17 June 2020

I remember sitting in the waiting room feeling a little bit nervous and excited to see our 12 week scan – our baby – for the first time. We’d bought a personalised baby grow and a countdown chalk board ready to announce the scan to all of our friends and family and then the worst happened…

Pregnancy came as quite a big shock to me at first. I’d been working hard on the frontline battle against coronavirus on A&E alongside of my colleagues. I knew I’d missed my period so that’s when I decided to take the test and my first one came back negative! Luckily throughout I’ve managed to keep safe at work and I’ve never contracted the virus myself.

A couple of weeks later, still no signs of a period but I had ongoing lower back pain so I decided to retake the test and that’s when our whole world changed… positive! We had our estimated due date 21st December 2020… our little Christmas baby. We knew Christmas was going to be different this year with our little bundle of joy, but we were both looking forward to the new addition to our little family. It was my first pregnancy so excitedly up until the first scan we had bought a couple of baby toys and comforters and started planning on our announcement.

On the day of the 12 week scan, my partner Rob wasn’t allowed to come with me because of the coronavirus so he went to work as normal and arranged to finish a bit earlier to come and see the scan as soon as I had it. I thought I was one of those lucky girls who hadn’t experienced many symptoms during pregnancy. I remember lying on the couch and the sonographer had started asking me questions “when was your last period”, “when did you take the pregnancy test” by then I knew there was something wrong. She showed me the scan and told me my baby didn’t have a heart beat.

I was lying there wishing my partner was with me. I was thinking about how I was going to tell him – the most heartbreaking part about it was having to go through it all again and tell my partner what had happened in the scan. After the longest 20 minutes sitting in a quiet room on my own I remember walking outside the hospital and bursting into tears. My dad and step mum had been waiting for me in the car during my scan and when I felt ready to go and tell them what happened my dad saw me in tears and gave me a massive cuddle.

We had to wait another week. We had one week to see if our little peanut would grow and develop a heart beat. One week. We still had hope.

Over the weekend after my scan I ended up being rushed into hospital with heavy PV bleeds and excruciating abdominal cramps. I knew this was it. I knew I was losing the baby. I was diagnosed with a delayed miscarriage. I chose to take medication to help pass the baby at home because after all of the PV bleeding I still hadn’t passed any of the pregnancy products. Eventually I was discharged with pain relief when my bleeding settled. I found it really difficult that my partner couldn’t be with me in hospital. I remember feeling so alone and I’d been in a side room all night passing blood. All I wanted was for him to be there to cuddle me.

It’s one of those situations where I didn’t think this would happen to us and I will never forget the pain and heartbreak of losing our baby. A dull ache sits on my chest… all of our excitement to meet our new little addition to our family for Christmas has been taken away. Just like that. We lost our baby on the 17th June 2020. I’ve attached a photo of the lovely flowers my step mum bought me after I was discharged from hospital. I broke down into tears when she gave them me. The past week has been so overwhelming and upsetting. I’m now focusing on my recovery. Taking one step at a time.

The date above is the date we lost our baby, it’s all happened very recently. I wanted to write about it and share our story, raise awareness and whoever reads this and is going through a miscarriage you’re strong.. so strong.

17th June 2020 – it’s a date we’ll never forget.

If you are going through this please never feel ashamed or embarrassed. It’s definitely something we should not be ashamed about and remember you are never on your own. Sending all my love.

Niamh x