“I’m sorry” I said, “Perhaps they will let me home after the ultrasound I am going to get tomorrow morning”.

“I will go home and get some hospital kit for you and visit you this evening.” He then left me to lie on the bed and worry. He arrived later with a night dress, we chatted a little, then he left and I settled down in the ward for the night.

The next morning a wheel chair arrived for me and I lay on the couch while the sonar waves did their work on me through the paddle held by the technician. I could see grey blobs and various shadows but they didn’t mean much. The technician put the paddle down and gave a big sigh and looked at me sadly. She then arranged for my return to the hospital ward and said that the doctor would have a word with me this afternoon.

Doctor’s Afternoon Entourage arrived. I had the Big Chief Consultant in person surrounded by all his Little Indians. The compartment curtains were pulled round me and he stood by the bed.

“We are so sorry” he said, “For some reason that we don’t know about, the umbilicus has unattached itself from the placenta and you have lost the baby.” He said it quietly and softly then he looked at me. I was shocked and looked away in horror, then I buried my head in the pillow and it all flooded from me; wave after wave from my heaving chest.

“We will find you a quiet room tomorrow and start it off”. He then patted me on the shoulder and the entourage moved off to it’s next subject. The ward nurse gave me a sedative and told me she had phoned my husband: he would be here soon.

When he arrived, she must already told him in the corridor because he collapsed onto me and we both just sobbed for what seemed ages. She pulled the curtains round. Now the reality had hit him, I was no longer the reason for his spoilt holiday. We were told that the induction would start tomorrow morning at about nine o’clock.

That evening I was given some sedation, but rose after this to the TV room where a documentary was showing on alternative births. One of the visitors there asked me when my baby would be born.

“Tomorrow morning,” I said, “But this isn’t really a birth, It’s a death. My baby is dead.” She reeled away in horror, a disbelieving look on her face.

“Oh I am so sorry, so very, very sorry”, she took a step back and just kept looking at me. And the sedation didn’t work. I was in my own living night mare.

So the next morning I was found my own quiet room, the drip was in place, and my membrane punctured with an unpleasant, oversize knitting needle. And we waited. And the pains began after about four hours. I was given pethidine and I went into a dream where I was in a beautiful, sunny park with flowers and bird-song and I met some dead relatives, fully alive, walking through the alleyways of the park, smiling to me and saying hello.

Then I woke from that reverie to full-on contractions and I was wheeled into the delivery room. I was lying flat on the bed and told to raise my legs and to push on the next contraction. I did this twice and felt something hard between me trying to get out. The midwife put a large green cloth on my belly and I couldn’t see beyond it. On the next push I was really straining, then suddenly she slashed at me with a scalpel. The pain was burning bright, and hard, and my right leg reflex kicked to the side where she was standing. She quickly took a step back to miss my flying foot which made contact with her stomach. My red blood tricked from the wound to the white sheet. Then I pushed a few more times and felt a lump being dragged from me, followed by more tubes and sinews.

“Can I see it please?” She laughed at my folly.

“Oh no dear, not you. I am putting it away”.

“What is it?”

“What do you mean? Oh! I see. Oh, it’s a girl.”

And that was it.

Apart from the red star on my private ward door.