This is my story of my beautiful little baby boy Joey, who we tragically and unfairly lost to Vasa Praevia 

I found out I was pregnant in November 2010, and it was the best Christmas present ever.

I had a scan at 12weeks and it was amazing, when you see your baby on the screen for the first time, no words can describe it! I had my second scan at 20 week 's ,we found out that my placenta was lying low, the sonographer didn't seem alarmed by this and just said to book another scan at 32 weeks and it most probably would of moved.I left feeling anxious due to the lack of information given as I'm such a worrier, but was feeling happy that we found out we were expecting a boy :) I felt i was now able to bond more with my little prince and think of names, not long after we decided on joey :) 

Joey was such a active baby and always seemed to have hiccups:)) we had a 4d scan at 26 weeks which again was an amazing experience and I'm so glad we had this as I have lots of photos of joey and a 10 minute dvd to add to my memories of him. 

32 weeks scan came round and my placenta was still lying low, I was then told I'd be re-scanned again at 36weeks the same information given that it should move and if it didn't a c section would be performed.

At my 36 weeks scan the sonographer looked and said that it looked Ok now.  Being naive and trusting the sonographer I didn't ask any more questions.  

37+3 I had a show and my waters broke slowly throughout that day.  I rang the hospital and they just said to monitor it being clear. 37+4 18th July 2011 I rang the hospital back and they said to come in to confirm my waters had gone.  They had I was told to go home and come back the next day at 4pm if labour hadn't started in the mean time. 

At home I felt scared of the unknown but excited that soon we were going to meet our baby :) 

9.30pm joey had hiccups and was active kicking, feeling tired I went to bed. 

11.10pm my living nightmare began...

Feeling more leakage I said to Scott there's more water, I got up walked to the bathroom feeling a lot of leakage . I put the light on to discover bright red blood, it continued fall, it was everywhere.  I was hysterical crying I knew something wasn't right how could it be ,Scott rang the hospital, they asked too many questions so he rang 999 .It felt like they took ages but they arrived within 6 minutes. Not knowing what to do I just sat on the toilet with blood still coming away.

The Ambulance came and took me to hospital .There was no movement from joey . Arriving at the hospital they tried to find his heart beat none could be found with a stethoscope, so they used a ultra sound machine and a faint little flicker was seen. The next thing I know I'm being rushed to have a emergency csection. 

Coming round from my cesarean, I asked for my baby.  I was told he's very poorly and was not  going to survive?! how can you prepare yourself for that, I couldn't accept it and don't think I ever will.   I asked to see him, the moment I saw joey I fell in love with him! He was so beautiful more beautiful than I ever could imagine, truly was a little perfect angel with a tiny little face.  But he looked so pale and poorly with wires and tubes coming out of him I just wished some how I could make him better.  I was able to lie with joey , but due to my own health I was rushed out of neonatal.  Shortly after Joey died apart of me died too.  I cried my heart out I felt pain and sadness that I never thought was even possible to feel, it truly was a living nightmare and I just wanted to wake up and it not be real I wanted to die how could I carry on without him.

 Joey was born at 00.19 am and it took 30 mins to get a faint heart beat.Cooling treatment was then given and a blood transfusion, he was taken to the neonatal unit at 1.05am. He was so poorly and lost almost all of his blood.  Joey died at 04.15am.  

The next day we were told Joey died due to vasa praevia and I'd just been unlucky and it was very rare and  that they don't scan for it, at this point we didn't ask questions as we couldn't get our heads round losing our baby boy nevermind how he died.   When I did look up vasa Praevia I looked at the statistics and its about 1 in 2500 to me that not very rare! Vasa praevia is when the vessels are exposed and when labour starts the baby's blood vessels rupture as they are not protected.  when I went into labour my vessels were crossing my cervix so when Joey started to move    down he ruptured his own blood supply and lost blood. 

 Vasa praevia can be picked up on a colour Doppler scan as it measures the blood flow through the umbilical cord and placenta.

To carry a baby full term and then for him to die at the birth when you think your safe, is absolutely devastating heartbreaking but to find out that Joey could of been saved from a simple 1 minute scan is unimaginable to describe.  

I had a low lying placenta which is a risk factor of vasa praevia but at no point was vasa praevia  mentioned.  Healthy little babies are dying needlessly when they can be saved!

Please give a donation help save little lives and help raise awareness of vasa praevia xxxxx

Thank you for reading our story about special little Joey x

Sammy & Scott x