Crash heartbreak: Auckland couple lose unborn baby after two-car head-on collision

The couple's car was a write-off after the crash on Friday night. Photo / Supplied

Nancy De Arcos had always dreamed of having a little girl.

Her husband, Eder Rivera, says they already had an 18-month-old son and his wife was 4 months' pregnant.

They were yet to discover the sex of the baby, but just last week De Arcos had phoned excitedly to tell him that she felt it move for the first time.

However, just before midnight on Friday, after finishing their first night at the Papatoetoe night markets near K-Mart, his wife's dream was horrifically taken away from her.

As they drove off, in separate cars, from the market after packing up their Mexican food stall, Tacos El Carnal, they headed to their Avondale home.

But as Rivera, 29, drove off, a couple of minutes later, he heard a loud bang.

"I think I was a block ahead of her and about to take the [SH20] motorway when I heard this loud noise and I looked in the rearview mirror and I didn't see her."

He turned around and then discovered his wife's car up against a tree on a neighbouring property after smashing through a fence, because of the impact of colliding with another vehicle.

A pedestrian was helping pull his wife free of the car, while concerned neighbours had come out of their homes to see what happened.

"I saw the car, I couldn't believe how the car was. There was smoke coming out of it. I was shocked, and a guy was lowering my wife onto the ground."

Nancy De Arcos recovers in Middlemore Hospital after losing her 4-month-old unborn baby in a crash on Friday night. Photo / Supplied

Three young men were also standing around. Rivera claims he was told by police that the driver fell asleep at the wheel just before the crash.

"She had turned right and then as soon as she started driving on that street she just saw lights and the car hit her."

The driver's side of his wife's car took the full force of the crash.

De Arcos, 28, had a deep gash to her knee, many cuts and bruises and internal bleeding.

"I can't believe how she's still alive ... the car was completely smashed."

He got out of his car and held her until emergency services arrived.

"I got on my knees and was just holding her, because she was in shock and crying for her baby saying 'how's my baby', 'please help save my baby'.

"I was at the same time trying to phone emergency services but I couldn't dial, so someone else called them."

Rivera, who has been in New Zealand for four years and De Arcos for three years, said they were both excited about the pregnancy, especially his wife.

While he has an older daughter with a former partner she desperately wanted a girl.

Eder Rivera, 29, with wife Nancy De Arcos, 28, and their children, Amy, 8, and Diego, 18 months. Photo / Supplied

"This was going to be our second child. Obviously we were very excited because we were hoping to have a girl and sadly the baby was a girl.

"The baby was already formed and it was basically just ready to grow."

He said Friday had been "a very special day" as his wife finally got to open a small business selling Mexican food they had set up.

They'd a reasonably busy night at the markets and were heading home when the tragedy struck.

Rivera said they were told when his wife went into surgery at Middlemore Hospital during the early hours of Saturday morning that his wife had internal bleeding and their baby was not responding.

Speaking to the Herald from his wife's beside today, said after surgery to have their baby removed, De Arcos was able to hold it in a strikingly emotional moment.

"They gave her the baby ... she started singing to the baby, kissing her. It was tough to see. I was trying to hold it together and not to break, but that was just too much.

"I was still hoping that it didn't look like a baby, but it was fully formed."

De Arcos is haunted by the loss and breaks down during today's interview as she hears a baby cry in her ward at hospital.

"They had to put her into her own room because there's other mothers having their kids."

He said police had been in touch and were unaware of the loss of their daughter until told by Rivera.

Police have been contacted for comment.

Rivera said hospital staff had told them his wife would have to remain in hospital for another three to five days.