Steven Lam MN

A 27-year-old mother has opened up about her anguish after giving birth to her baby son at 36 weeks knowing he was going to be stillborn. 

Brooke Campbell, from Brisbane, nearly died after she lost more than 1.7 litres of blood when she suffered a severe haemorrhage in the early hours of August 28.

But after she was taken to hospital, the young woman completely broke down when her obstetrician found baby Darcy no longer had a heartbeat.

'I looked at the ultrasound screen and could see Darcy's lifeless body just hanging there inside me,' Ms Campbell told Daily Mail Australia.

'There are no words but gut-wrenching and a vivid picture in my mind that I will never forget.

'It was too late to do anything as he was already gone.'

The cause of her unborn son's death was a haemorrhage caused by a placental abruption - which occurs when the placenta separates from the uterus. 

'The placenta just blew off from the uterus wall, causing Darcy to go into cardiac arrest. And he passed away due to no oxygen,' she said.

'I was in complete shock and I just didn't believe it. But I knew while we were waiting for the ambulance at home with the amount of blood and clots I was losing and that I couldn't feel him... something was very very wrong.'

Her husband Elliott, 34, was bringing their bags in from the ambulance when she told him about the tragic news.

'I still remember the look on Elliot's face when he walked into the room and I said: "Darcy is gone, he doesn't have a heartbeat",' she recalled.

'He just said "No you're wrong, how does this happen". He just dropped to the floor hysterically crying. He took it really badly. Three nurses helped him back to his feet.'

The distraught mother was transferred to a birth suite where she had to deliver her baby knowing he was going to be stillborn.

'There are no words to describe the pain and heart break knowing he was going to be stillborn. Horrific and gut-wrenching won't even cover it,' Ms Campbell said.

'We chose not to do an unnecessary caesarean section. We continued on with a vaginal birth as my first was also vaginal.

'It was such a cruel thing I had to go through with the labour and delivery. Knowing Darcy would be gone when he came out it killed me so much but it had to be done.

'I just burst into tears knowing what would be coming next. Three big pushes and he was out... 53 centimetres long and 3.3 kilograms just like his big brother.

'Darcy looked healthy and beautiful except he didn't cry like a newborn. He just looked like he was asleep which shattered my heart into many pieces because I just wanted him to gasp and take his first breath.'

The infant was stillborn, leaving his parents and his two-year-old brother with a few moments to build memories of him in candid photographs.

'The hospital offered us as much time with Darcy as we wanted so we spent the whole of Monday and Tuesday with him,' Ms Campbell said.

'He even got to stay in our room with a bassinet which had a cooling system that was also provided but I'd refused to let him go.

'I cuddled him on my chest all night with my arms wrapped around him. I woke up many times that night just to cuddle, kiss and silently cry, trying not to wake Elliot up.

Cradling the tiny boy in her arms for the final time, Ms Campbell was comforted by her husband as little Noah planted a tender kiss on his stillborn sibling.

'He was wrapped and placed on my chest, it was a beautifully tragic time,' she said. 

'I had such a rollercoaster of crazy emotions because it just wasn't fair that he wasn't alive... he was so healthy. He looked perfect and just like Noah which made it harder.

'Noah was very gentle with him but was confused why the baby wasn't moving. He's still too young to understand but he kissed Darcy a lot when he met him in hospital.

'I was holding Darcy so tightly and sobbing. My heart felt like it was shattered beyond repair.'

Her blood test found Ms Campbell had a rare clotting, genetic disorder called Factor V Leiden, which affects one in 20-25 people.

'If this test was to become mandatory during pregnancy for all women, then I would not have lost my healthy beautiful son,' she said.

'The test informs you if you have Factor V Leiden - and then you can have injections throughout pregnancy to prevent suffering a placental abruption.'

'Women just need to have the option there to get tested for this disorder otherwise they may hold the gene and be risking the life of their unborn baby, themselves and future grandchildren.'

After finding the strength to tell her story, Ms Campbell said she wanted to raise awareness about the dangers and the possibility that people, including pregnant women and men, could be carrying the genetic disorder without knowing.

'The pain and suffering we endured through the past six weeks are just horrendous and no parent should ever have to ever bury their healthy child,' she said.

'I don't want people to risk their own lives or the lives of their unborn children so I just want to get the message across this disorder does exist.

'It's common and no one even really knows about it until its too late. We didn't even know what it was until we got the results back after Darcy had passed away.'

For other women who have suffered a stillbirth, Ms Campbell said: 'You don't have to be strong but get the support you need.

'Talk to friends and family about your loss. Keeping it bottled up inside will just make it worse,' she said.

'I didn't leave the house for a few weeks after because I was too much of an emotional wreck talking about what happened so I waited until I thought I could.

'I would be totally put off if Darcy was our first child but we are lucky to already have our son Noah to distract us and get us up each morning.

'I am keeping positive by telling myself: "I will have another baby or two in the future and I will get my rainbow baby".

'I know Darcy would want me to be happy - and for me to grieve is to get pregnant again sooner rather than later.'

The family's photographer Natasha Thaelser has vowed to double donations to little Darcy's legacy on the Bears of Hope campaign.

I spoke to Harvey Weinstein on Monday night.

'Harvey…how's your life?' I asked, winning myself the Most Stupid Question of the Year Award.

He sighed loudly, paused for a second or two, then chuckled, wryly.

'My life? It's really not that great right now to be honest, Piers…'

At the time, he was still fighting to save his movie mogul career, and his marriage, after the New York Times bombshell report disclosing he had paid off eight women for sexual harassment.

Weinstein asked to go off-the-record, and we talked for another minute or so before I heard urgent mutterings and he suddenly said: 'I have to go….this is a very important call… I'm sorry… I'll call you straight back.'

He didn't call back.

Within 24 hours, a blizzard of horrific new revelations erupted in the New York Times and New Yorker magazine featuring fresh allegations against Weinstein from myriad famous and non-famous women of rape, sexual assault and harassment.

Perhaps that 'very important call' was from one of those publications, or his lawyer, who knows?

It doesn't really matter now.

As I write this, Harvey Weinstein's career is gone, his marriage is gone, and his reputation as one of the greatest, and most successful, power brokers in Hollywood history is gone too.

Fired by his own company, and dumped by his wife Georgina, beleaguered Weinstein has escaped to a sex addiction clinic somewhere in Europe.

It's a staggering fall from grace, even by the brutal standards of Hollywood.

Yet it's a fall that deserves not a scintilla of sympathy, given the scale of his appalling behaviour.

I've known Weinstein for a decade.

He's an unquestionably brilliant movie producer – his films have generated over 300 Oscar nominations - and a very smart, charismatic guy.

I've only ever seen the best side of Harvey: the fast-talking, quick-witted, pugnacious, determined and driven side with a genuinely passionate love for film.

I've always got on very well with him and enjoyed his company, and hope he gets the treatment he clearly needs. 

But now we've seen another side exposed, one that's made very grim reading: that of a ruthless, selfish, bullying, misogynist prone to harassing women into trading sexual favours for movie roles.

We've also heard the tape - that shocking minute-long wire-tapped audio of him terrorizing a young, frightened actress outside his New York hotel room, a woman he admits to having groped the day before.

You can't hear it without feeling utterly repulsed.

Nor can you hear it without now believing every word all his other accusers are saying.

As Weinstein himself admitted: 'I appreciate the way I've behaved with colleagues in the past has caused a lot of pain.'

Yes, it has.

And I applaud the courageous women who first came forward last week to lift the lid off Weinstein's decades of depravity when he was still in a position of great power to make or break their careers.

But this scandal goes much further and murkier than just Harvey Weinstein.

It goes right to the heart of Hollywood's sickening deceit and hypocrisy.

Take his great friend Meryl Streep, for example; the woman who called Weinstein 'God' at an awards ceremony.

Streep, eventually, after four days of silence, described the revelations as 'disgraceful' and said they 'appalled those of us whose work he championed.'

Then she insisted: 'One thing can be clarified. Not everybody knew. I didn't know about these offenses. I did not know about his settlements with actresses and colleagues. I did not know about his having meetings in his hotel room, his bathroom, or other inappropriate, coercive acts.'

She ended by saying: 'The behavior is inexcusable, but the abuse of power familiar. Each brave word that is raised, heard and credited by our watchdog media will ultimately change the game.'

Fine words, but how exactly do they sit with Streep's public displays of support for another notorious Hollywood sex abuser – Roman Polanski?

In 2003, Polanski won Best Director at the Oscars for The Pianist.

When Harrison Ford announced his name, the audience – comprising all the great and good of the movie business - burst into prolonged loud clapping and cheering.

Leading the applause was Meryl Streep, who sprang to her feet to give Polanski a standing ovation.

It is worth reminding ourselves about why Polanski was not himself able to receive the award in person.

In March, 1977, the director was arrested and charged in Los Angeles with five offenses against Samantha Gailey, a 13-year-old girl: rape by use of drugs, perversion, sodomy, lewd and lascivious act upon a child under 14, and furnishing a controlled substance to a minor.

Polanski, then 43, did a deal with prosecutors in which he pled guilty to a charge of engaging in unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor.

He thought he was going to get off with probation, but then heard rumours he would more likely face lengthy imprisonment - so Polanski fled the country to France, hours before he was due to be sentenced.

He has never returned, and has avoided visiting any countries since that may extradite him back to the USA.

It is important to recount exactly what Polanski did to that 13-year-old girl:

He plied her with champagne, took topless photos of her, and then asked her to lie down on a bed.

'It got a little scary,' Samantha said decades later. 'I realised he had other intentions and I knew I was not where I should be. I just didn't know how to get myself out of there. I said, 'No, no. I don't want to go in there. No, I don't want to do this. No!' I didn't know what else to do. We were alone and I didn't know what else would happen if I made a scene. So I was just scared and after some resistance, I figured well, I guess I'll get to come home after this.'

Samantha testified that Polanski gave her part of a quaalude drug, and despite her protests, he performed oral, vaginal and anal sex upon her, each time being told 'No' and being asked to stop.

Now, you might think that moralistic Hollywood would have revolted against this sickening fugitive child rapist.

This is the same Hollywood, after all, that led the global outrage against Donald Trump when a tape emerged of him talking in a lewd, disgraceful manner about how his celebrity status enabled him to grab women 'by the p***y.'

Meryl Streep was almost as shocked and offended by Trump's behaviour as she now says she is by her great friend Weinstein's.

Within days, she appeared in a video called 'Not Okay' that challenged Trump's characterization of his comments as 'locker room talk'.

The video, paid for by independent Hillary Clinton campaign fund-raising group 'Humanity for Hillary', began with powerful evocative testimonials from women and teenagers who had experienced groping and sexual harassment, intercut with the Access Hollywood video featuring Trump's lewd boasts.

It ended with a series of famous women, including Whoopi Goldberg, Maggie Gyllenhall and Amy Schumer, giving their own response.

'Not Okay,' said Meryl Streep, shaking her head.

It was a strong public statement from Hollywood's most successful female star that sexual harassment from rich, powerful men was unacceptable.

At the Golden Globes in January 2017, Streep said of Trump: 'This instinct to humiliate, when it's modelled by someone in the public platform, it filters down into everybody's life, because it kind of gives permission to other people to do the same thing. Disrespect invites disrespect. When the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose.'

A month later, she attacked the now President again: 'Evil prospers when good men do nothing…ain't that the truth.'

Yes, it is, Meryl.

But it thus beggars the question: why, then, did you give a standing ovation to Roman Polanski, when you KNEW every single sordid little detail of how he had raped a child?

Why, when asked about him at a press conference, did you say: 'Roman Polanski? I'm very sorry that he's in jail.'

Why have you never said a public word of criticism about a man who used his powerful position to bully and sexually abuse a young girl? This despite three more women alleging he assaulted them: British actress Charlotte Lewis claimed Polanski forced himself on her just after her 16th birthday in 1983. Another woman identified only as Robin claimed she was 'sexually victimised' by Polanski in 1973 when she was 16. And only this week, a German woman claimed that Polanski raped her too in 1972 when she was 15.

The truth is that Harvey Weinstein was able to get away with what he did for so long because Hollywood, led by two-faced Ms Streep, doesn't really give a damn about powerful men abusing young women.

That's why they cheer Polanski and still finance and star in his movies.

That's why Woody Allen is feted as a beloved genius despite running off with his own adopted daughter.

And it's why Casey Affleck was given the Oscar for Best Actor at this year's Oscars despite settling sexual harassment cases with two female work colleagues, cinematographer Magdalena Gorka and producer Amanda White, who accused him of bragging of his sexual exploits, propositioning and grabbing White, sliding into Gorka's bed uninvited and instructing a crew member to display his penis.

Harvey Weinstein has witnessed all this at first hand, and doubtless calculated that nobody in his town, and his industry, really cares about sexual harassment or abuse.

In fact, they reward, applaud and enrich people for it.

And the really dreadful part of this horrendous saga is that until now, he was right.