Praveen tells of wife's anguish

In the depths of despair, Savita Halappanavar turned to her young husband and pleaded: “How can a mother wait for her baby to die?”

Praveen tells of wife's anguish

In the depths of despair, Savita Halappanavar turned to her young husband and pleaded: “How can a mother wait for her baby to die?”

The young dentist, who only weeks before had wept tears of joy at a first scan that confirmed they were starting a family, could not bear it any more.

“She basically said she can’t take it,” her widower Praveen said. “How can a mother wait for her baby to die?”

Mr Halappanavar, dressed in an open-necked pin striped shirt and trousers, cut a lonely figure in the packed Galway courtroom.

More than once he had to pause on the stand to gather himself.

They were like any other young couple expecting their first baby. Full of the joys and all the normal questions.

They telephoned friends for advice and went to see a GP.

His wife was “perfectly healthy”. She did athletics and yoga.

Mr Halappanavar remembered her tears of happiness on the day they first saw their little baby girl on the monitor during a hospital scan.

When her parents visited, they had a baby shower in the Hindu tradition. Both Mrs Halappanavar and her mother were dressed in new clothes. They all said prayers together.

Mr Halappanavar had come to Ireland just six years beforehand. On his regular visits home he started seeing Mrs Halappanavar and they got married in India in 2007.

She returned to Ireland with him, spoke to her parents every day on Skype and the young, ambitious couple travelled around Ireland during their spare time.

“Savita found it so peaceful compared to the hustle and bustle of India,” he told the silent court room.

They went further afield exploring Europe in Paris, Venice and Rome.

Back in Galway they soon needed a bigger place, they had made so many friends and were socialising more.

Over the course of a few days in October last year their lives together crumbled.

In University Hospital Galway, Mrs Halappanavar deteriorated due to complications on her pregnancy.

She had repeatedly asked for a termination, but was told this was a Catholic country and that was not possible, Mr Halappanavar told the inquest into her death.

It was no good protesting that she was Hindu, that she was Indian and not Irish.

“I was wiping her tears,” Mr Halappanavar said.

“She kept saying: ’It was a girl, it was a girl’.”

She tried to console herself, talking about how she wanted to get pregnant again before the due date of her lost baby.

But as septicaemia took hold, Mrs Halappanavar was moved to the intensive care unit.

She had decided not to tell her parents about the miscarriage and her illness until they were back home safely in India. Her last words were to Mr Halappanavar, asking if they had arrived.

The nurses were very sympathetic, he said.

They held his hand and told him how sorry they were and that Mrs Halappanavar was a beautiful girl.

He still believed she was alright.

Mr Halappanavar's friend whispered into the ear of one of the inquest lawyers that it was too much for Praveen, that there would need to be a break.

Coroner Ciaran MacLoughlin agreed, excused the jury and adjourned the proceedings until the afternoon.

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