Shared experiences

Very many thanks to all the parents, siblings, families and friends, who have allowed us to share their experiences on this site.

Ryan

I was 38 weeks pregnant with our second baby when my waters broke in the night. Our first son, Thomas, was born by Caesarean Section due to breech presentation so this was my first labour. We felt all was going well at the hospital until towards the end. Suddenly people began to panic and told me we had to deliver the baby now. I tried to push for what seemed like hours but to no avail. Eventually our beautiful son, Ryan George, was born by ventose delivery on Sunday 9th July 2000. But all was not well.

He was very poorly and not breathing for himself. He was rushed to special care while we were left to wait, not knowing what was wrong. Ryan was too poorly for the hospital to cope so was transferred to a hospital with a bigger SCBU. He did not get better. One by one his organs began to fail and we made the heartbreaking decision to turn off his ventilator when he was just 48 hours old. We had to leave our precious baby in the chapel of rest and return home empty handed, to an excited two and half year old who wanted to know why his baby brother had been left at the hospital and would never see his beautifully decorated room.

It was Thomas who got us through the next few weeks. He was our reason for getting up each day. The autopsy report concluded that Ryan was a healthy baby boy weighing 7 lbs, who died from asphyxiation. The cause is unknown, but might be related to the cord. My consultant told us the CTG traces which were taken during my labour showed unequivocal fetal distress for the last 30 minutes, and had this been acted upon immediately Ryan would have survived. If only somebody had noticed this. If only we had known how to interpret these traces – believe me do now! We are now pursuing a medical negligence claim against the hospital.

Ryan is buried in the local cemetery where they started a special children’s burial area just for our special ‘little man’. For the first few months I had to visit him every day or I’d believe he would think we didn’t care about him, but now we visit him together every Saturday. 13 months after Ryan died, our daughter Eleanor was born by CS. She has made life a little easier and made Thomas so happy, although he didn’t believe she would come home from the hospital until the day she did.

Almost all of our friends had a baby from the summer we lost Ryan so we have constant reminders of what we should have, but we are happy that we have two beautiful children living with us and one special angel looking over us all. Last week we celebrated Eleanor’s first birthday. Now we feel more confident of the future and hope that our children will be happy and safe, and that please never again will God take another angel from us.

Sharon

Since writing this, the hospital has admitted liability for the sub optimal care Sharon and Ryan received.