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3-4 years since pregnancy ended

Interview 16

Interview 16

Age at Interview: 37
Sex: Female
Background: Pregnancy ended in 2002. No of children at interview: 4 + [2- 1 TOP, 1 stillbirth]. Ages of other children 20, 18, 15 + baby. Occupations: mother & housewife, Father- retail industry. Marital status: married. Ethnic background: White British.

Brief outline:Her 4th pregnancy: experienced sickness during first trimester and felt unwell. Blood test at 16 weeks detected Down's syndrome. Amniocentesis confirmed Down's. Pregnancy ended by induction at 19 weeks. Following the termination she had a stillbirth. (In 2005 she had another baby.)

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She attributes her painful labour to her body and mind not being ready to lose the baby.
Print So there's a tremendous amount of guilt, and yes there's upset and there's, you're worrying about your children back home, but you just know you have to do it - and as quickly as possible. And I think I was actually asking the midwife, “Can I not have the next set of tablets now?” But you have to wait, I think its three hours, in between each set. So that was the Wednesday we started that and thankfully labour, didn't, it was a while in starting but it didn't last excessively long. So we were fortunate in that respect, we didn't have hours and hours and hours of thinking what was going on. But it was the worst pain ever, and I've had three labours and the youngest child was over 9 pounds and I thought that was hard work. But giving birth to a baby that was only 19 weeks - he was small - but that was, there's no pain that you could describe as bad as that, and that's with all intervention, that's with morphine, with gas and air, with painkillers. So its, possibly it's an emotional response to what's happening, because you know that you're losing a baby that you don't want to lose, and your body's not ready for it. Your body's still trying to hold on, but the drugs are making you go through labour.

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