I was three days overdue when my waters broke on Christmas Eve. After about three hours of intensifying contractions, my boyfriend and I set off to the birthing center, all excited about the impending arrival of our first child. We got there at about 6 p.m. and I jumped into the labouring/birthing pool shortly after 7 p.m. after my midwife did an internal. All was going well until just before 11 p.m. when the midwife noticed that blood was seeping out of me into the warm water. Thinking that maybe the baby was certainly on its way down the birth canal, I got out when suddenly all this blood came out of my vagina and coursed down my legs, making a puddle on the floor. I started to feel lightheaded and felt like I was going to faint. The midwife paged the head midwife at the birthing center and with the help of my boyfriend, rushed me to the little theatre room so she could have a proper look. She only took one look and discovered that there were actually huge blood clots coming out and hastily paged for an ambulance. By now, my boyfriend and I were terrified and even in my lightheaded state, I began to cry.

The ambulance arrived within minutes and they rushed me to the nearest maternity hospital, Christchurch Women's. I was losing a lot of blood that the sheets on the trundle underneath me were soaked within minutes. I began to feel pushing urges and despite the paramedics' and midwife's persuasion for me to breathe in and out, I started to push. Just little ones every now and again. They rushed me into the labour and delivery ward upon arrival at the hospital, called an OB/GYN and the other hospital for some blood. I was pushing properly by now against their wishes. I could feel my baby easing slowly out. There was not enough time for an ultrasound, a fetal monitor or even to listen to the heartbeat to see if my baby was OK. I gave one final push and my baby slipped out into the world with a gush of blood.

The thing I can remember is the room being silent; there were about eight people not including myself, my boyfriend and the midwife in the room. I can remember my boyfriend's face, the look of horror and seeing my baby boy on the bed, looking very blue. The pediatrician whisked my son away out of the room and I could hear him yelling and people running up and down the corridor. Everything was in slow motion, like on a movie. I could see people's mouths move but no sound came out of them. I then passed out.

I woke up about eight hours later hooked up to all kinds of tubes and a bag of blood. My boyfriend was beside me and he was pale, very white and had a stricken look on his face. My mum was crying quietly and my dad just looked on blankly. The doctor came by about an hour later and gave me the news I will not forget for the rest of my life. I'd had a placental abruption and my baby had died from lack of oxygen going to him from the umbilical cord. I'd lost a lot of blood and the surgeons had worked on me for five hours trying to save my life as I was losing blood as fast as they were putting it into me. I'd come close, very close to having a total hysterectomy. In short, he had said that I'd almost died. If the paramedics had not responded to the midwife's call as quickly as they had, my darling boyfriend would not have lost only his baby but the mother of his son as well.

I spent almost two weeks in hospital recovering, except to come out for a couple hours to attend to my baby son's funeral. Jakob Alexander was born at 12.31 a.m. on Christmas Day 1996, he weighed in at a petite 6 pounds, 2 ounces, and measured 46 centimeters long. I have since recovered from the ordeal of nearly dying and losing my son but I still get slightly depressed every Christmas Day which is an unfortunate day to die on as Jesus was born that day.

My boyfriend (now husband, we married exactly a year after Jakob's birth on X-mas Day, sort of like a memorial to him) and I now have beautiful twin children, Kane Jakob and Georgia May, who were born on Valentine's Day, 2000, at 5.43 p.m. and 6.05 p.m. Kane weighed 7 pounds, 3 ounces and Georgia weighed 6 pounds, 14 ounces. The birth went without a hitch although I was in the hospital just in case. I was in labour for only three hours. I was induced for the labour to start, only three weeks before I was due because with Jakob's birth, the doctors had discovered that my placenta had aged (quite unusual for only a couple days overdue sometimes) and that was what caused me to bleed heavily and Jakob's death. Thank you for reading my story, it actually has made me feel a lot better, sort of like therapy.

Many thanks, Annika.

Mother to Jakob Alexander (25/12/96), Kane Jakob (14/2/00) and Georgia May (14/2/00)