Our Story
On the 5th of January 2021, my life changed forever. I was 10.5 weeks pregnant and woke up to my first born daughters cuddles and laughter. I went to the bathroom and unexpectedly found some blood in my underwear.
As I had not experienced any bleeding in my first pregnancy, I thought it best to go to hospital to get assessed and some reassurance that our baby was okay. I went alone as I my husband went to work and I was expecting a quick check up, and I’d be on my way….
What came next changed my world…
When triaged, the midwives didn’t seem too concerned, though said I would have an ultrasound to see how baby was doing. I laid on the bed and felt the warm feeling of adrenaline rush through my body in anticipation. Once I saw our baby on the screen, I could see that the baby had grown since my last scan, and I was happy about that.
However, it very quickly became apparent that my baby wasn’t moving.
…And so, I was looking to see that precious flutter of the heartbeat on the screen. When I realised that I couldn’t see it, I couldn’t bring myself to say anything to the Doctor. I waited
because, although I realised what had potentially happened, I held on to a slight glimmer of hope that maybe I was missing something. With a sense of dread, I eventually asked the Doctor if we should be seeing the heartbeat, she said,
"Yes we should, I'm sorry" .
Seeing our baby resting in my uterus was such a surreal feeling
I’d had a missed miscarriage as the baby had stopped growing at 8.4 weeks. I was informed of the three options of treatment, though as I had already begun bleeding, at that point I decided to continue with the natural/expectant management.
As it turned out, the next 7 weeks turned out to be the most traumatic of my life.
The midwife had mentioned that I could go home and wait for the “tissue” to pass.
How, all of a sudden, did my embryo, my baby, now only be considered as tissue. My baby had had a heartbeat. After asking what I was likely to see, I had been informed that I would likely see blood clots, and I may or may not see the baby whole or not, and or a sac. This was heavy news, how could I deal with this at home? I was sent home with a brochure on early pregnancy loss.
Once at home, the next morning the cramping pain started, and bleeding increased
Clots started to pass and I was unsure of what was what. The last thing I wanted to do was to flush our baby. And so I did all I could to “collect” our baby. I was catching as much of the blood clot in toilet paper, separating this proved extremely challenging. At times I even
attempted to retrieve blood clot from the bottom of the toilet bowl, hardly dignified. I then moved to sitting over a bucket, equally as traumatic and difficult.
Five days after finding out our babies’ heart had stopped beating, a much larger piece of tissue delivered, which I believed to be remnants of the placenta and sac. I kept as much of the blood clot and tissue as I could, though didn’t know what to do next.
Our baby’s remains were sitting in a jar in the fridge, and it took some weeks for me to work out what to do. This time was so traumatic, there was the constant reminder of our loss and yet I wanted to give our baby the dignified respect he/she deserved.
Following some enquiries, we decided to bury our baby at the cemetery in the same plot where my father is buried. My husband and I held a heartbreakingly beautiful graveside ceremony for our baby. I wasn’t expecting to be burying my baby before we had even met.
Moving forward...
We were fortunate to fall pregnant again another two times. However after many blood tests to confirm increasing HCG levels, multiple scans with what seemed like an endless wait between each, we were given the news that both pregnancies were ‘non-viable’.
As a result of the length of time between initial blood tests, scans, the eventual realisation of losses, and the fact my body hadn’t yet realised the pregnancies weren’t progressing, the recommendation was to go directly to surgery for both losses.
Two more losses and a lot more heartache.
Alongside all of the grief that I was experiencing, my thoughts kept coming to how I could possibly help other women experiencing this pain. Thinking of so many women facing this trauma was almost unbelievable.
The one specific area that I realised I could have felt better supported was when I was delivering my baby, at home, alone and without knowing what was happening or what I was going to see. Knowing deeply that I wanted to be able to respectfully farewell our baby. This led me to create Two Souls Co. and the Soul Collection Kit.
My hope is that any woman who so wishes to collect their baby, can do so with dignity and without the associated trauma attached when going through this heartbreak.
On a happier note, I fell pregnant again towards the end of 2022, and despite the challenges of pregnancy after loss, we were blessed to give birth to a beautiful healthy baby girl in August of 2023.
