of her and they were the most detailed part of her body. Her knuckles had tiny wrinkles in them. I didn't see her nails, but Michael did and he was stunned by the perfection and fineness of those miniature finger nails. Her eyes were closed, but later one of them came open a little and we could see a dark eye behind the lid. We had said weeks earlier that our child would have to have brown eyes because we both do. It's strange to think that they probably would have turned blue before she was born and then gone brown again as she got older. Her ears were still flat against her head and her nose was still flat against her face. Her cheeks sloped down to her nose with the exact same shape as Michael's. He said she had my shaped eyes and we agreed she had my mouth. Her arms were curled down in front of her body and her upper arm was the same shape as Michael's, which in turn is the same shape as his paternal grandmother's. Even though they had their own distinctive shape, I remember her arms and legs looking floppy. It was hard to imagine there being complete bones inside them. We were offered hand and foot prints, which we very much wanted to have. Michael pressed her hands and feet down for the prints. That's when he saw her fingernails. I watched with a slight feeling of horror as it was done, especially the ones of her hands. Her hand being pulled down and her arm stretching up above it reminded me of those sticky rubber hands that stick to walls. I'd been scared to move her arms and legs in case I broke one.

After two hours she was taken out of our room. We could have had more time, but - and I can only speak for myself - I felt that there wasn't much point. We'd held her, touched her, kissed her, talked to her and we had our photos and prints. There was going to be photos taken for examination to help determine the cause of death and we were told that it could be done in the room with us but that most people choose not to witness it. Her body would be pulled and moved around to get the photos they needed. There would also be X-rays and an MRI and some blood taken from her. We had been offered an autopsy but ended up refusing. I initially thought I would want to have it done, but as the tests on offer were explained to me before she was born I changed my mind. The doctor had been talking about taking some of Kathryn's blood for testing and said that they would try to take it from the cord but that it was unlikely they'd be able to get any from there and so they would then take it from her heart with a needle through her chest. The thought of a needle going into her heart broke mine. I agreed to the blood test but refused an autopsy. Michael agreed with me then, but when she was born he was also adamant that no one was cutting her. She would remain intact.

Her skin wasn't peeling and her face wasn't squashed. We couldn't see anything that gave us an answer to why this happened. She was perfect.

For the duration of the time in hospital I stopped thinking of our daughter as Kat and only called her Kathryn. Even now, I always refer to her as Kat but as I write about the hospital, she is Kathryn.

We stayed in the hospital that night and left at about 9.00 the next morning, a Saturday. We had to go to the shops - I hadn't taken any pads with me and I only had one pair of undies - I left my other underwear at the hospital. I didn't want to even try to wash it. As we got to the shops I decided I wanted to buy a new dress for the funeral but I didn't want to go shopping at home. So we went shopping and I hated every second of it. I went to four shops before I found (a) something suitable and (b) something I liked. The longer I spent looking at clothes the more I wanted to run out screaming that my baby had just died. Again, I felt sorry for the people around me. There were two very nice women who served us in two different shops and we couldn't bring ourselves to talk to them. They tried so hard to be nice and we just stood there numb and almost dumb. I looked away and cried when one asked me if I had a special occasion coming up. By the time we got back to Michael's aunt's it was almost lunch time and after lunch I lay on the lounge with Michael and cried. We'd been crying on and off for two days by then, but this was different. It came to me that my baby was no longer in my body but she wasn't in my arms either. Again, he held me while I sobbed loudly. Once that came out I seemed to go into limbo. We had decided to wait until the following day before going home and all at once I felt like all I was doing was waiting. I desperately wanted to be with Rory and Sienna, who were with Dad. Every minute I sat around talking, eating, doing normal things, I felt abnormal. I couldn't feel. My emotions were suspended. I had quite long conversations with my sister and girlfriend in that state and I'm sure they both thought I was very weird and unemotional about the death of my daughter. Or at least that they were worried that I wasn't dealing with her death. Even so, I'm glad we spend that time there. Michael's parents had come and the five of us spent Saturday afternoon and night together. Michael and I went for a walk after dinner and ended up walking the length of the long jetty at Long Jetty. It was dark and the water was still. In the distance there was a fireworks display which we could see reflected in the water. It was so far away that there was about a five second delay between light and sound. We sat in the dark, talked a lot and held hands. It was a very special moment for us. It was only once we were on our way home that the suspended state left me. I needed a toilet stop and we went to McDonalds, thinking of the cleaner toilets there as compared to a park. I walked into Maccas and could hardly breathe when I saw so many people sitting there, eating, talking and laughing. I went to the toilet, rushed back to Michael, grabbed his hand and said "get me out of here". I sat in the car with tears rolling down my cheeks as we drove out of town. I turned to Michael and said "I feel better now. I can feel again".

We stopped again to visit Mum's grave. The weather that day was some of the strangest I have ever experienced. It was 40 degrees and the wind was incredibly strong. We stood in the cemetery and I had one arm around Michael and one around the tree and as I howled out my grief the wind rendered my voice almost silent. Once I was able to form words again I turned my attention to the tree and said "be with our baby girl, Mum. We can't be" and I stood and cried some more. After a moment I realised that the wind had died down. After another moment I turned to Michael and commented that the wind had gone. Almost as soon as I spoke the words, the wind came back again and remained.