Leaving your baby in the hospital, and actually walking away and getting in the car and driving off, and – like knowing that you’ve left that baby behind. You know? I just don’t think there’s much worse things that you can feel, like your heart just feels like it’s broken. Like it still feels like that now. Like I still remember sitting in the car, just – I couldn’t believe I was leaving the hospital with no baby, and with nothing. After all that, there was nothing – I had nothing, I just had pain.

Mike: We’d obviously – we had a room full of baby stuff that we’d obviously acquired from our friends and family. And things along those lines. So again, that was something afterwards that we just

Emily: You family were – your parents were great, they just cleared that room out then. Because we had all the cot and everything ready, so.

Mike: Yeah.

Emily: They’ve got all of that in their garage [laugh]. And we’ve got lots of stuff in the loft, haven’t we. But strangely, again I don’t feel sort of sentimental. Those things are just things.

Mike: Yeah, they were never used. It was just, just – obviously hard to – yeah.
sut I – I don’t – that sort of – It wasn’t that kind of stuff that I’d kind of cling to. I don’t know.

And that was so weird. It’s so weird walking out of hospital with just my Sands memory box, and my Aching Arms bear. Leaving Henry in the chapel of rest there. That was awful. And just, yeah. Leaving, walking alongside the people that have got their babies in their car seats, you know. And it just felt so wrong. It was so – it was just so wrong. The whole thing, you know. And just leaving, empty. Like literally, physically and emotionally empty. And we came home, and it was nice to be home in some respects, to have my own bed and stuff. But I literally had about five seconds of being home, and being like oh my goodness, we’ve got a half made-up nursery upstairs, what am I going to do with that? Letting it sink in, before [my son] came back and I was back into normal mum mode.

And I think whilst [my son] has been a fantastic distraction, it has meant that even now, I wouldn’t say that I have had an opportunity to really process what’s happened. And some of that is my own mental protection, I think. But, yeah. It’s very difficult to grieve when you have to appear normal to your child.

Emily: Then it’s that awful thing of like you’re going home

Mike: Yeah. Yeah, it didn’t feel right.

Emily: You know, you feel really guilty [struggling against tears]. But your Mum and Dad had come here, hadn’t they. And they’d done like – done a shop for us, and cleaned the house, and were here for us when we got back, which was really nice. But it is just a very strange feeling, isn’t it.

Mike: Yeah.

Emily: You do feel just bereft. And panicky. I think the first few days I got through it [laugh] drinking whiskey, didn’t I. I had to have like a whiskey to take the edge off in the morning. It just felt – And the day after, I – Obviously my body just felt like I’d been hit by a truck. And my boobs were filling up with milk, and all – you know – all those kind of things, which are pretty awful.

Mike: They were all the sort of normal things you’d expect to be going through, but

Emily: – but without, yeah-

Mike: ultimately it was like a lost cause.

Yeah.

Emily: Yeah, so that was really tough. And it’s just, I don’t know. Just the strangest feeling. And I just felt so panicky. And we didn’t know what to do with ourselves, did we. We kept going for walks. And then as soon as I was out, I wanted to be home again. And then as soon as I was home, I wanted to be out again. I couldn’t find peace anywhere, or settle. And I was really struggling to sleep, and it was just such a – I’ve never really felt grief like it. I’ve grieved before, but it was just another level, wasn’t it.

And I remember, it was very hard for me when – after everything happened, and then I was home and – and my milk. Do, do you say came’s, or?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. And I feel It. Probably it wasn’t paid enough attention to that. Because then you’re supposed to be dealing at home with these four I don’st know – maybe four or five days? And it just reminds you of that baby you’re not going to be able to feed. And for me especially hard, because I fed [my son] for twenty months. So you know, it’s, it’s – And I think they should give you more more, more choices, or more – they should pay more attention to that. Because I remember when I was in hospital, all of a sudden, when we knew what was going to happen and stuff. I just thought is it going to happen? Am I going to have? And I went to ask them whether, you know. And the advice was ‘don’t do anything at all, just leave it, leave it as it is and it will dry up. But I think – I my understanding is there is medication to – And I think you should be given the choice. You should be – you should be, you know, given not just ‘leave it as it is’, because it’s painful. I mean, physically. But emotionally it’s awful, because it just reminds you all the time what, what you’re going through. And I think you could be spared that. So from my point of view, I think it would be good if –

Because it’s something they don’t – It wasn’t really looked after, if you know what I mean. It was just a little bit dismissed. Just ‘leave it as it is’, and that’s it. And I think they should sit down with you and explain, and say what choices you have. Because you, you – First of all, you could have medication. You could – maybe there will be some mothers that would be willing to donate the milk, and that. But nobody – I think I wouldn’t have, anyway.

But maybe some people at that stage will think about that. But on the other hand, it could be a way of healing as well, for someone thinking – you know – I can, I can do something for – in some – somehow.

For my baby, as well. You know, like it hasn’t been in vain, or. Or maybe some people want just to leave it as it is. So. But I think more care needs to be taken on that. Because for my – for me, it wasn’t.

Maxine: Physically you walk out of the hospital, and you bleed and you clot like you would as a new mum. You, your milk comes in like a new mum.

But you don’t have a baby. So you’ve got all – And obviously your hormones are all over the place.

Steve: Mmm.

Maxine: And you have all that to go along with. And I think, you know I said to you since we lost Heidi – as a new mum the first time round with [daughter’s name], you don’t notice all that happening, because you’ve got a baby to focus on. But when you’ve got time, you notice everything. So you notice how long your clotting goes on for, you notice – you know – every single drop of milk you lose or whatever, and it’s – your body is so, so cruel. Because my body thinks it’s just had a baby. And it doesn’t have a baby.

Lisa: And we thought we were going to have to take another trip into hospital. Which I really at that point was dread – like really didn’t want that. I didn’t want to go back. But thankfully when I phoned them, they were just like, ‘no, hold on – phone us if like if it’s terrible in however many hours, then come back. But yeah, so I’m glad we held on there. Because I think that was when I just was like ‘oh no, I just can’t, I can’t go back.

But that was the only time when I had any kind of issues really.

Had they prepared you that that might happen, or? Was it a bit of a surprise?

Lisa: I don’t think it was necessarily a surprise, because I think it’s just – you know, having had [older son’s name], you know what your body’s doing a bit more, don’t you.

So I don’t necessarily think it was a surprise. I don’t think they prepared us, but it was just kind of – just one of those situations.

Matt: Yeah, and I think you’re just more conscious of these things. Like before, when you’ve got a baby to look after, you’re busy.

Lisa: Yeah, that’s true.

Matt: You’re looking after the baby, that’s your main focus. But now, you’ve only got – only got you. You kind of forget what happened with [older son’s name], because you had other things on your mind.

Lisa: And I think you were more paranoid as well, but – because of the infection, that there could be something.

Matt: Yeah.

Lisa: Being on the kind of blood thinning things. So I think that would also make me more aware of it.

Matt: Mmm.

Lisa: So maybe I was more aware of things. And maybe this happened with [older son’s name] and I had no idea.

Matt: Mmm.

Lisa: Yeah. So. I guess you’re more aware of infections and stuff.

Matt: I think there was that – yeah, you’re right. I was more conscious of

Lisa: And you’re really hyped up about things.

Matt: Yeah, just because – yeah. Obviously this infection, and you hear about sepsis and everything else, and. Yeah. So I think I was more kind of conscious to make sure that you were alright.

We decided in that two weeks to rent a little cottage in Wales, take the dog, and just get away. No TV. Sit and watch the sea, on the bench. And that’s what we did. And we had a really nice time. The evenings were a bit bleak. Because that’s what – when we’d go over what had happened. But actually, it was nice to get away. And we, we didn’t have great phone service. And I remember this midwife, had left a voicemail. And she was quite rude. And I’m not one to berate midwives, I think it’s a fantastic profession, I think it’s a calling. And practicality side, amazing. You know? Could not fault our midwife that night. Could not fault any of the midwives. But I got quite a berated message for missing an appointment, a midwife appointment. So I rang her back, and it was the same woman that had come to my house with pictures of Rebecca. And I had said to here, “You were at my house four days ago.” And she tried to say that “Oh, yes.” And I could hear her back-pedalling slightly. And she was very apologetic. But that was – again – was something that we didn’t need to have. We had letters sent to us from the hospital, ‘you’ve missed this appointment, please reschedule. So obviously I’d have to ring them and explain what had happened. So it was just being – It was never going to go away, there was nothing to dredge up, but it was just having to explain to people that you shouldn’t have to explain anything to.

Nobody had sent a letter to my doctor. Nobody had done anything about it. Which kind of made it all worse, because then you’re thinking ‘well, how have they dealt with her? If this hasn’t all come together, admin-wise, what are you doing with her?’

And thinking of it, one of the other things just come into my mind. I was – it was a good couple of weeks after, I should think. And I got a phone call from the health visitor, who was going to make an arrangement to come round to visit me, to talk about the baby. And I was like, “Well no, I’ve lost the baby. Have they not told you that?” So obviously that went a bit skewiff, and they hadn’t been informed. And that – that again, you know – you’re then having to tell somebody that you’ve lost the baby, was quite hard-going.

Because it – Especially when it someone that should have actually known.