For Baby Alvie Morley-Smith
Born and died on 10 November 2005

In 1999, I gave birth to our first son, Walter, at 42 weeks; he is now seven.

We planned to have our second child when Walter started school at the age of four. I experienced two miscarriages, one in 2004 and the second in 2005. The three of us were thrilled when I became pregnant for a third time. I had a few problems in the beginning, pain and a little bit of bleeding, so I was obviously anxious after my previous miscarriages. At 13 weeks, I had a scan at Kings Hospital in London. They suggested that I had a CVS as the baby's nasal bone wasn't visible. I had this done and at 14 weeks we were told that everything was fine.

At 22 weeks, I started to lose a little bit of fluid and had a bearing down feeling. We went to our local hospital, the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton, where I was told that I was 1½ cm dilated and that the membranes were bulging. We were devastated. The following afternoon, I was taken to theatre and by then I was 4cm dilated. The consultant managed to stitch my cervix and get the membranes back inside. He said that he hoped it would keep me going until I was full term.

I continued to have pain daily and was so anxious that my baby wouldn't survive. The midwives on the ward kept reassuring me that I wasn't in labour. Four days later, I was in absolute agony and a doctor examined me. Our biggest fear was confirmed; I was actually in labour! The stitch was taken out and I was 5cm dilated. I had to give birth knowing that the doctors would not be able to save our baby, as he was only 23 weeks. One more week and he would have had a chance.

Baby Alvie was born weighing 1lb 1oz and was beautiful - he looked just like his big brother. We had a little funeral with our family and buried him six weeks later, just before Christmas. Our son has a photograph of him in his bedroom and talks about him all the time.

Just two and a half months later, I was pregnant again. I expected to feel better, but I didn't. I just felt incredibly anxious and wanted to cut myself off from the rest of the world and hide until the baby was born. I started to lose fluid very early into the pregnancy and spent a lot of time at Worthing Hospital having lots of scans. Nobody could confirm where the fluid was coming from, but the hospital kept a close eye on things. At 12 weeks, I was told that the baby's heart had stopped beating. The following week, I was induced and delivered a very tiny baby boy. A post-mortem revealed that he had Turners' Syndrome.

We are very worried about the future and whether we will ever have that second child.