At The Baby Show last month there was one stand I needed to see.

There were lots I wanted to see but one I needed to see.

For my own peace of mind and because I greatly admire what they do I wanted to meet the team from Count The Kicks.

I am glad to say that the stand was busy but we still had chance to talk and I am now honoured to host a guest post from Elizabeth, the CEO of this very important charity.

This life saving charity, that helps mummies get to know their babies in the womb and often times save their unborn babies’ lives.

This is a long post and not an easy read, but please do read it and show your appreciation for the amazing mummies behind Count The Kicks.

I remember going to hospital a few times when I was pregnant with my daughter and thinking there was something wrong. I would mentally prepare myself for the bad news. Try and imagine what I would do if they tell me there’s a problem. But everytime she was fine.

2 years later, when I was half way through my pregnancy with my son, I went to hospital and I knew something was wrong. I just knew. I shed silent tears on my way to the hospital. I felt sick. I thought this was the worst feeling any mother could feel.

I was so wrong.

Laying there thinking my son was dead, thinking the sonographer was going to tell me he had gone I just felt pain. Then she turned the screen away from me and said “I’m so sorry, there’s no heartbeat”. In that second what I thought was rock bottom suddenly crumbled away. I fell into a whole world of pain I just couldn’t have imagined, even when I knew in my heart he had gone. They spoke to me about the birth, about holding him, about taking photos. I didn’t hear a word. I was just trying to take breaths. Trying to get through each second.

In hindsight I can only assume its natures way of protecting you. Like there is no way to feel that kind of pain unless you absolutely have to.

Following my loss I got in touch with a friend from school. I knew she had lost a baby but didn’t know the circumstances. I hadn’t liked to ask before. I didn’t want to pop up out of the blue and ‘remind’ her of her loss, or ask her to talk about something that must have been so traumatic, surely she would rather forget about it. Wow, I felt stupid now. Suddenly I realized I could never remind her of Connie, she will be remembering her every day for the rest of her life. The last thing in the world she would ever want to do was forget about her.

We started chatting on Facebook and met up a few weeks later. I wasn’t scared to ask her about Connie. I knew I didn’t need to change the subject if she started to get upset. All I knew was she had given birth and I wanted to hear all about her baby girl.

I wanted to know how much she weighed. 8lb 4oz.
I wanted to know what time she was born. 8:20am.
But also I wanted to know why she wasn’t here.

Felicity told me how she had gone to the midwife on the Friday 5 days overdue because her baby had slowed down. The midwife had checked the heartbeat and all was fine. The next morning Felicity woke up at 7am, not the 4am she would usually be woken by Connie’s kicking. She knew something was wrong so she went to the hospital.

I knew the next bit.

We both cried as she relived the moment she had to tell her sister, her parents. How she was advised to go for a natural delivery to save any complications for future pregnancies. How she had been given medication to induce labour and had been discharged while they waited for labour to start. But how could she go home? She had a cot, a change bag, a pushchair all expectantly waiting for this new baby. How could she walk back into that house without her baby? So she went to her parents house. Her labour began at 11pm that night and her beautiful daughter was born at 8:20 the following morning. When she left the hospital she left with nothing. Just empty arms.

I couldn’t believe her story. Why hadn’t the midwife sent her up to the hospital? Why hadn’t they done proper checks? Why on earth did a baby nearly a week overdue just die? Toby died because my placenta had an abnormality and he effectively died from severe anemia. There wouldn’t have been any way to save him. But Connie. Connie should be here. Her post mortem showed she was perfect in every way. She had died as her due date had been wrong and she was actually 42 weeks. The placenta had just stopped working.

Knowing the pain I knew, I couldn’t even begin to imagine what Felicity felt. I knew there was my new rock bottom, a rock bottom I couldn’t have imagined before I hit it. But I also knew that floor didn’t exist for Felicity. Her pain would be even lower. I wouldn’t be able to imagine it, nature wouldn’t let me. All I could do was relive my pain knowing it was a fraction of hers.

Felicity’s story seemed so tragic, so devastating, this must be a one off. But I knew it wasn’t. I’d spent two months off work following my loss just researching stillbirths, reading forums. I knew this was happening to 17 families EVERY DAY! 6500 a year. The majority of these had noticed a reduction in their baby’s movements like Felicity. A third of them could have been saved just by delivering earlier. It seemed unreal. Why had I never really considered this? There was an inherent assumption that stillbirths only happened in high risk pregnancies, or pregnancies where you know there’s a problem from the start. But I knew now this could not be further from the truth. Only 10% of stillbirths occurred due to a chromosome abnormality. The majority of stillbirths happened in healthy mums and babies, often low risk pregnancies.

I’d never met Connie. I hadn’t seen Felicity for 20 years. But sitting opposite her that day in the pub, I knew I wanted to do something. I needed to know babies like Connie weren’t going to just die, completely needlessly.

I started looking up organisations to work for, things I could do. I found lots of organisations I could work for that would support bereaved mothers. But I didn’t want to support them, I didn’t want them to need support. I didn’t want them to know about this world. I wanted them to have a healthy baby and get on with their lives. Unaware this dark parallel world of baby loss exists amongst them.

I looked into becoming a sonographer. Maybe I could spot potential problems?
I looked at becoming a midwife. I would send every mum reporting a reduction in movement to the hospital.
But neither seemed right for me.

Then I came across another charity. Count the Kicks. I read Sophias story. Her daughter Chloe had been stillborn 3 days before her due date following a spell of reduced movement. She didn’t go straight to the hospital as she didn’t know it could signal a problem. When she went up 24 hours later she had her “sorry”.

Unlike me, Sophia didn’t spend the next 2 months in bed, thinking of things to do. She got up and did it. She realized how little information mums were being given about baby’s movements. That so many people were saying babies slow down at the end because they run out of room, when they don’t. With lack of prompt management of reduced fetal movement being highlighted as a contributing factor to stillbirth, why was this being allowed to continue? By the time Sophia had gone for her 6 week postnatal check, she had started the Chloe’s Count the Kicks campaign and began registering the charity.

I knew as soon as I saw this campaign it was something I wanted to be a part of.

I kept an eye on Facebook and Twitter looking for opportunities to join their team. Trying to find volunteer opportunities. I followed the charity for over a year, doing some fundraising and telling my pregnant friends about it, going to their events but I wanted to do more. Then walking out in Guildford one day I spotted Sophia. I recognised her from media articles. I knew this was an opportunity I couldn’t miss. I approached her and following a brief conversation was volunteering for their fun day. This lead to a little more volunteering and an opportunity for online shop manager came up. I leapt on it! Sophia asked me to go round and meet her. I turned up at her house and realized this was head office. This charity that I knew was going to make a huge impact on stillbirth rates was effectively Sophia. She had two other volunteers who helped immensely and although Sophia had never met them, they were, and continue to be, a vital part of Count the Kicks. Ultimately one woman had done all this, built all this. I was even more inspired. If she could get this far on her own how far could we get together?!

I started helping out at baby shows and every one hit me harder and harder…even if only 1/3 of the visitors were pregnant, statistically 35 of their babies would be stillborn. 35 of the women I spoke to would not take their babies home. Would not get to use all the things they were excitedly buying. I hoped that by giving them the Count the Kicks information we would save at least a few of these babies, but each one made me even more determined.

Sophia and I became good friends over the next few months. Then at one show I could see the toll this was taking on her. She had been fighting this fight for 3 years almost alone, she had built an amazing charity but she needed a break. As well as running this charity, she has two successful businesses, had recently had her rainbow baby and was planning a wedding. Even for a determined fighter like Sophia it was a lot.

I don’t quite know how we came up with the solution but Sophia decided she needed a CEO to help her run the charity so she could take a step back for a while. This was it. My chance to really do something for Connie. For Chloe. For all the other babies whose stories I had read on chatrooms and forums.

It didn’t take long for us to realize Sophia and I made a pretty good team! Sophia had done such great groundwork, all I needed to do was come in with fresh enthusiasm and inspiration and run with it. In the 2 years since we’ve been working together we have had some amazing achievements. I went to meet with Dr Dan Poulter who agreed that the information was vital for pregnant mums and approved it to go out across the NHS and in Bounty packs. It is a massive breakthrough for the charity and is what Sophia envisaged in the days following Chloe’s death.

We remain a small team of volunteers working from our homes but we are growing all the time. I have big dreams for this charity and am determined fewer and fewer people will join us in this baby loss community. We want every pregnant woman to understand the importance of monitoring their baby’s movements and ensure they all contact their midwife if they notice a change in their baby’s regular pattern. While there are many reasons a baby may be stillborn, many of the causes will result in a baby reducing their movement. So while research is going on to find more information about the causes of stillbirth we want to highlight what can be done now.

For as long as I can draw breath I will fight for this charity and what we are trying to achieve in Chloe’s name. I do it for Chloe, Toby, Connie and all the other babies who never got their chance to follow their dreams.

www.countthekicks.org.uk