A woman who suffered two miscarriages in the last year says her husband never got to hear their baby's heartbeat.
It comes as some maternity hospitals are still restricting access to services for partners and husbands due to the pandemic.
Cork woman Susan O'Riordan suffered two miscarriages in the past year, and says she had to watch other mothers leave the hospital with their newborn babies.
She told The Hard Shoulder, broadcasting from outside Cork University Maternity Hospital,: "I've had two miscarriages in the last year - the first one around this time last year.
"It was a molar pregnancy, which is a kind of one in 700 occurrence.
"You need to have a constant follow up afterwards: so I had to have a D&C which I was awake for because of COVID, and I have to have weekly blood tests then for months afterwards.
"And I had to go through everything alone - every scan, I had to do the D&C and everything."
Susan says her dilation and curettage procedure, which sees tissue removed from inside the uterus, had to be done while she was awake.
"Normally you're under general anesthetic for it, but because of COVID it was an epidural - where they basically remove the contents of your womb.
"I was awake for that... it wasn't particularly nice, they gave me headphones and stuff but it was something that I had to go through.
"It was traumatic to be honest".
'The heartbeat had stopped'
Susan says during her second pregnancy in March, she got bad news during a follow-up scan.
"Went in for the scan and the heartbeat had stopped - my husband never got to hear that baby's heartbeat.
"They said 'We can ring him,' but we live the bones of an hour away and he'd our son at home.
"I just wanted to get out of there and so I had to go outside, and I had to phone him and tell him that we'd lost that baby as well".
Susan says she had planned to have another D&C, but miscarried before that could happen.
"I actually had come up to the city to collect my son from my parents house and I miscarried on my mother's driveway.
"That was traumatic in front of my two-year-old, and the bleeding didn't stop.
"I had to come up the emergency room, my mother had to drop me at the door again cause nobody can come in with you."
And Susan says she was in a room by herself for three days to recover.
"My room was on the inside of the hospital where you could see the bridge, and I could see women walking out with the car seats with their babies.
"And all I could do was lie there for three days and just watch them leave with their babies - it wasn't going to happen for me".
