I couldn't tell what was real

A huge loss led Nicola Jones, 38, down a frightening path

- ANNA MATHESON, ROSIE HOPEGOOD

Wrenched from sleep, I saw smoke swirling around me. Realising the house was on fire, I leapt out of bed and ran through the thick, grey smog until I reached the safety of the garden, where I screamed for my sister, Catherine, 36. She appeared just moments later, only she didn’t seem to be scared, or like she was fleeing from flames. ‘It’s OK, there is no fire,’ she told me, stroking my hair. That’s when it really dawned on me, that I could no longer tell what was real or just in my head.

My problems had started in June 2018 when, at 17 weeks pregnant, I was on my way to work as a programme manager one Friday morning and something suddenly felt very wrong.

I rushed off the Tube and straight to the toilets in the gym by my work, where I locked myself in a cubicle. ‘Please let everything be OK,’ I thought. Only, as I undressed, I saw blood. I’d suffered some minor bleeding early on, which doctors thought was a harmless clot that would clear up on its own, but this felt different.

Sitting there, terrified, I called the hospital, but the midwife didn’t seem worried, booking me an appointment for the following Monday and telling me to go home and rest. I was advised to go to A&E if the bleeding became heavy, and I figured if they weren’t worried, perhaps I needn’t be either.

Still, it was hard to relax, and my husband, Steve, and I waited nervously over the weekend.

At our appointment, a scan showed that, while our baby still had a heartbeat, there was no amniotic fluid. The blood hadn’t been to do with the clot, it was actually my waters breaking.