Samantha streams and Steps Up to support the M.A.
Samantha shares her story of pregnancy loss and why she wanted to help raise funds and awareness.
I didn’t realise how common miscarriages were until I had one... This lack of awareness has really encouraged me to get involved with the Miscarriage Association and help to spread the word!
My partner and I bought our first house together and moved in in 2016. Later that year we found out we were expecting our first child. We were so happy, everything seemed to have come together at just the right moment. Unfortunately, that was soon to fade. A couple of months later, at 9 weeks, I had a miscarriage.
It was the most devastating thing to happen and I never thought it could happen to me. The shock of the miscarriage really threw me and it took me a while to recover both physically and mentally.
A few months later we decided to try again, but it took us a good year to conceive. I finally fell pregnant towards the end of 2017. I was scared and excited at the same time, but kept telling myself ‘it can’t happen twice’. Convinced that the pregnancy would go full term we started making minor adjustments in preparation for the arrival.
During this time my Bampi was very unwell, he was back and forth to the hospital. I had also been back and forth to the doctors as I had started to bleed, not much but a bleed none the less and of course I was extremely worried I was going to have a miscarriage again.
A month or so later I had a phone call from my mum asking me to come to the hospital as my Bampi had just died. I was already there, a few floors above, having my second miscarriage. I left the ward as soon as I could to go and see him.
I was in utter shock. I had had a miscarriage and my Bampi had died in the same week. I was devastated, my world had crumbled yet again and I couldn’t understand why I’d had a second miscarriage. I certainly didn’t want to try again, I couldn’t cope with losing another one. We decided to not think about it for the rest of the year.
Christmas came and I started noticing some pregnancy symptoms. I decided it was nothing and put it out of my mind. We got through Christmas, it was nice to have some time off work and spend time with family, remembering Bampi and putting the miscarriages to the back of my mind.
My pregnancy symptoms were getting stronger and on New Year’s Day I decided to do a test, pretty sure I wasn’t pregnant but of course I needed to check. It was positive. I have never felt so lost in my entire life. I didn’t know what to do, the elation that I had felt from the last two pregnancies just wasn’t there. I felt terrified and empty, and I didn’t want to tell my partner. Eventually I did and he was over the moon.
The pregnancy was horrible, not physically but I worried the whole time and felt guilty that I wasn’t excited. I was waiting for another miscarriage, I didn’t want to get my hopes up.
After the 12-week mark however I started to relax a little bit more and look forward to the birth, but I was still always waiting for something to happen.
At 34 weeks I went into labour and we had our baby son at 21:09 on the 6th August 2018. He was premature and so needed some extra help, but I was just relieved that he was here, safe and healthy. He stayed in the Special Care Baby Unit for just over a week and then we could take him home and finally start our life as parents!
I stumbled across the Miscarriage Association in someone’s stream on Twitch. I immediately wanted to get involved and help spread awareness. I am a streamer myself and I wanted to do something for Baby Loss Awareness Week in October 2021, so I set up a group of streamers to help and each day we had a different streamer raising money for the cause. We raised an amazing £949.62 which was almost double our target.
This year, 2022, I have taken part in the Step Up* challenge and again raised more money than I thought I would. I have found it difficult to get my steps in at times but knowing why I am doing it really helps me push and I WILL reach my target by the 31st!
I didn’t realise how common miscarriages were until I had one, then suddenly you realise everyone you know has had one or knows someone who has. This lack of awareness has really encouraged me to get involved with the Miscarriage Association and help to spread the word!
* Step Up for the M.A. is our fundraiser which challenges people to complete 250,000 steps throughout the month of January, the same number of steps as the number of pregnancies that are estimated to end in miscarriage in the UK each year.