Maeve’s Story

Our baby girl Maeve made a silent entrance into this world on April 3rd, 2025. It was a very much wanted and prayed for pregnancy. We had been trying to conceive for over 2 years so I couldn’t believe our luck when I finally saw that positive pregnancy test result. I was quite cautious though as I had a very early miscarriage, or a chemical pregnancy as it is sometimes called, in 2022, so I didn’t want to get my hopes up. Weeks went by however and all seemed to be going well. I reached out to my GP to let her know I’m pregnant, and then we registered in our local maternity hospital in Dublin.

We decided to go for private care for more peace of mind as I wanted frequent scans and the comfort of seeing the same doctor at every appointment. We had our first scan at week 7 or 8 and heard the heartbeat. It was magical. The first trimester was uneventful, I felt some tiredness, nausea and food aversions (especially towards fried onions!) but nothing major. We didn’t do the NIPT test as we thought it wouldn’t have made a difference, but we were reassured that all looked fine at the 12-week scan. We continued to have frequent scans and found out the gender at 16 weeks. My husband always liked the name Maeve and so we knew that if we were having a girl, we would call her Maeve. That’s exactly what happened. Little did we know that the 16-week scan would be the last innocent, stress-free scan of the pregnancy.

The 20-week scan was fast approaching and although this was my first experience with pregnancy, I was very aware of the importance of the scan and that many things could go wrong. I didn’t however let that thought dim my happiness. I met my husband at the hospital, and we sat in the waiting area with all the other couples. I was excited to see my baby again and hopefully to get a 3D photo of her. We were finally called into the room and welcomed by the doctor (it wasn’t our consultant but one of her colleagues). I lied down and the scan began. All was going well until the doctor started to zoom into the brain and spending quite a bit of time on it. She said she couldn’t see enough and so she’d go back to it again later. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but after the scan, instead of just printing the ultrasound photos and saying goodbye to us, she sat down and started to draw something on a piece of paper. I could guess that this wasn’t standard procedure. She drew the brain on the paper and started to explain that one of the brain ventricles is bigger than it should be, and that she also couldn’t find the corpus callosum. My blood pressure must have gone through the roof in the moment, I remember feeling extremely hot. I started to blame myself instantly, asking her if maybe something I did had caused it? She reassured me that it’s nothing I did, but she then stepped out to call our consultant and arranged an ultrasound for the following day with her. By then I knew it must be something serious.

The next day, we had the ultrasound and we also did an amniocentesis as suggested by both doctors. I felt like I was plunged into a whole different world, pregnancy wasn’t supposed to be like this, surely? Our doctor confirmed she could see the corpus callosum so that was positive, but she did agree with the other doctor about the increased ventricle size. The amniocentesis result came back all negative, and we were referred for an MRI. The ventricles kept increasing at every scan and the MRI confirmed the diagnosis of ventriculomegaly, however the neurosurgeons we met with at week 25 said that they see cases like this all the time and that a shunt might need to be placed after Maeve is born. We thought that was it, at least we had a solution to the problem. It was extremely difficult to put on a brave face and keep going when our world was falling apart. We only told our closest family about what was happening. Everyone else thought all was well. Even though the situation was getting worse with every scan, we still had hope, we were ready to do anything to help Maeve have a good life. The neurosurgeons were not wrong however it would only work if Maeve was born that week with ventricles at around 15 and 18mm each so severe but not yet critical.

Fast forward to the scan at week 30, and there was no brain mass left, it was all covered with the cerebrospinal fluid. We were shocked and devastated. We were told that it was unlikely Maeve would be born alive, but even if she did survive the birth, she wouldn’t live for long. It would be a matter of waiting for her to pass away, likely from a seizure. I would also need a c-section as her head was too big to allow for a vaginal birth. We were directed for a second opinion, and the other doctor confirmed the diagnosis of hydranencephaly. It was then that we first heard that Liverpool, London or Amsterdam would be our best option… I was shocked. I didn’t know what to make of it. I was sure we’d be looked after here in Ireland under these circumstances. After that, we had another MRI and then one final scan which confirmed the diagnosis yet again. Although Maeve’s condition was clearly critical, it was impossible to guarantee if and how long she would live after birth. Due to the 28-day rule in Ireland the doctors couldn’t help us here.

We were given an email address to the hospital in Liverpool, and we had to self-refer by sending our results to them. They called me back less than a day after I sent the email and we got a date for the following week. We paid the fee over the phone and started to plan our journey over by booking a hotel for the first night and the ferry. The rest is a bit of blur but all I can remember is how amazing the staff in Liverpool were. I got admitted on Tuesday morning and Maeve was born on Thursday afternoon. The midwives took plenty of photos, gave us a memory box, and treated our baby with so much respect. I think they are unfortunately a bit too used to taking care of Irish women. We took the ferry back home on Friday night and arrived at our local hospital at 3am to collect the cuddle cot to bring Maeve home for 2 days. No woman should ever have to travel across borders a day after giving birth, let alone with her baby’s coffin in the car. It felt surreal, like we were committing a crime. We wanted to honour Maeve’s life as best as we could. Our family and friends came over to meet her, and we organised a beautiful funeral in our local church followed by a burial in a nearby cemetery. I sincerely hope that my story and those of other brave women who went through the same horrific situation will help to move the hearts of those in power to change the current legislation which punishes women at the most vulnerable time in their lives.