I feared I was losing my unborn baby — but no one was listening

It’s hard to look back on the year I almost lost my unborn baby. I’ve felt a mixture of things — anger, relief and, honestly, embarrassment that I was being overly dramatic all along. I look at my chubby, scowling daughter now — her gap-toothed smile, the way she clings to me like I’m the last chance she has for survival, always demanding, “Up, up, up,” into my arms — and I think I’ve got to put it all behind me.

It worked out. Over 76 days, I was taken to the brink of emergency surgery twice, confined to wards, to my bed or the couch (the soundtrack to my days was reality TV and the beep of foetal heart- rate monitors). My legs and