The reality of grief lands when we come to realise that these waves of deep sadness will ripple through our souls for the rest of our lives. Moments when our breath feels knocked from our bodies, moments when all we can feel is the weight of the pain that we now carry, moments when simply none of this makes sense. This is the rawness of grief; this is the power of love.

The irony for me as a Grief Coach is that I had always shared how I could never quite comprehend the loss of a baby as it was never something I had journeyed through. I share and guide others often on parent loss after losing my Dad in 2019 but being a mum already to two boys and three stepchildren it felt uncomfortable to me to even explore the depth of how that would feel for a parent, that is until recently when grief, as it does, ripped back through our lives and we lost our baby in April this year.

We experienced what is called a ‘missed miscarriage’, something I had only heard of a few times and something that I never felt would happen to us. We hear the statistic 1 in 4, but as human beings, we often catch ourselves in feelings of being so invincible that it doesn’t occur to us that we could soon be journeying through what so many others are journeying to.

Going for our scan at 12 weeks we were told the heart-crushing news that our beautiful baby had passed away a few weeks before but had remained in my womb with no heartbeat. This moment to me was a pain like no other. A gut-wrenching cry, an emptiness, desperation for it all to be a mistake and our baby to be fine and ok. So many emotions crashed through me at one time, it felt as though I could hardly breathe.

As the weeks went on; filled with scans, telephone appointments and the physical loss of our baby, I found myself in a space of complete darkness. I felt so angry at life, at my body, I felt so heartbroken for the memories that will never be made, the future our baby would never get to have. So much to navigate when so little felt in my control.

It became so apparent to me how little miscarriage is explored when it comes to the openness of the pain it leaves behind. Women are left with words such as “It just wasn’t the right time” or “You can try again” but what women want you to know is that none of that matters, because it isn’t about the next time or the next chance, it’s only about the now, about the loss of this baby, the loss of this life, that’s how many of us wish to be seen.

We know with our loss that nothing can fill such an evident void, how could it when a life that’s so precious was created and began to grow within our body? We know that nothing can mend the broken pieces of our hearts, and we wouldn’t want it to as our pain is the evidence of our love and that’s all that remains now.

All we ask is to be seen in our loss. To be seen in our pain, to be seen in the grieving of an unreachable future with our baby that’s passed. 1 in 4 is many, many, many families, that’s many women left empty without a baby in her arms. So please, be open to our pain, understand there is no fix or replacement to come because right now all we wish is for our story to have turned out differently, for our baby to have come home and for our family to feel whole.

For all women journeying miscarriage – I see you.

With thanks to Phoebe Young, Grief Coach, @griefandspirit

The below UK charities are able to offer support if you, or someone you know, have experienced baby loss:

Miscarriage Association

Tommy’s 

Petals

Sands

Saying Goodbye