A devastated mum has described how she mourned a baby son for five years – only to find out the child was a girl.
Stacey Lamb, 31, got a tattoo on her arm and made a memorial to her stillborn son Daniel.
At the delivery in 2011 she was told she had given birth to a boy.
But this week she asked to see her medical records and discovered her baby was in fact a daughter.
Stacey had already suffered heartbreak after being caught up in the Scottish baby ashes scandal – when crematorium staff scattered her child’s remains without her permission.
And now she has been left in shock after learning she had been grieving for a son instead of a daughter for all these years.
Stacey, a mum-of-two from Glasgow, said: “When I read the post mortem report I thought I was seeing things.
“I expected it to say ‘male’. So when it said ‘female foetus’, I just sat and looked at it in pure shock.
“I thought, ‘Oh my God, I had a baby girl! What am I meant to do now?’
“Every time I think about it I cry. I don’t know what I should do. Should I pay to get another headstone at our family plot for my baby?
“Should I go through the pain of having Daniel’s name lasered from my arm? Do I need to phone the records office to change the baby’s name?
“I’m in shock. I can’t process any of that yet.”
Stacey had an infection in her placenta, and a scan revealed her baby had no heartbeat at 20 weeks.
She had to go through labour, and her child was stillborn on August 24, 2011 at the Princess Royal Maternity Hospital in Glasgow.
A nurse then told her the baby was male.
She said: “To be fair, we both agreed it was a boy. It did look like it. I didn’t know female organs can swell up at that stage and can maybe look male.”
Stacey tattooed the name “Daniel” on her arm and set up a memorial at a family grave.
And she said doctors never told her about the mix-up, even at a follow-up meeting two months later.
She said: “I’d had the funeral for a baby I thought was a boy. My doctor probably thought it would ruin me again. But they can’t do that. It’s not their right to keep it from us.”
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, who run the Princess Royal, said: “If an early pregnancy loss is experienced, it can be difficult to determine the sex of the baby.
“Staff would use the term ‘your baby’ in conversations with bereaved parents, rather than refer to a boy or girl.
“We are sorry for any continued distress this lady has experienced.”
Stacey decided to get more answers about her baby after discovering workers at Daldowie Crematorium had scattered her child’s ashes in a glade – after telling her there were no remains to give her.
She had planned to keep them in a heart-shaped locket.
Stacey gave evidence to former Lord Advocate Dame Elish Angiolini’s investigation into the ashes scandal.
The report into 200 infant cremations across Scotland revealed how workers dumped babies’ ashes without telling their parents.
