Claire Foord is talking about her stillborn child so no other women have to go through what she went through. Picture: Claire Foord

The Adelaide woman knew what type of music she liked to listen to, what books she liked to have read to her and what made her calm down or perk up.

Each kick was symbolic. If she didn’t like the cold, she would kick. If Claire’s partner kissed her pregnant belly, she would kick. It’s part of the reason alarm bells started ringing when, in the early hours of one morning, Alfie kicked once. Hard.

“That night I sat up at 2am, I felt one big kick,” the 34-year-old said.

“I thought it felt strange. I sat upright two hours later and didn’t feel her move. I went to the bathroom and she didn’t move. I went back to bed and, when I got up, she didn’t move. I didn’t know it then but at 2am she was making her last movement.”

The first-time mum-to-be had been told it was “normal” for her baby to slow down or stop kicking during the late stages of pregnancy. She knows that advice contributed to Alfie’s death.

“I rang my partner and said ‘She’s not doing what she normally does’. I rang my doctor and he asked me if I’d had something to eat or a cold glass of water.”

She ate and drank and still the baby didn’t move. At hospital a short time later she received the news no expectant mum should ever have to receive.

“I kept asking ‘Is this normal?’ and nobody really answered that for me. They brought the ultrasound in and she was incredibly still. Several midwives said ‘I’m really sorry, I can’t feel a heartbeat’.

“Those words will forever ring through my head. I could see that she didn’t look like she normally looked. I wanted to scream and shout. I wanted to be hugged, I wanted to be left alone. I couldn’t talk. I had no idea a baby could die inside you.”

Moulds of little Alfie’s feet were created for her parents. Picture: Claire FoordSource:Supplied

‘IT WAS HARDER AND HARDER TO GIVE HER BACK’

Claire gave birth to a baby who never cried. She and Alfie’s father Brad spent 24 precious hours with the baby, bonding despite knowing they could never take her home. Family members flew in from interstate to meet her.

“She looked utterly perfect,” Claire said.

“They wrapped her and just gave her to me. I was shaking so uncontrollably. She was limp, I was shaking and so she was shaking. I was so scared that I was going to hurt her.”

Over the next 24 hours, Alfie was passed between her parents and nurses whose job it was to keep her cool.

“Every time they took her away it was harder and harder to give her back. We had a day and night of holding and hugging and being with her. I’d already bonded with her, she was our little girl. We should’ve been taking her home. She was a perfect little girl with no illness or abnormality that should be here today.”

The experience left scars that will never heal. Importantly, it also inspired Claire to look deeper at what went wrong. Why did nobody tell her what to look out for? Why did doctors tell her everything was OK when clearly the opposite was true?

“They said to us how rare it was, which is actually so cruel. I thought about what I might’ve done wrong. I know now that Alfie was trying so hard to get out of me for two weeks but I didn’t know they were signs to get out,” she said.

“She was safe to get out at 38 weeks but I waited to term. I gave life and simultaneous death. Imagine having to say goodbye at the same time you’re saying hello.”

She said she looked at the statistics and counted the number of stillbirths. The numbers shocked her.

“I realised that for every 135 live births, there’s one stillbirth. That’s a family, that’s a baby’s life. I said: ‘Brad, I can’t believe nobody told us.’

“I thought somebody out there must be creating awareness, but there was nobody doing that. If somebody had told me what I know now, she would be here now.”

Claire and Brad with baby Alfie on the day she was born. Picture: Claire FoordSource:Supplied

‘IF ONE BABY CAN BE SAVED, IT’S WORTH IT’

The couple lost Alfie on February 12, 2014. By August 10, Claire had started a project encouraging other women to tell their stories.

The project — Still Aware — features information and advice the 34-year-old wishes had been available to her during her pregnancy.

There’s a story about Eva, whose mum carried her to 38 weeks. Like Claire, she said she “had a sinking feeling something wasn’t right” one morning when she woke up.

“Bub hadn’t moved through the night as normal … again (my) mind was telling me ‘(She) must be getting ready’ and ‘Don’t be silly, stop overreacting’.”

She wasn’t overreacting. Neither was Janelle, who at 37 weeks noticed something was wrong.

“On the Friday I woke up not feeling the best but just thought I was tired and maybe my body was just getting ready for labour, so I just brushed it off and rested.

“On the Saturday (my partner Rod) had to work so I just rested again as I was still not feeling the best. That night I went to go to bed and I thought something’s not right as the baby did not move when I lay down and he always did a big kick when I lay down to go to bed.

“So I went out to Rod and said, ‘I can’t remember the last time I felt the baby move’. He rang the hospital and we went in.”

Neither baby was born alive.

Claire says she heard from a woman on September 10, a month after launching the project. The woman said she was worried about her baby when a family member forwarded information about Still Aware.

After reading Claire’s story she went in to the hospital to beg doctors to listen to her desperate pleas for help.

“They had to force the issue (with doctors),” Claire told news.com.au.

“Their obstetrician said to them that she was not going to deliver the baby but one finally listened. It turned out the woman’s placenta was septic. Had they not had an emergency C-section the baby would’ve died.”

It’s stories like that which remind Claire why she started the project.

“I’ve been able to see that direct result. If one baby can be saved from this then it’s worth it.”

Beautiful Alfie, stillborn on February 12, 2014, spent one day with her mother and father. Picture: Claire Foord.Source:Supplied

‘I WAS TERRIFIED I WOULD LOSE HIM’

Claire and Brad’s second miracle arrived on April 9 last year when Archibald came kicking and screaming into the world.

“It was incredibly scary,” Claire said of the birth of her baby boy.

“I was terrified that I would lose him. It was so similar to Alfie’s birth — it felt exactly the same. It was also a good sense of closure for me, waiting for that cry. When I heard it I burst into tears of joy.

“I thought: ‘That’s so perfect, it’s the best sound in the world. I love that sound’.”

She wants other mums to hear that sound, too, but she knows there are difficult conversations to be had first.

“It’s incredibly uncomfortable to talk about stillbirths but it’s something we need to talk about.

“We know that there are two things in life that are fact — you are birthed and die — but we don’t consider that it can happen simultaneously. We don’t know everything that’s wrong with stillborn births so we don’t want to talk about it.

“People are fearful that they’ll make somebody uncomfortable, but what’s worse: being uncomfortable or letting that baby die because you don’t say something? We just want parents to know they are their baby’s best advocate.

“If you think something is wrong, follow that instinct.”

One baby every four hours is stillborn in Australia. Six babies every day. More than 2500 babies every year.

To help Still Aware spread their message, visit stillaware.org

Twitter: @ro_smith. Email: rohan.smith1@news.com.au