I had Gwythyr when I was 20 years old, and pretty naïve in some areas. I had found out I was pregnant in the summer, and had not received very positive responses from my family (they did not approve of the man I had married and the fact that I had left university to live with him in north Wales. I felt very isolated and alone, and this feeling increased over the winter as our living conditions deteriorated and my health deteriorated. It was a very welsh village out on its own on the Llyn Peninsula, and the people there treated us like lepers because we weren't locals. I had very little antenatal care (I didn't know much about it) because I was basically left to my own devices by my GP. I attended a few hospital appointments, but no-one told me I needed to see a GP or midwife at regular intervals. Occasionally the midwife would call at my home, but I had no idea that this was because I was seen as a non-attender. Ignorance is not bliss, it is dangerous in a situation like this, and I had no friends to support me, no family nearby, and a husband who had become increasingly obsessed with his artwork, to the point that days would go by with us sharing no more than a few words.

I went into labour at 37 weeks, two days after pushing our car out of some mud (uphill) in a field. Whilst pregnant I had done all the household tasks, and the shopping, with no help. I thought it was all just natural and that birth would be a wonderful, powerful experience where I would discover my womanhood. Ha ha, what a laugh. When I called the community midwife it was very late on the Friday night - she was at the pub and took an hour to arrive. When she did arrive she was very drunk, and said I could go to the hospital if I wanted to. So I did. There I was put on a monitor, given a bath and told I wasn't in labour, but that I could stay in overnight until the pains settled. They didn't. By the next afternoon I was in agony but still not officially in labour, and becoming accustomed to being treated like a nothing because I didn't have posh nightclothes or slippers. I was clinging on to the ideal of birth, believing it would be a spiritual experience.

Late that evening I was eventually transferred to the labour ward. The room was cold and medical, and I asked for bean bags and things, but these took a long while to come. My husband was with me, and he kept running out every hour or so to have a cigarette - he was so stressed - I don't think he knew what to do, really, and I was really in pain now and wondering how long I could cope.

I coped with no pain relief for a few hours, then starting using entonox, and eventually started to make progress. I stayed active too - on chairs, beanbags, walking around the room. Then at midnight they said I hadn’t made enough progress and that I should have something to speed me up - now I know this was Syntocinon (Pitocin in the USA), which artificially stimulates contractions. The midwife pressured me to have Pethidine (Demerol in the USA) as well, as it was going to get more painful.

As soon as the Pethidine started working, the whole experience turned into a nightmare - I was having a bad trip, basically. I fell dizzy, like I was floating around the room, and sick, and completely out of control. A doctor came and sat at the end of the bed and read a newspaper, and every so often he would look over the top of it and peer at my exposed vulva. I was stuck in a recumbent position with drips and a monitor, and I hated it. Then I started having hallucinations - I could see horns growing out of people's heads, things crawling out of the walls - it was horrifying. Then they told me to start pushing. But my legs were flapping around on this awful hard trolley and I couldn't push well lying down.

Then the midwife (there had been two others during the day) who was really good, but really thin (and I am a big woman) turned her hip towards me and said, "Put your foot against me there - now push." She focused all my attention, earthed me and brought me back to myself, and I pushed. They gave me an episiotomy, and Gwythyr was born - 5 pounds two ounces, immediately whisked him away to give him some oxygen, and left me alone.

I was stitched up, and the baby brought back. It was after two am and I was exhausted, but so happy.

When I returned to the postnatal ward I was in a ward on my own. They kept waking me up and saying in very nasty, disapproving tones, "Wake up, you have to feed your baby!" I felt even more alone, and spent as much time as I could with the baby, breastfeeding for hours and just holding him - but I felt the disapproval then too, as they felt I shouldn't hold him so much. I was told that if I held him now he would never go down in his cot. They treated me like a stupid child, which really annoyed me. I wouldn't leave him alone for a minute, not even to go to the toilet. He came everywhere with me.

The next day we were transferred to a peripheral hospital, nearer home, with a mother and baby unit where I could stay a week and rest and recover. It was lovely, and I was looking forward to the stay there. Visitors came and Gwythyr was admired, and I began to feel like a mother, despite the state of profound exhaustion which made me feel like my brains had turned to cotton wool. But that night he wouldn't feed at the breast, and in the end, the midwife gave him a bottle, saying that I needed to sleep and so did he.

Two hours later, he started turning blue. The midwife took him and gave him some oxygen, called the GP who took a long time to arrive. Gwythyr kept turning blue, would be given facial oxygen and then recover. I was terrified. The GP transferred us back to the main hospital, to the SCBU there, and my husband came with us. All I can remember is how slowly the ambulance went, how terrified I was, sitting there watching the midwife holding my baby, watching him turn blue over and over again.

At the scbu the staff were all jolly and friendly. They put Gwythyr into an incubator and told me he would be fine, they would find out what was wrong and not to worry. I have never been so scared in my whole life - not before, not since. I didn't understand what was happening, the machines were noisy and constantly alarming. My husband went for a sleep - he had been up all night too, and they suggested that I went too, but I couldn't. I just sat there, holding Gwythyr's hand through the little round door in the incubator, alternately crying and praying. I was so desperate.

Then suddenly there were more nurses, they were calling another doctor who arrived looking very sleepy and tired, and they said to me, "You'd better get your husband, this is a very sick baby." I ran down the corridor to get him, and we came back, clutching each other. But then we were shoved out of the room, into a side room where a student nurse stayed with us. It seemed to take forever - but eventually, two doctors walked out of the nursery. One of them saw me and just shook his head and walked off. And that was how I found out my son had died.

No-one told us what happened. The student nurse tried to comfort us but we sent her away - she was too upset anyway. I couldn't stop crying, but in the end I had to because my husband couldn't handle it. There is no feeling like it in the world - I felt empty, like a chasm, a gaping hole existed within me that I could never fill. I had hardly begun to feel like a mother when my son was ripped away from me. And there was no-one offering to help then, no one official, that is.

We only found out what the cause of death was after the post mortem - but no-one told us that either - they just gave us a letter to take to the register office. Only when the register opened the letter did we find out the official cause of death. "Sudden Infant (Cot) Death Syndrome." Which makes no sense to me now after years of training and working within midwifery.

A bleak story. All true. But there are happy endings. We did get a lot of support from the Pagan and Alternative community, from people who didn't even know us. I became a midwife - not because Gwythyr died but because of that midwife who was there for me when I needed her. Because of Gwythyr I became the woman I am now - always looking for answers, for reasons, carrying out research, working to improve the experiences of mothers and midwives, and especially striving to give women all the information they need or want when it comes to pregnancy, birth and infancy. I have planted flowers on his grave, but bearing the most fruit are the seeds I planted after his death, which now blossom in the life I lead, the people whose lives I touch when they are feeling most vulnerable, and the work I am able to do to change the system, albeit slowly, from within.

I would welcome feedback on this story - just email me.

Alys.