You don’t move on, but move forward.

Our little miracle

My wife and I met in 2011. We started our journey to grow our family in 2019 just after we got married. We’d agreed that I was going to carry our baby with my own eggs.

When running some fertility tests, I got an unexpected diagnosis of diminished ovarian reserve. We turned straight to IVF and after 2 cycles, we were successful. Our beautiful daughter Penelope was born in 2021 - our first little miracle. 

Our second pregnancy

We quickly got the ball rolling again as we were keen to give Penelope a sibling. After a failed egg collection, we changed clinics, transferred an embryo, and to our surprise, it stuck. 

I’d struggled with anxiety throughout my daughter's pregnancy, and this pregnancy was no different. Scans generally tended to help ease some of the anxiety, so we went for an early scan at 6 weeks and we were so relieved to see a heartbeat. At 7 weeks, we graduated from our fertility clinic, hoping that this would be the last time we needed to take the long trip down there. 

At 8 weeks I had some spotting. I spoke to a GP that same day and he called it a ‘threatened miscarriage’. I was on a walk with my sister at the time and remember saying what a crazy thing for him to say, why was he throwing that term around so flippantly.

Unbearable pain

I was booked into the EPU for a scan the following week and also had a private scan that day. At the scan I was told everything was fine, there was nothing to worry about. Sadly, a later scan confirmed I’d had a missed miscarriage. Unbeknown to us, our baby had passed away at 9 weeks.

The devastation we felt was unbearable. Our world was crushed, life no longer felt ‘safe', and waking up each day knowing our baby was gone was the most painful thing I’ve ever experienced in my life. I still cannot process that day and I’m currently undergoing counselling. My wife Hannah, as the non-bio mum, was broken too and that was really hard for me to also watch - she’s usually the strong one but this floored us both. 

I was admitted to hospital for medical management, a scary experience where I haemorrhaged. The next 7 weeks were spent in and out of hospital due to retained pregnancy tissue and bleeding until I received a hysteroscopy.

Finding comfort in others

Like many before in this situation, we were simply handed a leaflet and left to get on with it. I felt such deep anger and frustration at the world for not talking about loss and for not doing anything about it; then I found Tommy’s.

Tommy’s information, research and stories really saved me. Without them, I’m not sure how we would have navigated those dark days. Although my baby couldn’t be saved, Tommy’s are saving so many babies through the work they do and that to me is incredible.

Reading other stories gave me such comfort and made me feel like I wasn't so alone. It was also comforting to see what research was underway and using that to help guide my future treatment.

I found it difficult listening to people telling me that things would get easier with time. But, even though I found it really frustrating at the time, they were right. Time allowed me to learn how to live with the pain, sit with the feelings and process what had happened. You don't move on, but move forward.
 

To anyone going through baby loss

 My advice would be to really find something that helps you get through those dark days; for me it was distraction. I’m not a games person at all but for some reason I found playing tetris really helped keep my mind off the traumatic scan and what followed. I also listened to podcasts and sought out other peoples’ stories. 

And finally, there is no ‘at least’. Should anyone say that to you, then they are wrong. I was told things such as, “it wasn’t meant to be”, “at least we have our daughter” etc… but there is no ‘at least’ to your loss. There is no ‘up-side’ to your loss. You lost your baby and you have every right to deal with this in your own way.

Welcoming our rainbow baby

Two days after the hysteroscopy I started medication for my next frozen embryo transfer. Too soon? I think that’s what a lot of people thought, my consultant included, but it was the only thing I could focus on and (naively) thought would heal me.

 Fortunately that round was successful. It didn’t heal me. Far from it: Instead it brought a complicated pregnancy, riddled with bleeding episodes, excruciating anxiety that saw my mental health hit rock bottom. But we made it through together and our beautiful rainbow baby Adaline was born earlier this year.

Not a day goes by where I don’t think about the baby we lost and what we went through to bring Adaline home safely. The pain will never leave us but we can now start building memories with the family we so desperately dreamed of and fought for.