'What shall I wear to the funeral of our baby boy?’ That is a thought I never thought I’d have. It’s two days after it happened when that thought enters my mind. Somehow I’ve managed to keep going during the days, but it’s during the nights when the thoughts and questions start haunting me. Sometimes they are ludicrously trivial, like this one. Sometimes they are desperate thoughts of guilt, of sorrow and always the same ‘why, why, why?’ I’ve lost our beautiful baby boy. I was 18 weeks pregnant when it happened.

I remember being scared during my first pregnancy, scared that things would go wrong. I knew so many women with whom something had gone wrong at some point, that I almost assumed it would happen to me too. But this was my second pregnancy, and I’d become a bit blasé. In fact, I wasn’t really that occupied with being pregnant as I was too busy looking after my toddler and working on my career.

When things start to go wrong, I am in complete denial for as long as possible. Only when my light spotting and abdominal pain starts being accompanied by mild contractions, I know I have to face the facts and go to hospital. But the obstetrician can’t find anything obvious on the scan and the contractions have stopped by that time. I will have to come back after the weekend for a more in-depth scan, but I feel quite reassured. All I have to do is take it easy and everything will be alright, I tell myself.

When my waters break a day later I know I have been lying to myself. I know immediately what’s happening and then I go into a complete state of shock. It’s the prospect of the labour pains that I’ll need to go through right now that makes me tremble uncontrollably. We wait for the ambulance whilst I’m crying uncontrollably in my mother’s arms. The last time I’ve done that I was still a child. My mum comes in the ambulance with me whilst my partner and dad follow in the car behind.

I can’t hold on until the hospital, it all happens in the ambulance on the way there. It doesn’t hurt, I’m not in pain, this is nothing like my first labour. This gives me a strange sense of relief, until it hits me what’s just happened. I am completely hysterical now and shout and scream. My mum breaks the rule of staying strapped in her seat and sits on my stretcher so she can hold me. She is in so much shock herself that she has no words to say.

It’s in A & E when the painful part starts. The speculum, the prodding and pulling inside me and the numerous attempts to get an IV line in, which will leave me with terribly painful, bruised arms for weeks to come.

When this horrendous ordeal is finally all over, the lovely A & E nurse who has been a lifeline to me throughout this tells me something I’ll never forget. “Please don’t give up hope”, she says, “I had two miscarriages and now I’ve got two healthy boys”.

That night in hospital is the longest night of my life. My partner and I talk a lot. We start talking about changing our lives completely. Let’s move to the countryside and start working for ourselves. Better even, let’s quit our jobs, buy a campervan and travel around the world with our little girl for a while. These thoughts are the only ones to counteract the absolute despair that we both feel.

During the first few days at home the Sands leaflets that we’ve been given in hospital as part of our memory box are a lifeline for me. They give practical advice and make me consider things that I hadn’t even thought of. But mostly they make me realise that I’m not alone. This also becomes my big take-away from subsequent Sands meetings that I attend. To hear everyone else’s experiences, to know that I’m not alone does make things a little easier.  It’s also a support for me to know that everyone struggles with the ‘why why why’ question. Even people who do know why it happened to them and their baby, ask themselves ‘why me?’

I talk a lot with my family during that first period. My sister, who has also suffered a miscarriage tells me something that rings true to me. “Right now this is a very raw and open wound for you”, she says, “and will take a very long time, but that wound will eventually heal, somehow. You will always have a scar and from time to time this scar will really hurt”. In that first dark period I hold on to those words for dear life.

It is during this period that I start thinking about my life as it is right now, and I decide to readdress my priorities. I decide there and then that I want to reduce my work hours and have more time for myself, so that the time that I do have with my family is spent doing fun stuff together. It is sad that I had to go through this tragedy in order to make this important life decision.

A few weeks later I see my boss for the first time after it’s happened. He visits me at home and I give him the Sands leaflet for employers, which he finds really helpful.  Over the next period he is fantastic. He lets me have all the time off that I need, he visits me occasionally (but only when I want to), and he suggests that a few of my close colleagues come to visit me too, plus for me to come to the office just to say ‘hi’ to everyone before my official return. All of these things are hugely beneficial for making my return to work as easy as possible. My boss also understands why I want to reduce my hours and he is happy to arrange this for me, which means an awful lot to me. The first few days upon my return to work are tough, but I am happy now to be back and moreover, to have a better work-life balance.

Six weeks after the miscarriage, the funeral of our baby boy takes place. We have had to wait so long due to administrative reasons. Different to what most people assume, we actually find this long wait helpful, as we have managed to put a service together in exactly the way we want it. The funeral is an intimate affair and a true step forwards for both of us in the healing process.

Some people believe that every child, however briefly they might be with us, brings us something positive. I like to think that our baby boy - however much I miss him and however much I wish we hadn’t had to lose him - has brought me more inner peace and appreciation for everything that I do have in this life; a wonderful partner and a lovely little girl.

Laetitia