In February 2014, just a week before my 28th birthday, I was on cloud nine to get that positive pregnancy test result, totally elated, and also slightly wondering how I would be able to hide my non-drinking from friends at my birthday drinks that weekend. A few weeks later I started to experience the overwhelming nausea, closely followed by physical sickness that seemed to last from the moment I woke up from the moment I collapsed at night. When I eventually got to the 12 week point, with everyone telling me the sickness would soon settle down, never did I ever consider I’d hear the words at the scan…”here’s the first baby”. We were completely blown away. They could tell from the scan I was carrying identical twins, sharing a single placenta. This meant our pregnancy was classed as “high risk”, and from that point on we were under consultant care, and would be receiving fortnightly scans, tests and consultations.

I always gave the thought of having children, the same level of consideration I gave most other things in life…if it happened, it happened.  Now as I write this, I scoff at just how naïve I was. I never imagined that having a living child would become more important to me than breathing.

Before I got married in 2013, I knew it was likely that we would need a little help conceiving. We decided early on that we would try to conceive for a short time and if it was not successful, we would pay privately to freeze samples so that we would have the opportunity to try for a baby in the future, if we wanted to.  I never felt particularly broody, I just thought that I would regret it if we didn’t at least try.

My husband Jake and I had been together for 12 years, married for 2, when we decided to start a family. We were overjoyed (and nervous) to find out we got pregnant quickly. My pregnancy was low risk, and everything was ‘normal’ throughout.  I am a dentist and was worried about COVID whilst working. Therefore, I decided to take maternity two months early to be safe. Unfortunately, I caught COVID 2 weeks before I was meant to start maternity. My symptoms were mild, and I generally felt okay.

We had been married for five months before we were surprised with a twin pregnancy, we were ecstatic. At 16 weeks they were diagnosed with stage 2 twin-twin transfusion syndrome (TTTS). At 19 weeks we had emergency surgery in London to separate the twins.

We made our way home the next morning on strict bed rest. By day five, I felt different. My husband and parents were back at work, so I contacted our community midwife. She advised me to visit, and she would have a listen in for some reassurance. When I got there, she listened in on her doppler but then paused.  She said she could hear something, but couldn’t be sure, so told me to get to the assessment unit as soon as possible. The drive there was horrendous as I was panicking the whole way. They took me straight through – these scans were becoming something of a routine now but this one felt different. Then the words came “I’m so sorry, but there is only one heartbeat. Can we call anybody for you?”. I felt it. Proper, gut-wrenching, silent heartbreak. I cried but the sound wouldn’t even come out. They guided me out of the office into a waiting room full of expectant mothers, and it hit me that I was still one, even though my baby had died. I still had one little one in there fighting away, but how could I focus on that when my baby had also just died?