Life was good, I was expecting our first child and I was 6 months pregnant. One sunny afternoon I took our dog Bruno for his usual walk and I stopped to lean against a wall and look up at the beautiful blue sky, I turned to bruno and said ( as you do to animals) “ isn’t life great Bruno, I have everything I ever wanted and more”. because at that moment in my life I was blissfully unaware of what was to come 2 months later my beloved dog and companion was dead….. Suddenly and without warning he was gone, he was the first living thing I had ever lost and it was the first time I had experienced such pain, it broke my heart and I thought I could not endure anything worse than that but unknown to me that was only the beginning My son arrived soon after that first tragedy. I went in to hospital just like any other pregnant woman and hoped to come out the other end with a new baby. Unfortunately it didn’t happen like that, perhaps if I hadn’t been so naïve and trusting things might have been different but I put my life and my baby's life in their hands and their incompetence destroyed our dreams. It felt like I was just another bump on a conveyer belt in a baby factory dropped on at one end, pulled off at the other and shoved out the door with the baby all checked and signed for but with the neglect that led to my son's damage hidden from my view Luke was born a healthy little boy but because of their neglect, he came home a damaged child with his chance of a 'normal'life taken away at only a few weeks old and I was left with no explanation or apology and a gaping black hole where my joy and happiness should have been