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5-7 years since pregnancy ended

Interview 36

Interview 36

Age at Interview: 36
Sex: Female
Background: Pregnancies ended in 2000 and 2004. No. of children at time of interview: 2 + [2]. Ages of other children: 5, 2. Occupations: Mother - mother, formerly technical trainer, Father - software engineer. Marital status: married. Ethnic background: White Dutch.

Brief outline:Mother of 2 children (1st and 3rd pregnancies). 2nd pregnancy: 20-week scan detected anomalies. Sent for specialist scan, baby diagnosed with holoprosencephaly. Amniocentesis. Pregnancy ended by induction at 21 weeks. She experienced post-natal depression. Sent for genetic counselling. 4th pregnancy: 12-week scan anomalies detected - baby diagnosed with anencephaly. Pregnancy ended surgically at 13 weeks. She had gynaecological problems following termination. She was pregnant at time of interview.

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[About her partner] 'With him I felt safe because... this was our loss together'.
Print And I think, after having the second loss last year I think we immediately were very very much close with each other, you know. I didn't want to be with anyone but with him, because I felt, if I was with him I felt safe and because he was the, he, you know, we were both, this was our sort of loss together, and he was going to feel the love for the baby more than anybody else would. And I suppose in a way that was the same with the first, with [the baby's] loss. Because I did want... even though the first weeks were very difficult in terms of what, us communicating because we were so emotional, I did feel that I didn't want anybody else but [my husband] but my husband near me because, because he was, because he would have felt the love for the child that I did. Anybody else just thinks, 'Oh, it's just a fetus' or... you know, they don't understand that it's a human being, it's a person.

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