Baby loss couple: We were told we'd picked a bad day to give birth

Baby loss couple: We were told we'd picked a bad day to give birthJust nowShareSaveAdd as preferred on GoogleCharlotte RoseEast investigationsLaurence Cawley/BBCMcCreadys have been left wondering if their daughter Lois might be alive today had more checks been carried outWarning: This article contains discussions of stillbirth"We were so excited," says Lauryn McCready, remembering the moment she and her husband Andrew learnt they were expecting a baby.The couple's pregnancy had come in the wake of several miscarriages.They kept the gender "a surprise", but told friends and family their happy news and spent months preparing their home for the new arrival.But joy and anticipation turned to despair and grief after mistakes were made during Lauryn's labour and their daughter Lois was stillborn.Her death was one of 2,341 stillbirths across England and Wales that year which left families devastated.The couple, from Luton, have now given evidence to the Amos Inquiry, a national review of maternity care, in the hope it drives improvement so that other families do not share their experience.Following an uncomplicated pregnancy, primary school teacher Lauryn and her husband Andrew, a carpenter, say they "didn't have too much of a plan" beyond an expected vaginal delivery at Luton and Dunstable Hospital. She says she went in to hospital with a "naive trust" that she was in safe hands and "everything would work out."More than a week overdue and with contractions that had begun 48 hours earlier, she arrived at the maternity ward at around 22:00 on 4 September, 2023.The department that evening, she says, was extremely busy."You picked a bad day to have a baby," she remembers a midwife told her.It was an "off the cuff comment", says Andrew, but the phrase haunts them to this day.Lauryn McCready said she had a "blind trust" that midwives and clinicians would "know what to do&quo...