'I visited hospital for a routine pregnancy scan... weeks later my baby was gone'
Lucy Livesey was 20 weeks pregnant when she was taken into a private room at St Mary’s Hospital in Manchester. She knew from the plain chairs and neutral wallpaper that it was a 'bad news room’, just like the one she was led into when her twin brother died in 2004.
And it was bad news. Her unborn daughter had developed a heart problem and medics were unsure whether she had a chance at life.
It started to rain as Lucy and her husband Rick drove back to their home in Oldham. Following multiple tests and an agonising three-week wait, the couple were finally given the update they were dreading. Their baby’s heart had not formed properly and her condition was too severe. She would not survive following birth.
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At just under 24 weeks pregnant, Lucy, an NHS mental health nurse, went into labour and delivered her daughter Ellie. “Delivering your own child when you know they aren’t going to be alive is really messed up,” the 33-year-old told the Manchester Evening News. “You’re just in absolute shock because you get told that news then you’re scared about what’s going to happen next. You’re a first-time mum never having delivered a baby before.
“You’re also then trying to look to the future about all of the things you’re not going to have or get to have. It’s a whole mixed bag of emotions – you're in that moment of a devastating time but your mind is trying to problem solve a situation.
“It was disbelief at the time and a lot of guilt thinking it was something I did wrong; you start thinking if you could have eaten better or done something differently.”
Lucy and Rick had already started baby shopping before they were given the
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