Jo Styles lost her unborn baby at 36 weeks after a textbook pregnancy.

She tells MARION SAUVEBOIS her story

THERE was writhing, thrashing about , and suddenly nothing. Jo Styles felt her daughter sink inside of her. In that moment she knew she had lost her unborn child.

“Everything felt heavy and lifeless. Straightaway I knew she was dead. All the way to the hospital I kept saying ‘She’s gone, she’s gone.”

Jo, a hairdresser from Ferndale, lost Hannah 36 weeks into her pregnancy in October 2009.

Nothing could have foretold these complications at such a late stage.

A healthy baby, she had reached all the developmental milestones and Jo relished her happy and frequent little greeting kicks.

“It was a textbook pregnancy,” recalls the 27-year-old. “She was healthy all the way through. She was like clockwork. You knew when she was waking up – she would have a good hour of kicking when she did. If there is such a thing as routine during pregnancy, this was it. It was really easy.”

When she was still breech at 34 weeks, meaning she had not settled in head down, doctors were not alarmed but instead decided to give her another week to turn inside the womb naturally before attempting to tease her round.

If this failed they would plan a caesarean.

But when her energetic baby stopped wriggling a week later, Jo grew anxious.

“I remember that Wednesday in October, thinking she had been unusually quiet. She was not herself.

“I went home, cooked dinner and then she started moving as normal so I thought ‘She’s fine’. I remember going upstairs after dinner to put clothes away and as I went down the stairs I felt some very fast movements like she was struggling and then she went very quiet. I felt like my bump just dropped, like life was sucked out of it.

“I felt sick all the way to the hospital, I just knew. My partner told me not to be stupid but I said ‘I’m telling you she’s dead.”

When the first monitor failed to pick up her daughter’s heartbeat, Jo’s midwife confidently brought in a second and then a third machine. Eventually, she resorted to using an old-fashioned Pinard horn; panic washed over her face when she was unable to hear the baby’s heart.

“She was confident and bubbly and kept saying the machine is a bit temperamental. She tried another machine and then a portable heart machine; when she used the plastic trumpet and couldn’t hear anything, I noticed the panic on her face. Tears were rolling down my face. A consultant came in with a scan machine. He turned the screen away from me. They said, ‘We’re very sorry’ and at the point I screamed out and bawled my eyes out.”

Doctors now believe that in the process of turning in her mother’s wood, Hannah’s neck became tangled in the umbilical cord.

The ordeal was far from over for Jo. Overcome with grief, she returned to the Great Western Hospital the following day to give birth to her child.

Jo’s labour was induced. But when time came to receive an epidural, doctors were unable to reach through the membrane on her lower back. Jo’s muscles had contracted around her baby, cocooning her.

“My body didn’t want to let go. It was holding on to her. They had to massage my back to loosen the muscles and give me the epidural.”

Hannah was born the following day, on October 29 at 5.04pm.

Determined to create lasting memories with her daughter and make the most of their limited time together, she dressed her, cuddle her, never once letting go of her.

Just a few feet away from her hospital room elated parents were celebrating their new arrivals.

“Every moment was so precious. The moment I saw her, the love I felt was overwhelming. I told her how much I loved her. I wasn’t saying goodbye. It’s not something I’m prepared to close the door on. She is part of my life and she will always be.”

“But on the maternity ward and then Hazel ward I could hear people coming in with balloons and all the other babies crying. I thought ‘Why isn’t Hannah crying? It’s not fair.’ I thought ‘Why has this happened to me?’ You drive yourself mad, even five years on, thinking ‘Why did it have to happen?’ It doesn’t get easier.”

Refusing to leave her behind, Jo received special permission to take Hannah home from the hospital for one night. The next morning funeral directors collected her lifeless body in a Moses basket.

“After the funeral, I felt really lost. I didn’t know how I was meant to go on with my life. I was supposed to be a mum. We tried to have another child straight away. I didn’t want to replace Hannah but I just needed to a mother.”

A month after her death Jo joined stillbirth and neonatal death charity Swindon Sands.

“My best friend Tia Yates had lost twins two years and two weeks before I lost Hannah and she was a member. I remember thinking at the first meeting ‘I’m not alone.’ To have that comfort, to meet people who understood how you were feeling was a godsend.

“People don’t understand. They still think now you should be over it by now. You never get over it but you find ways to live with it.”

After suffering an ectopic pregnancy, she fell pregnant with Hollie four years ago.

Still reeling from Hannah’s death, she lived each day terrified of losing her baby. Every new milestone brought her closer to another catastrophe, she feared.

“I didn’t enjoy my pregnancy. I kept thinking every day could be the last. I didn’t plan ahead. I really didn’t think I would get her. Even when they induced me at 37 weeks and I gave birth to her I had it in my head she was not here to stay.

“For the first few months I would wake up throughout the night to check that she was breathing. I was very cautious. It took me a while to let go.

“Hollie is amazing. She knows she has a sister who is an angel. She doesn’t see the tears, just the balloons we release on Hannah’s birthday.

“I have two children. Just because Hannah died , it doesn’t mean I should hide that part of my life away. She had a life, she lived within me.

“It’s strange but Hannah made me a stronger person. She has made me a much kinder person.

“Not a day goes by when I don’t think of her. She is always there.”

SANDS

- Swindon Sands offers support to bereaved parents in the town and the surrounding area. It was founded in 2008 and is run by local parents who have lost a baby.

- Three years ago, Sands launched a campaign to fund a bereavement suite at the Great Western Hospital to give grieving parents privacy away from the maternity ward.

- Sands has raised nearly £25,000 towards furnishings for the suite and anything necessary to make families as comfortable as possible under the circumstances.

- The bereavement will include a couple of informal rooms, complete with a double bed and tea and coffee station.

- Any extra funds raised by the charity from now on will go to the upkeep of the suite, specially designed memory boxes, and little extras over the years.

- To make a donation to Sands, get in touch or to join go to www.swindonsands.org or email admin@swindonsands.org.

- Sands helpline is available on 01793 238788.