My last blog was about the appointment at the hospital since losing Ally, so obviously a lot has been happening since then.

Six months after Ally was born we conceived again and we were delighted but very scared.  Each day that  passed felt like a week and every scan was a day spent worrying, then relaxing after good news, before the worry set in that something had happened to the baby just after leaving the sonographers office.

Everything was fine though and we reached the 20 week milestone with no problems or reasons to worry.  But on the very day we reached 20 weeks we were in a road accident, not serious at first, but it hurt my abdoman, back and arm.  I was taken to hospital and reassured that the baby was fine, strong heartbeat and everything.

A week later I was still in a lot of pain but could feel the baby moving so tried not to worry.  I went to the doctor and they assured me that if it was back pain rather than abdoman pain then it was my injuries from the accident rather than the baby.  A few days later and I started to come down with what I thought was a cold.  Exactly two weeks from the day of the accident, at exactly 22 weeks, I started bleeding and went to hospital.  This was a Thursday.

They could hear a good heartbeat and promised me that I would be fine.  They did an internal exam just to check me out and gave me worrying news, they could see that my cervix was open about 1-2cm.   I was put right to bed in the hospital, with my husband over 250 miles away at work (he is in the navy and works away) and with no idea what was happening.  I had to call him to come home. Another exam a couple of hours later showed my cervix was open between 3-4 cm.  They took blood from me and said my temperature was slightly high.  I was put on a drip to try to bring it down.

The next morning I was taken to theatre to have a cervical stitch put in but at 22 weeks and with the sac bulging through the opening it was too little too late and it didn't work.  I had a bad reaction to the anesthetic and was very sick in the operating theatre.  Half an hour after the failed operation my waters broke.  I was told that I would be put on a stronger antibiotic drip to try to stop infection getting in but the outlook by then was very bleak.  An hour later the blood tests came back confirming that I already had an infection, probably from before I even got to the hospital and my 'cold' was actually the first signs of it.

By that night I was very ill and they were fighting a losing battle to keep my temperature down.  They did a lot more tests on me but I passed a very bad night, in pain, scared and wondering if every movement from my baby would be the last one.

The following morning they confirmed that the infection had reached my placenta at just about the same time that I felt a contraction.  My baby was on the way and they refused to do anything to stop it from coming because my placenta was poisoning us both.  They told me that in a matter of hours we would both die unless the placenta came out.  They told me that my baby would die during or shortly after the birth.

They actually gave me something to speed labour up, but it still took a long time, fourteen hours, so we finally had our baby just after midnight on Sunday December 16th 2007.  She was beautiful, the most perfect and delicate little girl I have ever seen.  She weighed 1 lb 2 1/2 oz and was like a little china doll.  She survived for two and a quarter hours.

By the time she was born I was in agony, dizzy, very ill and exhausted.  I had been hallucinating during labour and was too exhausted to pass the placenta that was causing all the trouble.  I tried to push but couldn't even feel the muscles to make them push.  I was numb and so upset because they told me I had to go to theatre to get the placenta out before it killed me.  I didn't want to leave my baby and miss a second of her too short life.

A wonderful doctor asked me if I thought I could stand for him to remove the placenta with forceps if I had the gas and air.  I could stand anything that gave me more time with her so I said yes.  I almost passed out but it was over in just a minute or two and I will be greatful to that man forever for doing that for me.

We held her and loved her for those two hours and sixteen minutes and told her how precious she was.  We called her Elisabeth Grace.

It's almost seven months since we lost her and we have just started to try again, for our third baby together and so are hoping it will be third time lucky for us if we do manage to conceive again. 

I thought that losing Ally would be the hardest thing I ever went through, giving birth to my baby knowing he had died.  It never occured to me that if we lost another child we would actually have to watch her die.  It has been a terrible time for us and at times it has been hard to get up and go on each day.  We will always love and miss both Ally and Elisabeth and know we can never replace either one of them.  We just hope that one day, one day soon, we can have a baby and bring it home with us to watch him or her grow up.

Thank you to anyone who read this through to the end.