I found out I’d lost my child without my husband while people queued for Costa
A woman was told her baby died while she was apart from her husband because of coronavirus rules, while dozens of people queued on the other side of the wall for a coffee at Costa.
Tamsin Roberts went to see a doctor after suffering stomach pain but her scan did not show anything alarming.
But four weeks later, on September 1 last year, her 11-week scan showed she had suffered a ‘missed miscarriage’ – when the fetus dies but has not been physically miscarried, so the mum does experience typical symptoms such as bleeding.
While Tamsin’s husband Leigh waited in the car, a sonographer at St Peter’s Hospital in Chertsey, Surrey, told her that she had lost her baby.
She said: ‘As I lay there staring at the screen ahead of me up on the wall in the dark she [the sonographer] said “It doesn’t look like it’s grown”.
‘I said: “What does that mean?”. She just said: “It’s died”.
‘I felt like I had been punched in the face, I was crying and shouting when she left the room, leaving the scanner looped over my knee, then back she came with someone else.
‘They turned off the screen ahead of me and the second woman, who didn’t introduce herself, had a look and said the same.’
She pleaded for hospital staff to let her husband in so she could tell him what had happened.
‘I couldn’t help but feel furious that while my husband was in the car park and I was alone being told our baby had died, the other side of that wall people were allowed to queue up for Costa Coffee,’ she said.
But Tamsin’s traumatising experience did not end there.
She opted to have her miscarriage ‘surgically managed’, which uses a suction device to remove the fetus, but she was told she would have to wait four weeks.
So the devastated wife reached out to Frimley Park Hospital who said they could do it sooner. But once again, Tamsin was forced to go through distress by herself while the miscarriage was confirmed.
Even worse for her was finding out that the hospital had merged the gynaecology, maternity and early pregnancy wards together.
‘I would have to endure crying babies while mine was dead inside me. This pushed me over the edge and I was inconsolable,’ she said.
She brought headphones and music with her on the day of the procedure, September 14, so that she could not hear the babies around her but the whole experience was still ‘horrendous’.
She said: ‘While I waited to sign the consent forms, couples were queuing at the foot of my bed behind the curtain for their 20-week scans.
‘Babies were crying and mothers delivering, it was more horrendous than I could have imagined and I was all alone.’
WhenTamsin woke up and her miscarriage was removed, she was surrounded by happy mums and their newborns.
She said: ‘I was so distressed, I cried the entire time and after several lots of morphine they took me back to the ward.
‘Babies were crying all around me. I felt like I was in hell and I just wanted to get out of there.’
On September 24, Tamsin returned to the hospital to collect her baby’s remains and take them to the funeral parlour.
On her way out, she stopped at the Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS) office to tell them about her experience but they reportedly refused to speak to her and told her to send an email.
‘They were rude and dismissive so I left in tears and have only just been able to bring myself to register my complaint,’ she said.
To add to her suffering, her baby was not even acknowledged.
By law, babies that die after 24 weeks are recorded as stillbirths. If a baby is lost before then, there is no recognition it even existed.
Tamsin asked hospital staff about any sort of certificate to commemorate her baby, who was supposed to be born on March 31 this year.
After finding no such thing, she made her own using the birth flower for each month as the background.
She has sent the certificates to Frimley Park so that other women will be able to find comfort in them.
She said: ‘I would not wish our experiences on anyone, the ongoing effects on my mental health have been devastating.
‘This was our first child and what we’ve been through is nothing short of a living nightmare. Covid should not stop people in this situation being allowed support in the most terrible of circumstances.’
The Head of Midwifery at St Peter’s Hospital, Gemma Puckett, responded to Tamsin’s experience during her 11-week scan.
Ms Puckett said: ‘We are so sorry for Tamsin and her family’s loss and we would be happy to discuss her experience with her.
‘Throughout the pandemic we have followed national visiting guidance, with partners always able to attend during labour and, as soon as it was safe to, we welcomed partners back to antenatal scans, including in the Early Pregnancy Unit (EPU).’
Frimley Park Hospital said: ‘We are very sorry that Tamsin and her family had such a distressing experience with us. Our response to the Covid-19 pandemic required us to restructure many of our care pathways and services at short notice.
‘We have since been able to implement a number of improvements. For example, since November 2020 women can be accompanied by a partner for all maternity scans and appointments.
‘We have also introduced a dedicated Urgent Gynaecology Care Centre at Frimley Park which is located separately from the maternity department.
‘We value all feedback and are always working to make improvements based on women’s experiences with us.’
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