The story you need to tell

What others may not realise is that, when a pregnancy fails, it is not just the loss of the baby that has to be mourned but the evaporation of hopes and dreams. Life is forever changed in that instant. One moment, I was ‘expecting’ – and there was much contained on the list under that heading – the next, my expectation was gone. My whole being had been emptied. Friends were thin on the ground. Family lived at a distance. God had gone quiet.

I’ve realised since then, of course, that my feelings were entirely normal. I hadn’t got things out of proportion. I wasn’t making a fuss about nothing. I hadn’t become depressed for no reason. I had gone through the unimaginable and the crushingly unbearable: my child had died before we’d had chance to meet.

In Too Soon, I tell my story with candour. It would have been of no help at all to ‘airbrush’ or sanitise any of it. But this was never just about me telling my story. My only motivations were to break the sense of isolation surrounding miscarriage, to be a friend to those going through it, to fulfil in some way the sentiment expressed in the quote from the poem above.

In conversations leading up to the book’s release, I have met person after person who has experienced miscarriage in their family or who knows someone who has. I strongly believe that this book will be a lifeline for those floundering in the grief of baby loss. Some will catch it and be helped themselves, others will offer it to someone in need. I only know that if I’d had this resource when I needed it, it would have made such a difference.