Ms Claire Cullen-Delsol:

I live in Waterford and I had to travel to Dublin to have an amniocentesis and a scan done. The amniocentesis was done in Holles Street after a scan. They send the sample to the UK and then the results are faxed back. My results were delayed. I was supposed to get them on a Friday and I had wait the weekend and get them on Monday because the fax machine in the laboratory in Scotland broke. Rather than, I think the term was "dragging us up and down to Dublin", they said they would give us a call. The fabulous midwife in Holles Street rang and gave us the news. Then she said she would leave it for a few minutes and give us a call back and see what we would do. When she called back, she asked whether we would like to come in to speak to them again, and I said I wanted to go back and to know what was going on.

We drove back up to Holles Street the next morning - we found child care for the children and headed back up - and we had approximately 20 minutes or half an hour with the foetal medicine specialist there. He was very kind. Mostly, he was just very honest. "Your baby is going to die," he repeated. He did not give us any false hope. When I asked what do I do, however, he started saying that some people find work is a nice distraction and I might go back to work. I was saying I could not go back to work. I was massive. I had a huge bump. Later I found out that was because Alex did not have a mouth or stomach and she was not swallowing the amniotic fluid. So my bump grew and grew and grew. I could not face that.

Then they said that they were not going to keep dragging me up and down, there was nothing they could do for me there and they would relay me back to my team in Waterford. I had been with the Domino midwives, who look after the woman, but with a light touch with very little intervention. When I got back, I rang them and asked what I should do, and they said they could not look after me because it was no longer a simple, low-risk pregnancy. They said they would refer me on to somebody else.

At that point, the doctors in Dublin were supposed to be referring me back to a doctor in Waterford and the Domino team was also supposed to be referring me on, and it seemed I just kind of got lost. I did not get an appointment, a phone call or anything. I was just left. So I went to my GP and asked what I should do. At this point, there were three people I had asked what I should do. Eventually, I got an appointment with the consultant in Waterford and he saw me. I had a funny turn when I went into that waiting room again, with lots of pregnant women, but, luckily, another amazing midwife came tearing out and dragged me into the corridor stating that she did not want me to have to sit out there and she had been waiting for me all day. Then I had another scan and was asked to come back in five weeks. That is what happens. A person goes in, she is scanned, they check her blood pressure and they send her home.