As someone who has lost 4 babies, I’ve always found Mother’s Day triggering

Starting my pregnancy journey

I’ve always wanted children and to be a mum. But over the space of 11 years, I’ve had 4 losses, ranging from 9 weeks to 23 weeks.  

In 2007, I got pregnant for the first time. I was feeling positive about it all but at 18 weeks I went into spontaneous labour. My membranes ruptured and my daughter couldn’t be saved. It was heartbreaking.

I got pregnant again in 2008 and was feeling nervous. This pregnancy didn’t progress as far as my first, and at 9 weeks I found out it was a molar pregnancy. I didn’t get pregnant again for another 4 years after that.

Never in a million years did I imagine baby loss would happen to me.  

I'd never thought of miscarriage it was never spoken about I was never educated about it.

Although miscarriages happened in my family, I didn’t ever think I'd experience it.

More loss

In 2012, I got pregnant and found out I was having a son. But I soon began to notice the same symptoms I had during my first pregnancy. I found out I’d lost my son at 16 weeks.  

After 3 losses, I knew something had to be done. For my 4th pregnancy, I had a vaginal stitch put in place to stop my cervix from opening. This worked well for a while and took me further than any of my other pregnancies. But unfortunately, the stitch didn’t hold and I lost my son at 23 weeks.

Living with grief  

After my losses, I was even more determined to have children. It became my ultimate goal, and at some point, an obsession.

As much as I wanted people and the community to understand my feelings, I just felt alone. People didn’t understand what to say so my grief was unseen by everyone. This made me feel like I wasn’t allowed to grieve. I pushed my grief away and tried to get on with a 'normal' life, but this was hard.  

“We all know once you have a loss nothing remains normal.”

Welcoming my daughter

I found out I have a weak cervix, which is where the cervix shortens and opens too early. Because of this, and because my stitch had failed, I had a trans-abdominal cerclage (TAC) put in.  

3 years later, I got pregnant again, and spent the whole time full of anxiety. As well as bleeding on and off, I had a subchorionic hematoma at 10 weeks.  

Doctors told me my baby only had 20% survival, which was terrifying. But somehow she fought through and I gave birth to my daughter in March 2020. She’s now a healthy 3-year-old and I couldn’t love her more.

My message to others  

To anyone going through pregnancy and loss: You are a mum. I wish I had understood earlier in my journey that whether my baby is here with me or not, I’m still a mother.

We have celebrated Mother’s Day every year since my daughter arrived, but before that I would just silently say happy Mother’s Day to myself.

As someone who has lost 4 babies, I’ve always found Mother’s Day triggering. Mother's Day can be hard, especially the lead up to it. Seeing it advertised all around us can be so triggering, but be gentle on yourself and take the time you need to get through this day. It doesn't matter if people don’t understand, make sure you do what’s right for you.