babyloss

Baby Loss Awareness Week 2019

This year's Baby Loss Awareness Week was a total whirlwind, a bundle of emotions, and I think I'm still trying to process it all.

Guardian & Daily Mail: The 12 week rule

Things kicked off two days before the start of #BLAW2019 when an article I’d written about miscarriage and the 12 week rule was published in the Guardian on Mon 7th Oct - more about this and how it blew up (becoming a ‘new campaign’. according to Dame Jenni Murray!) in my previous post.

Mourning rituals

The following day, on Tues 8th Oct, I attended the funeral of a dear friend, who’d passed away very suddenly and unexpectedly: the day itself was somewhat of a blur, but on reflection I can’t help but think about mourning her death and celebrating her life juxtaposed with how we commemorate losses for those family members who never joined the family tree.

Tortoise: Why don’t we talk about miscarriage?

Immediately after the funeral I attended a Tortoise ThinkIn event titled Why don't we talk about miscarriage? Tortoise describe their ThinkIn events as ‘the engine of open journalism’:

“A ThinkIn is not another panel discussion. It is a forum for civilised disagreement. Modelled on what we call a ‘leader conference’ in the UK (or an editorial board in the US), it is a place where everyone has a seat at the table. It’s where we get to hear what you think, drawn from your experience, energy and expertise. It’s where, together, we sift through what we know to come to a clear, concise point of view.”
— Tortoise

Editor Polly Curtis reached out to me on Twitter to very kindly invite me to the event after she’d read my article about the 12-week rule - but I only learned afterwards that she has a particularly personal perspective on this subject, having written about her own experience of 8 devastating miscarriages in the Guardian in 2015. She chaired the discussion, featuring 3 terrific special guests

Here’s some highlights from a really inspiring, thought-provoking evening (& a full recording of the event is available here):

A few thoughts from the room, from our ThinkIn: "why don't we talk about miscarriage?"

 

Moncrieff

Then on Thu 10th Oct I was thrilled to be invited onto Moncrieff (apparently one of Ireland's most popular afternoon shows!) on Newstalk FM to discuss the 12-week rule with presenter Seán Moncrieff - you can listen to the interview on the Newstalk website (approx 12 mins - not deliberate!) We spoke about why the 12-week rule is harmful, why I want to change the way we talk about pregnancy loss, and also a little about my own experience of infertility and miscarriage (and why I think it's time to reclaim the word 'barren'!)

 

The cycle of life

In a cruel accident of timing, I was discussing my first miscarriage on national radio on the very day that would have been that baby's due date - and in another life we might have been celebrating a 3rd birthday.

In another life we wouldn’t have been lighting two candles at 7pm on the 15th October, for the global #WaveOfLight, where grieving parents across the world light candles to remember all the babies who have died too soon.

But in this life our journey took a different path. And just as we mourn loss, we celebrate new life. The morning my Guardian article came out, just before the start of #BLAW2019, I received the most wonderful (and unexpected) news from my brother. My beautiful nephew had come into the world 4 weeks early, and I was now an aunt. I am utterly besotted and overwhelmed with love for this tiny human, and so overjoyed he is safely here.

A microcosm of life in one week - birth, death, memories, new experiences, happy, sad and everything in between. Life, eh?

Guardian: Time to scrap the 12-week rule

Last year for Baby Loss Awareness Week I wrote an article for the Guardian about the language of pregnancy loss, and I was thrilled to be given the opportunity again this year. This year I wrote about the '12-week rule'; how it perpetuates the notion that miscarriage is something to hide and we shouldn’t make a fuss, thereby forcing so many women & couples to suffer in silence - and why we need a more empathic and supportive culture around early pregnancy loss.

For something that's so common (1 in 4 pregnancies ends in loss), miscarriage can feel so incredibly lonely, because we're made to feel that it's no big deal and something we should sweep under the carpet. There's a difference between privacy and secrecy: privacy is voluntary, it's a choice you make to keep information to yourself - whereas secrecy is involuntary, when information is kept private out of fear for the consequences. The decision about what, when & if to share information about fertility, infertility, pregnancy and all outcomes thereafter should be a personal choice for YOU to do what's right for YOU - not an enforced societal expectation.

As a non-journalist, it’s a real honour to see my words in print - I’m chuffed to bits, and profoundly grateful to everyone who shared their thoughts on the 12-week rule with me. There's so much more I could have said, and I'd have loved to have explored the different perspectives around the decision to 'tell' - but unfortunately I was up against the constraints of a limited word count! Extra thanks to Prof Arri Coomarasamy, director of the Tommy's National Centre for Miscarriage Research and Dr Jessica Zucker, a clinical psychologist specialising in women's reproductive and maternal mental health and creator of the incredible #IHadAMiscarriage campaign, for their input.

As Jessica says - we may not be able to cure miscarriage, but why don't we at least attempt to cure the conversation?

 

The reaction

There were a few snarky comments in the Guardian comments section (as you’d expect), but on the whole the reaction to the article has been astonishing and overwhelming in the best way. So many comments on social media brought me to tears: not just because they said how because the conversation about this subject was happening and visible - and both women AND men were stepping out of the shadows to talk about their experiences of loss.

It then got really surreal when the Daily Mail published a response to my piece, co-authored by the brilliant Jennie Agg from The Uterus Monologues and Jenni Murray - describing the reaction to the article as a new campaign to overturn the 12-week rule!

And then even more surreal when a dear friend told me that the BBC ad shared the article on the official CBeebies for grownups Twitter and Facebook accounts - reaching a whole different audience than I’d ever imagined.

I’m deeply sad that so many people have had their own experiences of loss for this piece to resonate, but if it’s helped just one person feel less alone, then to me it’s a job well done.