How an accident broke my heart

No matter how teeny tiny, no matter what stage of pregnancy it was, I lost my first baby. I never got to know if it was a boy or a girl. I never got to know why it happened. What went wrong or if I could have done anything differently.

Story of baby loss by Laura

In December 2016, I found out that I was pregnant.

In August 2016 my 8 year relationship ended and I had only been seeing the father of my baby for 2 months so falling pregnant accidentally felt insane and scary!

However, I fully embraced the pregnancy.

I felt my fear and got on with making the best out of this surprise situation! Immediately started looking after myself. Reading week by week how my baby was growing and developing inside of me. Continued swimming. Started my pelvic floor exercises from day 1.

Told my GP and went to my first midwife appointment. I felt like I was doing everything right. Staying healthy and informed throughout the process.

Then one evening, I started to bleed. Even then I wasn't worried. I had read about how lots of women experience bleeding during the first trimester and go on to have healthy pregnancies. I went to A&E where they did a pregnancy test and it was positive so again I wasn't worried.

The following day I was sent for a scan. An internal scan as I was just at 12 weeks. I was due to have my 12 week scan few days after this. I was told "You're having a miscarriage. It's what we call a 'silent miscarriage' as you haven't had any symptoms but the baby is no bigger than 6 weeks. You'll have to comeback in two weeks for us to check if the miscarriage has taken place". I was given some leaflets to read, booked an appointment for two weeks time and left.

My partner and I stood outside, embraced and cried. Although we were both terrified about having a baby we were both utterly heartbroken that our baby had gone. We had thought of names. We had discussed what sex we thought it was. We knew how a 12 week old fetus should look etc. But it was gone.

People said "at least it happened at this stage and not later". People don't understand that this really doesn't help. People said "go and spend time with your niece. That will make you feel better".

People didn't understand that being near another baby made me feel like I wanted to crawl in to a dark hole and scream. Seeing pregnant women or women with babies was soul destroying.

The miscarriage itself took a long time. I went back after two weeks. Only some of it has come out and I was told that some 'tissue' was remaining that would pass by itself. It was months later that I was bent over in agony when what remained passed. I wish I had the D&C straight away but nobody told me about it.

It's strange how something that was an accident broke my heart so badly and it will never leave me knowing that I have lost a child.

No matter how teeny tiny, no matter what stage of pregnancy it was, I lost my first baby. I never got to know if it was a boy or a girl. I never got to know why it happened. What went wrong. If I could have done anything differently.

In August 2017, again I fell pregnant... Again by accident but luckily by this stage my relationship with the same partner was still going strong :-D.

Although you may judge me for being irresponsible and for allowing myself to fall pregnant twice by accident, I now couldn't possibly be more happy for being irresponsible.

I am now mother to a 5 month old rainbow baby boy who is the absolute centre of my universe.

I spent my entire pregnancy terrified that something bad was going to happen and that again I'd lose a baby but as soon as he came in to the world, every bit of fear and anxiety left my mind. I have fallen in love with all things birth and baby to the extent that I am now in the process of starting my own business where I teach Hypnobirthing, baby massage, baby yoga and other postnatal support classes.

My babies have changed my life. Both my baby who passed and my awesome baby who is lying asleep on my lap following a mega feed.

1 in 4 pregnancies in the UK end in miscarriage. We should not be ashamed, we should not suffer in silence, we should not feel like we need to hide.

Things do get better... I promise you.