Midwife's lie left me heartbroken
After much heartache, their dream came true
Thursday 8th May 2008
There's nothing like that moment when, after carrying a baby for nine months, you finally meet them for the first time. The rush of love is incredible. Friends had told me how amazing it is when you give birth, and the first thing the midwife does, even before cutting the umbilical cord, is put the baby on your chest.
But when I'd gone into labour with my twins, Jonah and Teegan, on 28 February 2002, I'd had to have a Caesarean section, so I'd missed out on that skin-to-skin contact. They were already wrapped in little blankets when I'd held them minutes after the birth. Lovely — but I knew it wasn't the same.
So, when I fell pregnant with my third child, in September 2003, I was determined to give birth naturally.
'I can't wait to meet him,' I said to my husband, Len, then 33, at my 20-week scan.
'Or her,' he teased.
We didn't want to know our baby's sex.
'As long as it's healthy, I don't mind,' I smiled.
Certainly, all the scans showed that our baby was fine. But then, at 34 weeks, my consultant, Mr Zaidi, had some worrying news.
'Like all women who've had a Caesarean, there's a risk your scar could rupture during labour,' he explained. 'The midwife will have to monitor your baby's heart rate constantly. If there's any sign of distress, it could mean you'll have to have another Caesarean.'
'Oh,' I said, disappointed.
I really didn't want that to happen. But if it was for the best, I certainly wasn't going to argue. On 16 June 2004, I went into labour a few days early. This is it, I thought, excited. My mum looked after the twins while Len rushed me to Conquest Hospital in St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex, just after 2.30pm. But it was another hour before the midwife, Sandra Bickers, now 45, found me a room.
Of course, I was a bit anxious as I lay in the hospital bed. Especially as the baby's heart rate wasn't monitored until 4.30pm.
'You're doing well,' Sandra said, as another contraction began.
After that, she monitored the heart rate every half-hour, and everything seemed fine. At 7.30pm, Sandra's shift ended and we were introduced to our new midwife, Peter Davies, now 45.
'We'll get this baby out in no time,' he assured me. He gave me an injection of Meptid for the pain, but an hour-and-a-half later,
a sharp twinge shot through my Caesarean scar. I panicked. My consultant had said this could be a sign something was wrong.
'My scar hurts,' I told Peter.
He held the heart-rate pad against my belly, and I heard the whooshing of the baby's heartbeat.
'The heart rate's up a bit, but it's nothing to worry about,' he said.
At 11pm, as Len clutched my hand, I started pushing.
'Just one more,' Peter said, after 20 minutes.
So I gritted my teeth and gave it all I had, and at 11.24pm, my baby was finally born.
'It's a girl,' Peter announced.
We'd already decided on a name.
'Hello Scarlett,' I cooed, as Peter placed her on my chest.
But gazing down at my daughter, I was horrified. Her face was blue, and her arms and legs were floppy, like a rag doll's. Then I realised…I haven't heard her cry.
'She's blue,' I spluttered to Peter. 'Do something.'
He hit the emergency button by my bed and within seconds, a team of six doctors and nurses had rushed in and whisked Scarlett to the other side of the room.
'Is she breathing?' I called out.
Peter glanced over.
'She'll be fine,' he said.
Stay calm, Liz. Stay calm.
Teegan had been blue when she was born, and she was fine after a few hours in an incubator. But watching doctors put a tiny white bonnet on Scarlett's head to keep her warm, terror swept over me.
'Newborns need a bit of help sometimes,' Peter explained.
But things didn't seem right. One doctor was putting tubes in Scarlett's mouth, and another was pushing down on her chest to resuscitate her.
I was so afraid, I couldn't even cry. I just kept watching. Praying. They'd been working for nearly an hour when a doctor came over.
'I'm sorry, but I need permission to stop resuscitation,' he said. 'There are no signs of life, and if we did manage to bring her back, she'd be severely brain damaged.'
'Then stop,' Len whispered.
I swear I felt my heart shatter. This just can't be.
I'd heard Scarlett's heart beating on the monitor through nine hours of labour.
'I need to hold her,' I croaked.
The staff dressed Scarlett in the cream and yellow Babygro we'd brought with us and handed her to me. I wanted to memorise every line in her face, the way her soft tufts of dark hair felt. Because this wasn't just our first cuddle. It was our last.
'She weighs 8lb 1oz,' I was told.
A healthy weight. How could this have happened? Had there been something wrong with her all along? Scarlett stayed in the room with Len and I overnight, while we took turns holding her. At 8am the next morning, we were still holding each other and crying, when suddenly, I felt woozy, and everything went black…
When I came round, a doctor was standing by my bed.
'We've had to operate,' he said. 'Your uterus ruptured during labour. The bleeding cut Scarlett's oxygen supply in the womb.'
I stared at him, horrified. That was exactly why my consultant had wanted her heartbeat monitored throughout the labour.
So her death could have been avoided, I realised, distraught. The doctor explained he had thought they'd have to perform a hysterectomy, but thankfully, they'd been able to repair my womb instead. But I didn't care about me. All I could think about was Scarlett. She'd been a healthy baby.
Could they have saved her if they'd performed a Caesarean? Later that morning, Sandra Bickers came in.
'I'm going to get it in the neck,' she said to me. 'But Mr Zaidi can put it in his pipe and smoke it. What he doesn't know won't hurt him.'
I was shocked. Surely Mr Zaidi had a right to know what had happened?
I was too overwhelmed with grief and shock to take it in. I'd given birth, and ached to have a tiny bundle in my arms. The next day, Mr Zaidi visited.
'I have to ask this,' he said. 'Did you refuse to have your baby's heartbeat monitored?'
I was shocked. Is that what the midwives are saying?
'No,' I spluttered.
'Then I'm going to demand an immediate inquiry,' he said.
It was too much. My baby was dead and the midwives were trying to blame me? I was heartbroken. I went home two days later. Seeing the pile of soft, yellow Babygros sitting expectantly in the nursery, I broke down.
'They can't get away with this,' I raged.
Len agreed, so we filed an official complaint against the hospital. But it still seemed too little, far too late. Whenever I walked past the empty nursery, my heart would break a little bit more. Then there were Teegan and Jonah. They were only 2-and-a-half. Far too young to understand why Mummy was so upset or why her tummy wasn't big any more.
'Your little sister Scarlett is in heaven,' I told them.
Scarlett's funeral was on 5 July, nearly three weeks after she was born, at St Laurence's Church in Hawkhurst, Kent. We placed a little white teddy inside her tiny white coffin. Watching Len carry the coffin into the church, I'd never known such pain was possible. People say once a funeral is over, that's when the grief hits. Well, believe me, they're right.
Although I had Len and my beautiful twins, with hormones surging and no baby to hold, I felt totally empty. My head swirled with emotions. Grief and pain for the baby I'd lost, anger and bitterness at the midwives who had allowed this to happen. And terrible, choking sadness.
This was supposed to be a happy time, something to look forward to. There was only one thing I could think of that would help ease some of the pain.
'I really want another baby,' I told Len.
Len squeezed my hand.
'I'd like that,' he said.
But was it possible? At the time of the operation to repair my womb, I'd been told to wait a year before trying for a baby. And, in truth, was I ready? Three months after Scarlett's death, it still broke my heart to walk into that silent, empty nursery. In the drawers, never-worn Babygros sat alongside the twins' old hand-me-downs.
I remembered how excited I'd felt tucking them away, knowing the next time I took them out, it would be to clothe our new baby.But it wasn't to be. And though Len and I hoped to have another baby in the future — not to replace Scarlett, but to give us new hope — I knew I'd have to face packing away the baby things at some point.
That time came six months after Scarlett's death, when I went back to my job in IT.
'I need to move on,' I told Len.
So I packed the baby clothes into a holdall and put them in the loft.
In January 2005, I went to see Mr Zaidi at his clinic, to see if my womb had healed. I didn't blame him at all for what had happened. He'd left clear instructions for the midwives, which they had ignored.
'It's good news,' he said, after I'd had an internal scan. 'You've recovered well from the operation.'
The relief was overwhelming. So Len and I started trying for another baby and, in October 2005, 16 months after losing Scarlett, I fell pregnant again. We were thrilled — and terrified.
What if something goes wrong?
'I want to stick with Mr Zaidi,' I told Len.
He was the only person I trusted. But I didn't want to deliver at Conquest Hospital again, so I arranged to go to Eastbourne District General Hospital. Despite being nervous at every scan and check-up, everything was fine. I didn't take any risks, though. At 36 weeks, on 8 May 2006, I decided to have a Caesarean section with Mr Zaidi delivering.
'It's a boy,' he smiled.
But his words were drowned out by a piercing cry. It was the sweetest sound in the world.
I didn't get to hold 7lb 8oz baby Archie until a few minutes after he was born, but this time, I didn't mind. I had a lifetime of cuddles to look forward to.
'Scarlett would have loved you,' I murmured.
Back home, I went into the loft and took out the baby clothes I'd packed away. There was a pang of sadness, but my joy at having Archie swept that away.
As we got on with looking after the children, the proceedings against the midwives rumbled on. And in March 2008, when Archie was nearly 2, Len and I went to a misconduct hearing at the Nursing & Midwifery Council office in Central London. Sandra Bickers was there, but she hung her head and wouldn't look at me. Peter Davies didn't even bother to turn up. Instead, he sent an 11-page statement denying he'd done anything wrong. The nerve. He wouldn't even face up to what he'd done.
The panel heard that both midwives had ignored Mr Zaidi's instructions to monitor Scarlett's heartbeat constantly. I was livid when I heard Bickers had claimed I hadn't wanted the baby monitored constantly because I wanted to be 'mobile' and not 'flat on my back'. Testifying about Davies, I couldn't hold back my emotions.
'He hadn't realised she was dead,' I sobbed. 'He had no idea.'
The panel found them both guilty of misconduct. Davies was struck off. As he should be.
'He has not accepted he did anything seriously wrong and has taken no steps to remedy the deficiencies in his practice,' said panel chairman, Ann Kelly.
Bickers was given a caution that would remain in place for five years, because although she hadn't followed the guidelines
in using the correct equipment, she'd done it in good faith.
It meant she could carry on working as a midwife. It didn't seem like much in exchange for Scarlett's life, but she knows she's done wrong. Now, two months on, we take the children to visit Scarlett's grave every month. I still have flashbacks to the horrifying moment when she was put on my chest. That's something I'll have to live with. But with my beautiful children and Len in my life, I know the future will be just fine.
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