the garden. As the morning wore on, though, my blood pressure plummeted and my father and sister, both doctors, called an ambulance.
On the way to the hospital, I began bleeding heavily. After a scan failed to disclose the reassuring thuds of a heartbeat, I overheard the doctors using the words ‘dead baby’ in hushed German.
I thought, that’s it.I awoke from general anaesthetic and an emergency caesarean to learn that I’d had a little boy, but that he had been stillborn.
I had suffered an acute placental abruption; without warning, my placenta had become detached from my uterus, starving the baby of oxygen and causing a haemorrhage that left me within 20 minutes of death.At first, I was numb with shock.