Emilie Rose Brearey

My name is Debbie, I live in Halifax with my husband David and our daughter
Aimee. 5 years ago we were faced with the worst kind of greif any family could
ever think of. We lost our little girl.

I was 19 and full term with our daughter Emilie, I knew something wasn't right
in the pregnancy as I kept feeling damp, I told my midwife what was going on but
she told me it was because my daughters head was quite low down and pushing on
my bladder so I accepted her advise & just got on with things. I had a scan
quite late on in my preganacy that showed low fluid around her, I noticed it and
so did the rest of my family but my notes were pushed to one side as the
hospital were busy that day so didnt look at them properly so again we all went
home thinking nothing about it but it was playing on our minds still.

My due date came & went and in the end i was term plus 14 days before they took
me in for induction of labour. I was very upset & scared as neither myself or
David had any idea what was going to happen. 3 days later I was still in
hospital and no sign of the baby just very bad pains and still feeling very damp
but again I was left. My family were concerned for the health of myself & my
child. My mother in law worked on one of the wards in the hospital so I spent
most of my time down there keepin myself occupied and so she could keep an eye
on me as the maternity staff weren't doing a very good job of it.

The day after I woke up very early but I wasn't sleepin well anyway so I text my
mother in law to let her know what was going on & how my night was and that i
had woke up with crippling stomach pains, I called for a midwife & it took them
an hour to get to me, I called my husband & told him to hurry as I didnt like
the feeling I was getting. The midwife finally came at 815am, my husband had
just arrived there and the midwife was checking me over, she tried to get my
babies heart beat with 3 different hearing aids but nothing, she called for a
consultant who also tried then a sonographer was called to do an emergency scan.
I knew what was coming, i burst into tears and looked at the scan, the midwife
and consltant looked at me and David then said the words, i'm sorry but your
baby has died. David clenched the bed sheets in his hands as i cried out and screamed no ! whilst
looking at the screen with my lifeless daughter, no little heart flickering, just an empty babys
body.

They left me and david in the same pod as another woman that was on the monitor and we could hear
her babys heart beating away. not what we wanted to hear. The staff eventually moved us into a
private room for times like these. We went for a walk outside to get some fresh air, as I walked
down the hospital corridoors in my pjs and slippers, David holding my hand and both in complete
shock of what had happened, i doubled over in pain, I had a huge contraction in the middle of the
corridoor, I wanted it to all be over, that or to wake up and it all be a bad dream. we finally got
outside, we rang a few people to tell them what had happened. It still wasnt sinking in. I remember
trying to get hold of my mum, she was at work, her mobile was on silent and her work number was
taking ages to get through to so I called my dad, he went to pick her up and they were at the
hospital within 10 mins. I called my best friend, she too was working, in a day nursery. She burst
into tears and had to leave. She came straight to the hospital & stayed with me & Dave until the
early hours of the next morning. We had both sets of parents with us. My mother in law was angry,
she knew my consultant as she had worked with him many years ago on another ward. My consultant was
arragant, pig headed and only seemed to be interested in his private patients that were under going
ivf treatment that wasn't with the nhs.

2hours later when all the family was there they prepared me for labour, they
tried to break my waters to find that they couldn't break them, they had already
gone. Like I had been telling my midwife all along my waters were leaking but no
one did anything about it.When the consultant told me she couldn't break my waters i sat up and
screamed in her face "i told u they were leaking, i told you but u all ignored me !!!" the
consultant got up and walked out, that was the last time i saw her. All I could hear all day was the
sound of new born babies cryin, it was heartbreaking. Laid in the bed waiting for my body to start
doing something we could see my bump moving, my dad looked and cried as he knew it was my babys
lifeless body falling to one side, I had a drip in my arm to speed my contractions up, they made me
have an epidural to make it as pain free as possbile & i was bed bound, watchin midwife after
midwife walk in my room, all my family staring at me, i felt id let them all down but i knew it
wasnt my fault deep down.

When it had all hit home what had happened, I asked for my brothers. All I wanted to do was see my
brothers, my oldest brother Paul was so heartbroken, he has 2 fantastic daughters already and has
had a past with things and his daughters are perfectly healthy, Mark my other brother also older
than me again had been through a tough time had just had a perfectly healthy baby boy and then there
was me, the youngest of 3, never done drugs, never smoked and certainly didnt drink whilst pregnant
and this happens. Paul & Mark couldn't get their heads around it. I also remember a midwife or
someone that was working that night coming to talk to me about funeral arrangements, i'm sorry but
my baby hadn't even been born and the staff were asking me about funeral arrangements !!!! i
couldn't get over what I was hearing.


Time flew and 14 hours later at 01:54am on the 3rd September 2004 I finally had my baby girl, Emilie
Rose Brearey weighing 8lb, with David & my best friend Stacie at my side and mine and Davids parents
waiting outside the room.

I couldn't hold Emilie at first, or see her. I just couldn't. So her grandparents bathed her,
dressed her spent some time with her before fianlly bringing her in to see me and David. I remember
David's dad bringing her in to us, talking to her as he walked in with her in his arms, saying she
had a cute button nose and saying to me she just looks like shes asleep. He passed her to David, and
we were left alone with her for a bit.

I was shattered, I needed to sleep so we got some sleep, not much but a little. We had a big day the
next day, Emilie was being blessed by the hospital chaplain, and we had other arrnagements to sort.
From then on everything seemed to be a blur, all rushed and no time to breathe, we couldn't have her
funeral until the post mortem had been carried out but 2 week later we were sat in the funeral home
having a service. I held her all the way through, I didnt want to let her go. When her song had been
plaid (Robbie Williams - Nans song) it was time to properly say goodbye. We walked into another
room, still holding her close to me, in her little winnie the pooh dress, matching hat little
booties and a little cardigan to keep her warm, I laid her into her tiny white coffin. It broke my
heart. I watched them close her up, David couldn't watch, we both then walked outside, everyone
staring as the funeral directors carried her out with a tiny posey of red roses ontop of her coffin
with the nursery rhym twinkle twinkle wrote on, they placed her in the car. Me & Dave were
travelling in the car with her to stoney royd, we cried all the way whilst staring at her. My
brothers, daves brother and daves dad lowered her down. Instead of throwing soil on her we all took
our red roses off and dropped them in with her. It seemed better to do that than throw soil.

It was the worst time of my life & I dont wish this upon anyone, losing a child is heartbreaking,
and causes so much pain in the family. A post mortem was carried out which told us what we already
knew, she had died because the hospital failed to pick up on the lack of fluid around her. She had
suffocated. We won our case with the hospital & were awarded compensation but that meant nothing to
us. You can't put a price on a life.

Now 5 years on me & David have another little girl, Aimee Grace, who was born 3 days before Emilie's
1st birthday. Aimee has brought so much joy to the family,she has kept us going and made us realise
that life does go on no matter how hard it is after losing a child, everyone can move on it just
takes time and it does get easier which is something i've just come to realise.

In January 2008 it finally got the help I needed to come to terms with Emilies death, thats 3 years
on, so greif can hit any time no matter how long after a death and people may think you're doing
great, always happy & smiley but sometimes deep down you might not be just like i wasnt, it took me
3 years to get help and i did it, it was hard but i've done it, for the sake of my marriage
and my daughter, she doesnt want to see mummy upset & my husband doesnt want an unhappy wife.

Emilie will never be forgotten, she will always be loved and she will always be in our hearts !

miss you loads emilie ! all our love, mummy, daddy & aimee x.x.x.x