‘Cruel and unfair treatment’
MUM-OF-THREE SPEAKS OF THE HORROR OF HAVING TO TRAVEL TO LIVERPOOL FOR AN ABORTION
A New Ross woman carrying a baby with a fatal foetal condition who travelled to Liverpool for an abortion has spoken of the horror of her experience, describing the way women are treated in Ireland today as cruel and unfair.
Mother-of-three Emma Shannon, 37, and her fiancée Liam were overjoyed when they learned they were expecting their third child shortly before Christmas 2014. ‘We had a boy, Tom, who was five and Erin was two so this was going to be our icing on the cake baby.’
Emma, from Pondsfield, had morning sickness and knew she was pregnant but it wasn’t until the New Year when her doctor confirmed that both she and Liam were expecting. ‘Everything was fine. There were now concerns for the baby. We told the children at around 16 weeks and they were so excited. I was working at Lake Region and everything was great especially once the morning sickness passed.’
She could barely contain her excitement going to University Hospital Waterford for the first scan at 21 weeks. ‘The nurse started doing the scan and I remember looking at the screen and everything looked black. I could see her face and she looked dry concerned.
‘She kept moving the scanner around. I could feel the baby moving and after a couple of minutes I asked her was something wrong and she said: “Yeah, I’m sorry there is something wrong”.’
Emma and Liam went outside and walked around wondering what could be wrong. ‘We were eventually brought to a consultant who said there was a concern about the lack of fluid around the baby and that is worrying as the lungs can’t develop. He said we had to go to Dublin for tests. We were absolutely floored.’
Emma and Liam had to wait five days before being given an appointment at the Rotunda Hospital.
Placing her palm on her upper chest, Emma recalls telling her children that she didn’t know if they were going to have a brother or sister and researching on Google what a lack of fluid around a foetus can mean. ‘All you see is the worst. We were trying to find good news but it was all bad so much so that when we went to Dublin I wasn’t surprised when we learned something was wrong.’
A scan was taken at the Rotunda and she was asked if she had noticed any difference between this and her previous pregnancies. ‘There was nothing different and my waters hadn’t broken.’
Emma and Liam’s worst fears were confirmed in a room where a box of tissues greeted them on a table. ‘I was shaking then as I am shaking now. We sat down and the consultant and one of the midwives confirmed that there was no fluid around the baby as there was a blockage in his bladder where the fluid is released. When the cells came together it never formed so all the fluid that should have been around him was all inside him.’
The consultant said the child’s bladder was destroyed and couldn’t be fixed. ‘We were told the lungs couldn’t develop and that it was fatal.’
She asked when she was going to be induced only to be told: ‘No that can’t happen in Ireland.’
Her choice was brutally simple: carry the child until it dies or to full term.
‘I was told even if I went to 40 weeks I wouldn’t be induced, only after 42 weeks so I had another 20 weeks.’
While the midwife explained what was likely to happen next, the thought occurred to Emma that she was going to be one of the women she read about who had to travel abroad for an abortion. ‘I knew there and then that I had received all the care I was going to receive in Ireland. On our way home we decided we would travel.’
Emma describes the following period as ‘days of torture’. ‘I remember the midwife said she could fax the scans to Liverpool’s Women’s Hospital, telling me to contact them as quickly as possible as I was 22 weeks into my pregnancy. She said if the baby was born full term it would have no lungs so it couldn’t take a breath and would die. I knew it was the best thing we could do for the baby, by doing all we could to stop it feeling pain.’
Throughout Liam was Emma’s rock. ‘He never wavered. He carried me through.’
The shocks kept coming as Emma discovered it would cost €3,000 to have the procedure and all associated travel costs. ‘It kept me awake all that night. It was the only time in my life I wished a bus would just come and hit me and put me out of my misery.’
Supported by their families and having been told by the midwife at the Rotunda that the baby wouldn’t feel any pain, Emma and Liam decided to put all their savings into travelling to Liverpool. They contacted Liverpool Women’s Hospital and were told the next available date was over a fortnight’s time away. The cadence in her voice fading to a whisper, Emma said she was told a needle would be inserted in her baby’s heart and he would die within a matter of seconds. ‘It meant it would be less painful for him than being born.’
Emma informed her work that she needed time off for medical reasons. Emma and Liam went to book a ferry so they could bring her baby’s ashes home after it was cremated only to learn that all the ferries were booked.
‘I couldn’t go to another hospital after the midwife recommended the women’s hospital. We chose to fly only to learn that Liam’s passport had expired. That was another kick in the teeth. Liam booked an Aer Lingus flight as he could use his driving licence on it.’
Emma made the lonely, painful journey to Liverpool among jolly holidaymakers and went shopping for presents for her children with Liam the next day, keeping up the ruse that they were away on holiday. The following morning they went to the hospital where they signed consent forms and another scan was taken to confirm the baby had a fatal condition.
‘We were hoping all the time that the midwife would say that she didn’t agree and we could just go home with a bit of hope. If we had just 2 per cent of a chance that our baby would survive we would have taken it but she said the condition of the baby was getting worse.’
Emma was taken to a bed. ‘They sedated me. My worry was that I would move but she assured me that I wouldn’t and I didn’t. Liam was there holding my hand the whole time. The screen was turned away so we couldn’t hear the heart stop. It was over in seconds. It was strange to feel no more movement.’
Hands clasped, looking up with moistened eyes, Emma said it was a release ‘as our baby was going to be at peace’.
Emma and Liam were taken to the Honeysuckle suite labour ward where their son Tadhg was born five hours later in complete silence, a Moses basket in an adjoining room offering a token of humanity amid the sadness. Their son was taken from them and the nurses made foot and handprint impressions in a nearby room before returning him wrapped in a white blanket and hat. ‘I held him like he was alive. I held his hands and rubbed his head. He was like any other baby. He looked perfect, his face did; his belly was distended and his little legs were up under him. Seeing him definitely reaffirmed that we had done the right thing for him.’
Tadhg was laid in a basket and a midwife who Emma met the previous day came in to see him as if he was alive. ‘We had no family there. It meant the world to us just to have someone come in and acknowledge his existence. It meant everything. The chaplain came in and said prayers for him. 12 hours after he was born it was time for us to go. Leaving him was the hardest part because we couldn’t bring him home.’
Arrangements were made to have the baby cremated and his ashes couriered to Emma and Liam’s home in Foulksmills. ‘It was no way to send the baby home. He deserved more than that. I asked what would happen to him and he was to be taken to a room which was cool and they would get him ready for cremation.
‘I didn’t know until I got a him back and a slip of paper in the box said that he was cremated five days after he was born. If it was here we could have been there. ‘When we got home the children were so excited to see us and were asking for their presents. I didn’t say anything to Tom for a few hours and then we told him that his brother was born but he was sick and died. I was so upset. I had rehearsed what I was saying. We went outside and looked up at the stars and I told him Tadhg is a star and every night we will look up at the stars.’
Emma and Liam received no aftercare and apart from notifying the midwife at the Rotunda, no record of Tadhg was recorded. They decided not to bury Tadhg’s ashes, choosing to keep them in an urn in their home. ‘I couldn’t stand the thought of losing him again. When one of us passes away he will be buried with us. We were trying to do what we could to remember him.’
Earlier this month Emma, Liam, Tom and Erin celebrated Tadhg’s birthday with dinner and dessert.
The family welcomed a new addition Max into their loving home last year, Emma having suffered a miscarriage three months after Tadhg’s birth. Emma has joined the group Terminations for Medical Reasons, which is very active in the Yes campaign and the Leanbh Mo Chroi support group.
She says the Yes campaign has helped her open up about her experience. ‘The guilt is huge but through the Leanbh Mo Chroi group I’m surrounded by women who have felt the same pain.’
Holding a little teddy she got for Tadhg with the word Feileacain (butterfly) written on it, she says: ‘He is never forgotten. To say there is no such thing as fatal foetal abnormality is not fair. Our story is no different to the stories of women who went full term. Neither of us had a fairytale ending.’
“She said if the baby was born full term it would have no lungs so it couldn’t take a breath and would die”