Then my wife started to get the first signs of labour pains and quite naturally found this uncomfortable, to an extent that she pulled the wires off her belly and didn't want them on, the nurse took them away happy that all was going well.
 
Then out of the blue my wife said to me that something was happening below and could I look, so I gently lifted the covers to be faced with blood gushing down my wife's legs, I immediately rushed off to find a nurse to have a look, the nurse told me not to worry as it was only a show and that she would take a look in a minute, being young and naive to all this, I took her word for this and went back to my wife and told her all was ok, but by this time my wife was in a lot of pain and distress, the nurse came and took a look and immediately pressed the emergency button for assistance, various staff came to assist and they started to move us out the ward to a delivery room, I remember other women in the room wishing me good luck and I smiled and thanked them not knowing any different.

 
From this moment on it was like living in a total nightmare, we got into the delivery room and the midwife got my wife's legs into stirrups and gave her gas and air, I remember my wife very pale, sweating and screaming in pain, I held her hands I was totally lost, then a consultant came and took a look, he asked for equipment that wasn't in the room and had to be fetched, it started to resemble a war zone there was so much blood, all down my wife on the floor and on the covers it seemed to take eternity before eventually they brought my Stephanie out into the world, they rushed off with her out the room, leaving us in the room and the nurse cleaning up, my wife was totally out of it losing a lot of blood and giving birth, I remember just standing there in a total daze, not comprehending what had just happened.
 
Before I had time to take in what had happened two doctors came into the room and asked me to follow them, we went into an adjacent room, and there on a large bed lay my Stephanie with tubes coming out of her all over the place, they then told me that they had to inject adrenaline in to her heart to restart it, at that point I lost it and totally broke down.
 
Much of the rest of that day became just a dream, at some point they must have moved our Stephanie to the intensive care unit, they asked me and my wife if we would like to go and see her, we went down, Stephanie was under a heat lamp and we held her, the consultant at that point told us she had serious brain damage, was blind and possibly seriously disabled, and it was caused by the umbilical cord coming away to soon before birth, I couldn't even talk I was numb to it all, and my wife extremely weak, back in our room the consultant popped in and asked me if i would consider turning off her life support system at which point I just snapped and told him no, all I remember then is our parents turning up and me breaking down, 1hr later we were told that Stephanie had passed away, I still have my doubts if this was naturally. They brought Stephanie to me, I was in a separate room with my mum and my wife's mum, they laid Stephanie into my arms, she looked so peaceful, just sleeping, she was still warm, then the nurse that I had told that my wife was bleeding popped in, she was distraught and just kept apologising. I couldn't take any more I passed Stephanie to my mum.

 
It basically destroyed my life, some days after I was put on Valium, our marriage broke up within months of our daughter's death, and the one person I could talk to, my best mate died in the September of the same year aged 27.
 
From that point on I changed, constant nightmares, flashbacks over the last 21yrs, my family were very supportive but I distanced myself. I really felt alone, and even resorting to self harming when life's things got on top of me, I lost my faith in God, felt guilty because I could have
done more to protect my little girl.
 
I hope this story will help others in a similar situation to get help as soon as possible
and to talk out their feelings.