Tamyrn's Daughter's Story   — Tamryn Fowkes, gauteng, South Africa

My name is Tamryn. I'm 20 years old and live in South Africa. I had the best midwife in the world and knew I was going to have the most beautiful baby girl that the world has ever seen. I did have her. I got to hold her, but I never got to hear her cry, hear her laugh, or see her look up at me. My heart broke seeing them try everything to get her heart to start again. There was no sign that anything was wrong with the pregnancy. The day before she had a strong heart beat and everything seemed fine. I laboured for maybe an hour to be rewarded with nothing. I was induced at 38 weeks and 2 days, and it failed. The next day I gave birth to a stillborn. My little girl weighed 2.7kgs and was 50cm long. She had jet black hair like her father and looked nothing like me. I had no pain killers and no rips and tears. I can still hear my widwife say "I'm sorry." There was nothing they could do. To find out that I had a life threatening infection after I gave birth to Rosalee I blamed my body. It's been 3 weeks and I still find that I am the problem. I'm terrified to have another baby in case I lose another baby. I love my daughter and I miss her terribly.