Standing backstage, I caught a glimpse of myself in the full-length mirror the actors used to check their costumes and make-up and I frowned.
‘My bump looks really weird,’ I noticed uneasily. No longer high and firm, it looked… deflated. Like a flat tyre.
Getting home from my job as a stage manager in the theatre, I lay in bed next to my husband, Agust, and we spent the night prodding my bump, trying to coax a wiggle or kick out of our unborn baby.
‘It’s not unusual,’ I reminded myself, trying to calm my growing nerves.
But this second pregnancy was completely different to my first. When I carried Isabelle, she’d been so feisty, she never stopped moving. But this second little one would go for days without kicking.
So much so, I’d ended up at the hospital on various occasions, having her heartbeat checked.
But every time, everything had been fine and at the 20-week scan, we’d seen her on the ultrasound screen, bobbing happily in my womb.
Yet now, at 30 weeks pregnant in December 2013, as my baby refused to give a reassuring wiggle, my worries resurfaced. The next day was Agust’s 40th birthday and we were due to go away for the night, but we decided I should go to the hospital beforehand, just to get checked out.
‘I’ll come with you,’ he offered. But I shook my head, and insisted I went alone. I don’t know if, deep down, I already knew and I was trying to protect him.
Because when I arrived, the midwife couldn’t find the heartbeat. ‘I’m sorry,’ she told me gently. ‘Your baby has passed away.’
‘No!’ I screamed, sobs rising in my chest. They called my husband and explained I’d have to be induced and give birth to her.
Going home, to the house where we’d already prepared the nursery for our little girl, got her crib ready and hung up her impossibly small babygrows and vests, felt completely surreal. From the outside, everything was the same, but on the inside, quite literally, everything had changed.
And 24 hours later, as I gave birth to my little girl, I looked around at Agust and the midwives, all crying, and I wondered, ‘Is this really happening?’
But, when the midwives handed her to me, wearing a tiny hat and babygrow, there was no denying this was heartbreakingly, devastatingly, real.
We named her Rosa and, when my theatre company heard, they sent me a rose bush. We planted it in the back garden, in memory of her.
I questioned myself constantly. Had I worked too hard? Was it my fault? The doctors insisted not, but I couldn’t help but blame myself.
A month later, we buried her in a baby memorial garden in Aldersbrook and I wondered what I was going to do with my life. I’d been all set to take a break from work, be a mum again – now, that was all gone.
Also, we had to decide whether or not to try for another baby. I couldn’t bear the idea of going through another pregnancy, but I desperately wanted Isabelle to have a sibling – and, at 40, I wasn’t getting any younger.
So in spring 2014, I fell pregnant again. But at my 12-week scan, there was no heartbeat again. It was like a recurring nightmare.
The midwives told me that they could give me a tablet, but I just couldn’t bear to physically miscarry, and I begged them to operate. It was a Friday, so they put me forward for surgery on Monday.
But over the weekend, I started to feel stomach cramps and began to bleed heavily. As I got to the hospital car park, I began to haemorrhage and passed out. By the time I woke up, they’d removed my baby – another little girl.
I was at my lowest, completely broken. I didn’t want to do anything or see anyone. I stayed in bed, grieving for the two little girls I’d never watch grow up.
But just as they were the cause of my desperate depression, my remaining little girl, Isabelle, was the only one to pull me out of it. ‘Please come and play with me, Mummy,’ she said, coming into my bedroom one day and holding out her hand.
I realised I had a choice. To stay in bed and be consumed by grief, or to pull myself out of my pain and be a mum to the girl I was lucky enough to have. After all, she was three years old and would be starting school soon. I didn’t want to miss any more time with her.
So that’s what I did. I officially quit work and started working from home, selling skincare beauty products. I didn’t love it, the way I had the theatre, but it meant I could spend time with Isabelle and spend time recovering.
I’d sit in the back garden, next to my rose bush, and talk to Rosa, letting her know she was still very much a part of our family and telling her about my day. Taking that time for myself – and for my little girls – helped, if not heal me, to start to come to terms with my loss.
In 2015, I even felt strong enough to try for another baby. Doctors had discovered, in both pregnancies, that there had been a blockage in one of the tubes from my babies to the placenta, preventing them from getting food and oxygen, and so gave me injections every day to thin my blood.
I was terrified the entire time. Luckily, they understood my fears and, given my history, gave me weekly scans. After hearing the reassuring heartbeat, I’d sleep well that night, before the anxiety would kick in again.
Thankfully, at 37 weeks pregnant, I gave birth to a perfectly healthy baby girl. Sienna. Finally, our family felt complete.
Of course, life as a four – especially with a newborn – became more of a juggle, albeit, a happy one.
That was when I started using time management worksheets, to help carve out time for both my business and my family.
I also passed them onto the other mums I was partnered with in my home-based business. We were mums all feeling the same overwhelm and juggle. And I realised, ‘This is a business.’
In 2016, when Sienna was a year old, I created my home-based business planner. Since then, my business, The Perfect Planner Company, has gone from strength to strength. I’ve created the family planner, I employ staff and have clients from all over the world.
Things may have moved on, but I’ll never forget my two lost girls. I still take a cup of tea outside, to sit next to my rose bush, to think of them. Everyone knows that’s my space, where I go to let my thoughts settle and talk to Rosa.
That’s why I’ve just joined forces with SANDS, the stillbirth and neonatal death charity. Together, we’re launching our Baby Love collection in Baby Loss Awareness Week (9-15 October), to raise money to plant new trees and plants in memory of other babies who slipped away before making it into this world.
Hopefully, it will give their parents a space to find peace with their loss. I know, more than anyone, how much they need it.
For more info and to view the Baby Love collection, visit www.perfectplannerco.com/product/baby-love-collection
As told to Sarah Whiteley
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