In Loving Memory of

Emily Rose Fricker

Born Sleeping on 3rd October 2004.

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I was given a vaginal tablet at 11:30am on Saturday the 2nd October and within an hour had started contracting. My husband Rick and my Mum and Dad were there to support me.

I started off using the Tens machine but within 3 hours it wasn’t enough and I had a shot of pethidine and you should have seen the size of the needle lol.

I think I scared my family because I was contracting every 3 minutes but it settled down and over the next 3 hours it was lovely and I would highly recommend this drug after firstly disregarding it.

I moved down to the delivery room at approx 6:30pm and started using gas and air and this really helped me to control my breathing and took the edge off the pains.

Because Emily had already left us I was able to have a PCA (patient controlled) Morphine drip into my hand instead of an epidural, which I really didn’t want. Every 5 minutes I was able to push the button and give myself another shot. So I was now using the Tens machine, gas and air and morphine and because of my diabetes I had to have a glucose/insulin drip in my other hand and it was very awkward to move about too much but found it comfy to sit on the end of my bed surrounded by pillows.

By 12:30am I was on my knees leaning over the head of the bed again supported by pillows and trying to push Emily into this world. It took only 40 minutes until Emily appeared to the surprise of my Mum who had a ‘ringside seat’.

Because of my excess fluid the amount of waters that gushed out after Emily was amazing and made them all jump back from the bed before they were covered. What a great first birth experience that was for the student midwife lol.

When Emily was checked over by the doctor he couldn’t see any obvious reason for Emily's death but we have agreed to a post mortem to try and find out why.

We got back to my room about 5:30am (which was a lovely room provided by the local SANDS support group) and Rick spent the night with Emily and I on the sofa bed.

Sunday morning we had a blessing and a naming ceremony by the hospital Chaplin who was a lovely lady. This helped us and was attended also by my Mum and 2 friends.

The hardest part was leaving Emily at the hospital and coming home with empty arms. When you get to 36 weeks you think that YES at last I am going home with a baby, especially after having 4 miscarriages that all ended around 10 weeks. You look forward to arranging their Naming ceremony but we had to start thinking about her funeral arrangements and that was just a little too much to cope with.