Baby Loss Awareness Week – because every pregnancy loss matters

We are so thankful to everyone who contributes to Baby Loss Awareness Week. Sharing stories, raising funds and getting involved on social media – it all helps us to spread the word and raise awareness of the impact of miscarriage, ectopic and molar pregnancy.

Crucially, you help us all create and maintain this special opportunity for remembrance and for acknowledging the tiny lives lost in pregnancy.

During the week we try to share a wide range of your stories on social media. Sharing experiences can really make a difference in helping others feel less alone. Here, we share Sarah’s thoughts after the loss of her baby.

You were not just an insignificant collection of cells or just the promise of a life – you were my baby and that is how you will be remembered.

“There are many moments in a life. Many are mundane and meaningless, and they pass and are forgotten. However, some stay with you forever. The moment I saw the blue cross I’d been waiting to see, since the century ago that I’d decided it was time for parenthood. The moment I saw the tiny, almost indiscernible, yet life changing flicker of your heartbeat on the screen from the ultrasound. The moment when I realised that that was all I would ever know of you, when I didn’t need to look at the screen to know you were lost to me.

“Some might say you were just an insignificant collection of cells, just the promise of, not actually, a life. However, to me you were the moment I held you, my first child, for the first time. You were the first moments you walked and talked. Countless family holidays and days out. The first time you slammed your bedroom door shut, my own temper finally catching up with me. The day you left home, perhaps graduated. The traumatic end of your first relationship and the day you said your wedding vows. A mother, maybe, yourself. All in all, an entire life.

“Now all that’s left is an awkward, empty silence. After all, what can anyone really say about someone who never really was. Nevertheless, however awkward or empty the silence, know that the one monochrome scan I have of the day I saw your heart beating, in the very short amount of time it was beating, was enough to me. You were not just an insignificant collection of cells or just the promise of a life – you were my baby and that is how you will be remembered.”

By Sarah