3 October 2024

When Emma was heavily pregnant, her baby daughter Ivy died and she faced one of the toughest times in her life.

After falling pregnant following two rounds of IVF, Emma and her family were excited to welcome Ivy as a little sister for her older brother. But when Ivy’s heart stopped beating towards the end of the pregnancy, the family was devastated.

Emma has shared her story this Baby Loss Awareness Week in the hope of breaking the taboo about talking about the issue.

Working with Twins Trust, she has drawn on her experience of personal loss and working as a therapist and written a new booklet about coping with grief.

Navigating Grief: Coping with loss in multiple births has been launched by Twins Trust Bereavement Service. It offers support to all parents who have lost a baby or babies from a multiple pregnancy.

Emma said: “I’m passionate about people talking about baby loss and Baby Loss Awareness Week is a great way to remind us of this. It also offers a chance to remember the babies we have lost. In the UK we can be a bit hopeless about talking about grief. This week lets us remember, allow the grief and perhaps reach out to those who are struggling with loss. As a therapist I don’t usually share my own story, but I feel strongly that sharing our experiences and talking really helps. Hearing the right words or experiencing being really listened to can be a lifeline.”

After seven rounds of unsuccessful IVF, Emma fell pregnant with her eldest son, who is now 13. After another two rounds of IVF, Emma discovered she was pregnant with her second child. Yet tragically in the third trimester, Ivy’s heartbeat stopped and Emma and family faced an incredibly tough time.

Emma said: “I experienced a lot of difficulty conceiving. We had many gruelling rounds of IVF over a number of years and all the disappointments and courage that that entails was exhausting both physically and mentally. A number of the rounds failed and I had a number of miscarriages at different numbers of weeks. Each one was a huge loss as there had been so much hope.”

Emma found support groups and charities that helped her when she was struggling to conceive.

She added: “I was incredibly lucky as just as I really felt my body was exhausted and I had no reserves of hope, I became pregnant with my eldest son. After my first born, I became pregnant after two rounds of IVF with my daughter, Ivy. We found that her heart had stopped beating near the end of our pregnancy. I was absolutely devastated. Delivering Ivy was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. But I was looked after very sensitively.”

At the time, the family was supported by an NHS psychotherapist, who helped them to make tough decisions about Ivy’s funeral and other important issues.

Emma said: “It changed the course of my life. I was working in publishing as an editor at the time. I already loved words, but the transformative power of having your story really heard struck me hard and I retrained to be a counsellor.”

Happier times followed when Emma discovered she was pregnant with twins, but it was a process that she found amazing and terrifying at the same time.

“I was a bundle of nerves for the whole pregnancy. When a scan showed I was expecting two boys I was so grateful but also had to accept that I wouldn’t have a girl. Luckily my twin sons are so different that I soon realised that you didn’t need different sexes to experience a huge spectrum of parenting,” she added.

I feel strongly that sharing our experiences and talking really helps

While pregnant with her twins, Emma discovered Twins Trust and found a wealth of support about pregnancy, birth and beyond

So when the opportunity arose to write a bereavement booklet for the charity, Emma knew her own personal experience of baby loss, plus her counselling work, would be of real benefit to others.

Emma said: “Writing the grief booklet allowed me to draw on my personal experience of what was helpful and what wasn't, my knowledge of psychotherapeutic theory and the hundreds of fertility loss stories my clients have been generous enough to share with me. I’ve spent the last 20 years reading every article about fertility, multiples and baby loss that I could lay my hands on. Whether that was policy, medical advances, interventions or personal stories. Writing the booklet was an amazing chance to draw all these things together. My hope is that this booklet will be a doorway to getting the support that’s needed at what is often the one of the most challenging times in people’s lives.”