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Anwesha Arya with her six-month-old baby son Ayaan |
Remembering little Aranyika and the pain of stillbirth
Mother tells how she coped after losing her baby and of ‘eternal gratitude’ to the NHS
EACH May that goes by reminds Anwesha Arya that baby Aranyika would be a year older.
On the morning of May 4 2006, pregnant Anwesha and husband Sagar sensed that their baby was unusually unresponsive to the sounds of her parents’ voices.
By that evening the couple had been told by doctors at the Elizabeth Garret Anderson Hospital in Euston Road that their baby had died in Anwesha’s womb.
“The minute they brought in an image of my baby’s face I knew she wouldn’t live,” said Anwesha, 34.
“It’s the hardest thing to tell someone they have lost somebody and it’s important how it’s done because it colours the rest of your experience.
“I was completely calm, maybe because my friend had lost her baby before so I knew it was something that does happen, but also all the midwives and doctors were just so calm.”
After two days of waiting for drugs to induce labour, Anwesha returned to the hospital.
“After I gave birth to her we dressed her and bathed her,” said Anwesha. “She had exactly the same hands as me.”
Anwesha says she will be eternally grateful to the NHS for providing counselling services, medical care and a funeral service.
“Fifty years ago they just took the still babies away so you got no closure,” she said.
“We have had time to go through every stage of grieving. Her funeral has given me the confidence to talk about her as a human being.”
Every day 17 babies are still-born or die shortly after birth in the UK for reasons including high blood pressure or diabetes in the mother, complications during labour and delivery, infectious disease or haemorrhage.
The cause of Aranyika’s death remains unknown, but Anwesha suspects her own ill-health and financial and family stresses may have contributed.
Sagar, an actor, has performed on the West End stage and in TV sitcoms. But as an Indian man, says Anwesha, he struggles to find parts in this country.
In the past five years Anwesha has suffered from bronchitis, polycystic ovary syndrome and a slipped disc.
To make matters worse, after getting the keys to their new home on Camden Road in Camden Town, flooding, electricity problems and building works wrecked any hope of a peaceful pregnancy.
She said: “The whole house was a mess. I have a bad feeling that the pressure had an effect on my pregnancy.”
Anwesha believes her own strong relationship with childhood sweetheart Sagar has helped her to overcome the trauma of stillbirth.
“We have been through those life-defining moments which most people have to tell their partners about. Sagar is the only person I really trust,” she said.
When her newly born baby boy Ayaan, now six months old, stopped breathing, Anwesha feared she would lose another child, but four days later he left a neo-natal unit in good health.
She added: “If anything had happened to him I would have been completely inconsolable. But he’s a little fighter.” |
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