In my heart I knew.
In 2019 my husband and I found out we were expecting our second child. We had just moved to Townsville for my husbands work, I was not coping being away from my family so the pregnancy came at a really nice time.
It was a normal pregnancy and our baby was healthy and thriving. My eldest son was just shy of two years old and had just started going to daycare one day a week.
At 3 and a half months pregnant my son brought home gastro which we all had the pleasure of catching off him. I spent 24 hours vomiting my guts up and hardly eating. I booked myself into a GP just to get a check over and a check of our baby’s heart beat. All was fine and I was told any type of gastro bugs don’t affect the foetus is any way. I was given sea sick tablets and sent on my way.
The following day my vomiting continued but was accompanied with cramping and brown discharge. I spent the day in bed thinking it would pass. At midday I phoned the GP for some advice and I was told so long as the discharge isn’t red blood that I shouldn’t worry. By the afternoon I did start to worry as nothing was changing. I phoned my husband to come home from work and we went straight to the emergency department. When we got there I had my temperature taken - I had a fever. They immediately got me a bed and started all of their tests. I got put on a drip for fluids right away and had an ultrasound.
Everything was fine, our baby was fine and no sign of miscarriage on the horizon. My husband took our son home and I stayed in hospital for the night. By 11pm my discharge developed into red clots and I started to panic. At least I was in the right place, I was reassured it would be ok (or false hope) as the ultrasound had given them zero indication that anything was wrong.
I got transferred to a private room and settled in for the night. My cramping continued which was more like contractions. In my heart I knew. At 3am completely alone I felt a giant release. I rang the bell for the nurse and I told her something had given way. She removed my clothing and put her hand on my hand and said “I’m so sorry, you’ve lost your baby” I whaled in the hospital room, it’s a moment I will never forget.
The nurse just held me. From there they took our baby’s little body away in a plastic dish and I was taken to theatre to have the placenta removed. After losing Austin I spent an additional three days in hospital where I was given a total of 17 bags of antibiotics.
I was told I had contracted Norovirus which is a form of gastro but more common in elderly people. It had attacked the placenta that was giving life to our healthy baby. It’s not a normal case of miscarriage and took me so long to accept it because I could have so easily avoided it.
Little Austin’s body was taken to do research as they had never heard of Norovirus ever affecting a pregnancy.
3 years on and we now have another son - Our rainbow baby and we are now expecting our third. Losing a pregnancy has been my biggest lesson and blessing. And I like to talk about it because it matters. You don’t realise how delicate it all really is and I’m grateful that I got to carry him for as long as I did.
- Kaitlin
