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 […]
All the leaflets they give you after a miscarriage or other kind of baby loss tend to tell you sympathetic but vague things. A soup of words such as ‘profound emotional impact’, ‘bereavement period’ and ‘time to recover’ swim and muddle themselves on the page, while you’re still trying to comprehend what has happened. Just […]
This guest post landed at exactly the right moment for me. I’ve been feeling a bit low – perhaps because we’re into the run-up to Mother’s Day here in the UK – and I’ve found myself dwelling on what I don’t have and what I haven’t done. After miscarriage and baby loss (and to a […]
It’s an internet truth universally acknowledged that a person in possession of a womb must be in want of a pregnancy test. Or an ovulation stick. Or perhaps some adorable matching mama-and-baby leggings. The internet knows when you’re pregnant. Or, at least, it has very strong ideas about when you should be pregnant. I got my […]
I have a set of candlesticks that have moved with me everywhere I’ve lived as an adult. A trio of white, glossy ceramic with long stems and Hygge pretensions (meaning: I bought them from Ikea as a student). The other weekend my mum was round and as we sat at my dining table drinking coffee she […]
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 was going to write a different post for the week before Christmas. About how Dan and I are trying to wring every last drop of joy from the festive season this year, my first not working – not on Christmas Day, not on Boxing Day, not on any of those surreal, time-passing-slow-as-treacle days in […]
I recently finished Michelle Obama’s autobiography. I bought it in its first week – along with literally a million other people. It is an incredibly warm, wise book – a book that says so much about womanhood, race, love, grief, marriage, privilege and, yes, politics. It’s full of lines that have you nodding along, thinking […]
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 […]
The Uterus Monologues: Miscarriage, motherhood and me 