Two women who met during heartbreaking night in maternity ward reunite for charity run

TWO women who met during a harrowing, heart-wrenching night in a maternity hospital have been reunited after 27 years.

Tracy Watt and Maureen Scott, the midwife who comforted her in the hours after the traumatic birth and death of her baby, will now run together to raise funds for other families enduring the loss of a newborn.

Tracy was just 23, when, heavily pregnant, she went into hospital to have her blood pressure monitored, but was told her baby had severe disabilities and wouldn’t survive.

Within hours, she’d given birth knowing she’d only have a brief time with her son.

Then midwife Maureen Scott appeared. “She just said: ‘Hello, I’m here to look after you’,” said Tracy.

When Lewis died just 19 hours after being born, and after his parents had said their goodbyes, Maureen hugged Tracy, promised her she’d look after Lewis’s body and walked her out of the hospital doors.

Twenty-seven years later, following a move to Fort William, a divorce from Lewis’s father Kenneth, a move back to Edinburgh and a new career fundraising with neonatal death and stillbirth charity SANDS Lothians, keen runner Tracy was organising a team of maternity medical staff to run in the Edinburgh Marathon Festival next month.

Answering emails from entrants, one name suddenly sprang out at her.

“It was Maureen Scott. My heart skipped a beat entirely,” revealed Tracy.

“I emailed her back and said: ‘I don’t know if you remember me’. She emailed back to say: ‘Of course I remember you’.”

Now the midwife who saw Tracy through her darkest hours will be running alongside her in a half-marathon for the charity as part of Team Simpsons, made up of more than 130 maternity medical staff, and their friends and family, to raise money for Sands.

In 1991, Tracy was 38 weeks pregnant, when a scan at the Simpson Memorial Maternity Pavilion Hospital in Edinburgh revealed her baby had severe spina bifida and hydrocephalus.

Against the odds, Lewis survived the birth. But there was nothing covering his spinal column and there was no brain activity, so the family came to say goodbye.

“I was so scared. I didn’t even want to hold him at first,” said Tracy.

And so Maureen, who had three miscarriages herself, volunteered to stay with her.

“We held him together. I don’t think I’ve had anything as intense as the situation with Tracy and Lewis.”

Tracy said: “She was so kind. She just has this aura about her.”

After 19 hours, Lewis passed away, and Tracy and Kenneth said their goodbyes.

“I could see the sunshine out of the hospital doors. I thought: ‘I don’t want to go’,” said Tracey.

“But Maureen said: ‘I’m going to look after him’. And she slowly walked me to the doors and out into the sun.”

Now Maureen, 57, and her 23-year-old daughter Elizabeth will run with Tracy in the 13-mile event.

To join the SANDS team call 0131 622 6263 or visit sands-lothians.org.uk.