There is a pregnancy of mine I haven’t written about before, for the simple reason that I don’t know for certain that it was actually a pregnancy. It happened (or didn’t happen, as the case may be) after we’d been trying to conceive for about six months, well before our first miscarriage. I was about […]
As you may know, we are trying to conceive again after a break of a little over a year. There are lots of reasons why it has ended up being such a long gap, among them how utterly broken we both felt after our fourth miscarriage, and the decision to plan a long-haul holiday for […]
I wrote this for a newspaper a week or so ago, but thought I’d share it here, too, in case any of you missed it. I tried to unravel the many complex reasons women often feel they can’t take even a single day out after – or even during – a miscarriage. Please do share your […]
I’ve got a piece in this month’s Red magazine about socialising – specifically, how to be sociable when you don’t feel like it. I’d pitched it after seeing one too many ‘I’m sorry I’m late, I didn’t want to come’ memes, thinking that it would be interesting to delve into why we’re all apparently so […]
Often when we describe pregnancy loss as a taboo, what we really mean, I think, isn’t so much that it’s completely unmentionable – or impossible to admit to – and more that we feel other people have no idea what our lives are like afterwards. That sense of feeling invisible and not properly understood can […]
‘Isn’t she beautiful?’ the advert asks. The subject of its question smiles out at me. Luminously lit in black bra and leggings, she holds her tiny baby close to her face, hands circled firmly around its back, as one pudgy leg dandles down, nudging the soft camber of her stomach, which is rippled with purple […]
This week marks two years precisely since our first miscarriage. I almost didn’t remember…until I did. I’m not normally in the habit of marking the anniversaries of our miscarriages – or even the due dates any more. For a start, I am yet to find any sort of ritual I feel comfortable with. But also there […]
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about things that help. Not just in those initial raw, grief-soaked days and weeks after a loss, but in the longer term. I took part in Bide & Bloom’s #thebigselfcareshare the other week, and it’s been on my mind a lot since then. One thing I didn’t mention in […]
I’ve been thinking a lot about what I thought I would write for this week – it’s Baby Loss Awareness Week in the UK right now – and honestly? I’ve struggled. I feel like it deserves my best ‘content’, my best efforts. Me at my most opinionated, campaigning, vociferous self. But my heart is just […]
