A doctor had told me not to worry about my unborn baby. But at the school gates, one of the mums said something that made me panic. By Rebecca Walker, 47
Dave turned to me, and what he said made me pause.
‘What do you say we make a go of this?’ he suggested.
We’d met through friends, but as a divorced mum of three kids — Tommy, 21, Kiya, 20, and little Harry,
two — I wasn’t looking for anything serious.
Being 10 years older than Dave, I was also worried that he was too young for me.
‘Well, we can have some fun,’ I said now.
But despite my reticence, Dave and I quickly became inseparable.
He was mature for his
age, and treated my kids
like his own.
We even began talking about having a little one of our own.
‘I’m not desperate to have another baby,’ I said. ‘But it would be nice.’
‘If it happens, it happens,’ Dave replied.
Then a year on, I began craving burgers, which I normally hated. I went to my local takeaway and ordered a double cheeseburger.
As I sat on a bench to eat it, I sent a picture of it to my mate, who replied saying: You need to take a pregnancy test.
Her message stopped me mid-bite. She had a point, so I rushed back to my home in Rugeley, Staffordshire, took a test and waited nervously.
By now, I was 41, and I worried I was too old to
have a baby.
When the result appeared, I called Dave at work to give him the news.
He came home and gave me a
big hug.
‘I can’t believe you’re pregnant,’ he said. ‘I love you.’
‘I love you too,’ I replied.
'You've just wet yourself'
Harry had been born prematurely at 28 weeks, so
I was offered an early scan as a precaution.
My sister Sharon came along with me.
I was 10 weeks, and as
the sonographer ran the scanner over my belly, she said: ‘Everything looks fine, the baby has a strong heartbeat, and long legs too!’
‘My partner is six foot tall,’ I told her.
Dave was with me for my 20-week scan where we learnt we were having a boy.
As Dave and his dad both had the middle name Jay,
we settled on the name Charlie-Jay.
I was due to have another scan at 26 weeks, but days before, I woke and felt a wet patch beneath me.
The baby had been wriggling around a lot, so I thought: He must be pushing down on my bladder.
But on the morning of the scan, I felt a gush down below and
a stabbing pain in my right side.
‘That’s not
right,’ I said to Dave.
‘Let’s get you checked
over,’ he replied.
When we got to the Royal Stoke Hospital, a doctor examined me and said: ‘You’ve just wet yourself.’
‘But it doesn’t smell like wee,’ I replied.
‘It is, don’t worry,’ he told me. ‘There is still a good amount of amniotic fluid around the baby.’
I was examined again, and they said the pain was because the baby was pushing against a nerve.
My gut told me it was something more, but I trusted their judgment.
A week later, I’d just dropped Harry off at
school when the stabbing pains got worse.
When I mentioned it to
one of the mums, she said: ‘You’re in labour.’
Terrified she was right,
I rang Dave, and an ambulance was called too.
When it arrived, the paramedics confirmed the baby was coming.
‘No! It’s too early,’ I panicked.
Dave tried to keep me calm as the ambulance rushed me to a hospital further away.
When we arrived, I was hooked up to monitors.
After checking me over
one of the doctors said:
‘Your waters broke a week ago. You and the baby have
a bad infection, so we’ll
have to do an emergency Caesarean this afternoon.’
Please let my baby be OK,
I prayed.
When it was time, I asked to have a general anaesthetic.
Dave held my hand and I drifted off.
‘Charlie’s in the neonatal intensive care,’ he told me when I woke. ‘I’ve been to see him.’
Soon after, a nurse took
me to meet our son too.
'We can't get him to stabilise'
He was hooked up to machines, and at a tiny 2lb 4oz, he was so delicate that his skin was see-through.
‘He’s very poorly,’ a nurse said. ‘It’s touch and go.’
This can’t be happening,
I thought.
Tears streamed down my face as I gently touched his hands and feet.
‘Hi, Charlie, it’s your mummy,’ I said.
His lungs hadn’t developed past 22 weeks, and his right one had collapsed.
Over the next hours, his condition worsened.
And when he was a day old, a nurse told us: ‘We can’t get him to stabilise. You should get your family here.’
After we’d called them, I ran outside in tears.
Kiya and Tommy came
and found me.
‘Mum, it’s time,’ they said.
Back inside, Dave held Charlie, then Kiya had a quick cuddle before passing him to me.
‘We love you so much,’ I told him, tearfully.
A machine was breathing for him, but a few minutes later I knew in my gut he’d taken his last real breath.
‘He’s gone,’ I cried, as Dave broke down too.
After everyone had gone, Dave and I stayed with Charlie overnight, cuddling and kissing him.
‘It looks like he’s asleep,’
I said.
We were offered a postmortem examination, but decided against it, wanting to leave Charlie in peace.
But going home without my baby broke me.
‘You still have a little brother, but he’s an angel now,’ I told Harry.
The grief was overwhelming, and to make it worse, I was still expressing milk.
We had Charlie cremated, along with an octopus teddy a friend had made for him. Then we buried the ashes.
As the grief set in, I just couldn’t stop thinking
about that first visit to hospital.
‘I should have fought harder to make the staff listen,’ I cried to Dave. ‘I killed
our little boy.’
‘You can’t blame yourself,’ he replied.
But I couldn’t let go of
the guilt, especially as
Charlie was his first child.
When we were told six months on that he had
died from sepsis, I became determined
to hold someone accountable.
I contacted
a solicitor at Irwin Mitchell who secured a settlement from the University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust, which runs Royal Stoke Hospital.
Through NHS Resolution, the trust admitted that had tests been performed during my initial hospital visit
and a ‘rupture
of membranes’ diagnosed,
treatment would have been given.
It also offered its ‘sincere condolences’, but denied liability for Charlie-Jay’s death.
Dave and I got tattoos in his memory, and mine was
a true-to-size copy of his hand and footprints that
the hospital
gave us.
Charlie would
be five now, and we celebrate his birthday every year.
Recently, Dave proposed to me after six years together.
Although we’re excited
for our big day, it’ll be tinged with sadness that our little boy won’t be there with us.
But we know that wherever he is, Charlie-Jay will be watching over us — and we’ll think
of him always.
The University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust told Take a Break:
‘We would like to offer our sincere condolences to Mrs Walker and her family for the death of Charlie-Jay, and have every sympathy for the difficulties that she is experiencing as a result.’