Roman’s Story

In loving memory of Roman Luke Williams

We found out I was pregnant on the 25th of October 2021. I was terrified and felt very strange for a while. I was only around 4 weeks along when I found out so had a while to wait before any appointments, therefore didn’t get my hopes up as we all know how common miscarriages in early pregnancy are, (even though anything can happen later in pregnancy too but that’s not talked about enough for people to realise that it does happen more often than we think, but unfortunately it’s still a taboo subject which it shouldn’t be).

I had my first scan on the 17th of December. I was so so nervous yet excited. Seeing our baby moving around on the screen was amazing. The sonographer told me I was only 11 weeks and 2 days along therefore too early for any screening. We were told we would go back for another scan in a weeks time - Christmas Eve.

Christmas Eve came and we got to see our little baby again on the screen moving around and making it hard to get any good pictures! Baby was due 7th July. I was told everything looked okay and was sent to a midwife for blood tests for Down Syndrome, Edward’s disease and Patau disease screening and further testing. Everything was great and we were so pleased and looking forward to celebrating Christmas.

Christmas Day I announced our exciting news on my Instagram and was flooded with lovely messages.

Shortly after the new year I was sent a letter with my date for our 20 week scan which was another date to look forward to. We were not finding out the sex of the baby so we could have a surprise.

I had my 16 week home visit with my midwife and everything was great. My bump was growing and at around 18/19 weeks I was feeling baby moving around slightly. It was like flutters.

On the 18th of February, my partner and I attended our 20 week scan, excited but nervous. Everything had been fine and I had still been feeling great. As soon as the scan began we could see baby’s heart beating fast and it was moving around a lot, seeing this made us relax as we could see it was very much alive and active.

They scanned for around 30 minutes in different positions, which we thought was because of baby’s position making it harder to see them clearly. However our world was turned upside down when the sonographer turned the machine off and told us “there are some unexpected findings with your baby that we don’t expect to see at this stage of the pregnancy”.

We were sent into a different room and had nurses and midwives in and out. A midwife then come in and told us we would have to go to our nearest Fetal Medicine unit 2 hours away to be seen by a specialist. We were given a booklet on chromosomal conditions, however we knew it would not be one of the conditions in there as we had a low chance for them at our screening at the 12 weeks scan.

Fast forward 10 days of the unknown and we were seen by the specialist. They told us that baby had the most severe case of Spina Bifida and would not have any quality of life and probably not even make it to term. We then made the most heartbreaking, difficult but right decision to have a medical termination. They told us we were having a little boy as at this point we wanted to know.

We went into hospital 2 days later and after almost 24 hours our beautiful Roman Luke Williams was born a tiny 1lbs and 1oz. He was perfect. We had time with him and took lots of photos, but no amount of time would have ever been enough.

Leaving him was the worst pain we have ever experienced in our lives. Pure emptiness. My body was changing in ways to provide for my baby and I didn’t have him with me💔

Roman will always be with us and has changed us in ways we never thought he would. The support we had during his birth was amazing and we could never thank the midwives enough.

Mum and Dad love and miss you so so much Roman. We will always keep your memory alive and raise awareness of your story. 🤍

Ellie Powell

United Kingdom

Submitted 11/04/2022

Instagram @_elpowell