After the loss of my Clyde in December 2021 I realised how blissfully ignorant I had been of how unfortunately common pregnancy and infant loss is. Of course I knew and had a few friends who had sadly walked that journey, yet I was still so unaware of how walking that journey feels. Once I joined the angel Mumma club, I realised how silenced so many women and their families felt. How even people close to me, suddenly avoided me, when all I wanted was to tell my birth story, and be congratulated on the birth of my son, just like every other mother out there. But it was something that was seen as taboo. People didn’t want to hear my story, because it was too uncomfortable. I felt so invalidated as a woman and as a mother. Like my birth didn’t matter. Like I wasn’t a real mum. It was then I started to really realise how many women really have to go through this. How many don’t often speak their child’s name for fear of making others uncomfortable. I was suddenly driven by this huge desire to work on a project to give these incredible women a voice, to speak their babies names proudly, to be congratulated on the birth of their beautiful babies, to celebrate them for the incredibly strong women that they are! And so my Angel Families Project was born! I was on a mission to make my son proud of me and try and make the topic of pregnancy and infant loss a less taboo subject. I wanted to be able to scream the names of all these babies!
So after lots of back and forth with lots of women, and reading over 600 heart breaking stories since starting my project, my third group of incredible mummas was brought together on a warm March afternoon to share stories and honour our angels! And at the end we all cooled off by jumping in the ocean and having a splash around! What an incredible afternoon!
CASEY
In December 2018 our identical twin girls were born far too early, at just 24 weeks. Their names were Frankie and Daphne.
They entered the world tiny but fierce, beginning a fight none of us were prepared for. The NICU became our home, filled with machines, wires, and the constant rhythm of hope and fear living side by side.
Four days after they were born, our sweet Daphne died in my arms. She was so small, so perfect, and so incredibly loved. In those moments time seemed to stop. No parent ever imagines having to say goodbye before they’ve even had the chance to truly say hello.
Her sister Frankie stayed behind to keep fighting. She spent four long months in NICU showing us every day just how strong she was. When she finally came home she still needed oxygen and continued her journey for another year, but she was here. Our miracle. Our reminder that even in the darkest moments, life can still find a way.
Just one year later, in December 2019, we welcomed another daughter, Florence.
Florence was deeply wanted and already so loved. During the pregnancy I had a cerclage placed as a preventative surgery, hoping to give her the best chance to stay safe. But something didn’t feel right. I went back to the hospital multiple times, trusting my instincts as a mother, but each time I was reassured that everything was normal.
It wasn’t.
Florence passed away shortly after she was born due to an infection in utero caused by the cerclage. Our time with her was heartbreakingly short, but she mattered. She existed. She is part of our family forever.
In June 2021 our first boy, Atlas, arrived one month early weighing 8.5 pounds. During his birth my uterine wall ruptured, another moment that reminded us how fragile life can be. Atlas has since been diagnosed with a rare genetic disorder, Dent’s disease, and hypophosphatemic rickets.
Our daughters are Frankie, Daphne, and Florence.
One walks beside us every day.
Two we carry in our hearts.
And through Frankie, a piece of her sisters continues to live in this world.
BRIDGET
Baby J – James Robert
Finding out we were pregnant 8 months before our planned wedding was not ideal. But my partner and I were so excited. We moved our wedding forward and we thought everything was going smoothly.
Just one month after our wedding I got sick and working in a school I just assumed I had caught one of the usual things that go around in winter. But unfortunately, that was not the case. I took the Monday and Tuesday off work and returned the Wednesday when I started feeling better. As the day progressed I began to feel unwell again. My friend and work colleague urged and annoyed me until I agreed to attend our local hospital after work. She even followed me to make sure I attended and I am so thankful she did.
When I arrived at the hospital, a small rural hospital, they were not equipped for what was going wrong. I had blood pressure of 210/160 and was swelling by the second. I was transferred to JHH where I found out I had HELLP Syndrome and James and I were dying. He had restricted growth throughout the pregnancy and I now had kidney and liver failure.
We were given options of how to proceed however, they all included him being born at 23.4 weeks. We went with the option that gave him the best chance of survival and he was born breathing on the 29/6/2022, weighing just at a tiny 350g. He spent 3 days in th NICU however, he was far too small and passed in our arms on the 2/7/2022.
We cherish every moment we got to spend with our boy and the photos taken by family and hospital staff. We make sure he is not forgotten and apart of our lives forever. We have displayed all of James’ items in our kitchen/dinning room in front of our entry way so he is the first thing you see when entering our house.
We have since been lucky enough to have our rainbow baby, Maggie. She loves talking about her big brother and looking at his photos. Her favourite things to do is to talk to “big brothers teddy” and play with his finger prints on my necklace.
We love you so much and miss you every moment of everyday. Until we meet again, Daddy, Mumma and Maggie x
CHLOE
I went to my last appointment before I was booked in for my c-section 6 days later, in my scan they told me baby boys heart rate was 100 and I was having him now, I was terrified they ran me upstairs threw me on a bed I had about 20 people I didn’t know trying to hook me up to stuff my partner wasn’t there yet they put me under and that’s as much as I know I woke up in recovery alone no baby no partner no one would tell me what was going on wouldn’t tell me if bubs was alive or had passed finally they let my partner in he told me it wasn’t good but he was still with us, finally after arguing with the nurses I was able to go to the NICU and see my beautiful boy my baby boy Simon John Huff was born on the 21-05-2021 we made the decision to turn the machine off the hardest decision we had to make but he was never going to leave the hospital it was the best decision for him to be at peace the night of the 23-05-21 we turned off the machine he held on and was still with us for 2 hours until he passed in my arms he was gone my baby is gone he will forever live on in his brother and sister we will always talk about him because he was here he did exist and we love him under after our own very last breath.
AMY
The story of Korbyn
Korbyn was my third pregnancy all before that were normal. My 6 week scan showed normal so did 12 weeks. At 17 weeks I passed a blood clot then bled for three weeks, then another blood clot and this one ruptured my membrane breaking my waters. I went to the birthing suit and they told me there is nothing to do but wait and see if I go into labour until then I was on bed rest in hospital. I was told to give birth naturally and let my son die but I couldn’t knowing there was a slight chance he could survive and he was supposed to be the final piece to our family. I stayed in hospital on bed rest for weeks hoping I could keep him in long enough to get him “viable” and healthier. I made it to 23.6 weeks and unfortunately began to feel like I was in labour this day was the day after my eldest son’s birthday and the day before my daughter’s birthday (3 in a row). Because my decision was to do everything possible to save our son I went in for an emergency caesarean. Korbyn was so small that they had to sedate me and cut the entire length of my uterus to get him out safely. He arrived earth side alive and with support began breathing. He was in the NICU for 20 days, the first week he was thriving and smashing goals giving us hope he would come home, but they always remind you “one step forward two steps back”. Korbyn became unwell with sepsis and then developed necrotising enterocolitis. He battled these along with lung diseases from being so premature and after those 20 days in hospital we were told he wasn’t going to get better and his body was shutting down. We gathered our families said our goodbyes gave him a baptism and then with just me and my husband and two end of care nurses we said our final goodbye with Korbyn laying on my chest holding daddy’s hand as he drifted off to sleep forever. Since then we have done multiple bears of hope walks and charity events and in 2019 on korbyn’s first birthday I opened a community garden in his honour for all families that have been affected by pregnancy and infant loss. We plant flowers in memory of babies and children gone too soon and care for them “gardening through grief”. I was also inspired to write a book called “I see you” that depicts all the ways I see Korbyn now and how much he is still present in our lives. We were also very fortunate in 2020 to be blessed with a rainbow baby.
In memory of Korbyn Walker Sherar 13/10/2018-2/11/2018
Mummy’s little butterfly angel
JESS
Our plan always was that we would have babies after we got married in Feb 2020 and we never gave a thought to what if it wasn’t so easy.
It wasn’t until October that year that we saw our first positive pregnancy test and had our moment of excitement and disbelief together right before I went to work.
Unfortunately it was short lived and ended in early miscarriage.
This happened again in December.
Following on we started to look into why I wasn’t falling pregnant, or able to stay pregnant, and so began endless tests & procedures, and eventually in June 2021, my first laparoscopy which showed endometriosis. I had one blocked and one partially blocked fallopian tube, and endo infiltrating other areas as well.
We finally had some possible reason.
In November 2021 I was pregnant again. We were cautiously optimistic as the tests were strong and so was the blood test.
Unfortunately I began to bleed heavily and after weeks of scans and bloods we were told this was a missed miscarriage and I was given medication to help remove it as my body hadn’t been able to do so itself.
Our next step was IVF. We were incredibly lucky to have a high number of eggs from our first collection – 24. We ended up with 6 embryos. Our hopes were high at this point and we wondered what would happen if we were successful straight away. What would happy with the remaining embryos?
Our first two transfers were unsuccessful, and I requested a second laparoscopy as I was suspicious my endo had returned.
We had one more early miscarriage before my second surgery.
The surgery showed the endo had returned significantly worse than before. My surgeries were 18 months apart.
Our 3rd embryo transfer was shortly after the second surgery.
I was not only pregnant for the first time from an embryo transfer, but it had split and we were expecting identical twins.
We made it past the early stages and thought this was it, we were going to have our babies.
Then at 19w4d, the morning of our follow-up scan I’d been having cramps and had called the hospital for advice. They said to come in and hopefully just a UTI but best to double check.
I hung up the phone to let Ben know I was going in early and to meet me there, and then once I hung up from him my waters broke.
I was at work and was taken to hospital in an abulance.
When we got to the hospital and I was seen we were told the words “I’m sorry but I can feel your first little baby, you won’t be having these babies”.
I think I knew what was happening but needed to hear it before I believed it.
Those words tore like a knife.
Our boys has developed twin to twin transfusion syndrome, a condition that affects twin pregnancies that share a placenta, and had passed away.
It had developed very suddenly and quickly which is quite uncommon.
After a relatively short, but incredibly tormenting labour, our boys were born.
Jensen Harry at 1:22pm and the Leon Stephen at 1:40pm
8th June 2023.
They were perfect little boys.
We were able to spend 24 hours with them in the hospital, took photos and got their hand and feet prints which Ben and I now have tattooed on us.
We had them cremated and have their ashes in a teddy who snuggles me each night and they can go with us anywhere. They even went to Tasmania with us last year!
After I had some tests, we transferred our 4th embryo which also unfortunately failed.
The next month we transferred our 5th and it’s still a little crazy to say that we have a beautiful little boy named Jordan who was born in July 2024 – 4.5 years after we began trying.
He’s an absolute ratbag and fits in to our family perfectly.
We have one embryo remaining and hope to try again this year.
We know their are so many who are struggling with infertility or pregnancy loss and hope they are able to meet their little rainbows soon.
We also would like to thanks Candice (and Angel Mum herself) for this project and spreading the awareness and her kindness
MON
The Baby Who Made Me a Mother – Malakai James Butterworth
Before I became Kalyani’s mum, I became Malakai’s and his story is where my journey as a mother truly began.
Today I wear a pendant close to my heart that holds Malakai’s ashes. It is a small piece of him that I carry with me,a reminder that even though his life was brief, he will always be part of mine.
When I found out I was pregnant, I remember staring at the test for what felt like forever. I read the instructions again and again thinking, there’s no way this could be real.
But it was.
I was pregnant.
In that moment everything changed. My mind immediately jumped to the future, imagining a little baby in my arms, the life that was growing inside me, and the journey that motherhood would become.
We chose the name Malakai, a name that means “my angel.” Even then, it felt perfect.
Like many mothers, I counted the weeks. Each milestone felt important. Every day that passed felt like we were getting closer to meeting our baby.
For a while, everything felt normal. But life doesn’t always follow the path we imagine.
At 20 weeks, my phone rang. It was my midwife. I remember the urgency in her voice as she told me I needed to come to the hospital. At the hospital we discovered my cervix was shortening. Suddenly the pregnancy that had once felt straightforward became fragile. Every day mattered.
I held onto hope the best I could.
At 22 weeks, I underwent an amniocentesis. Waiting for answers is a strange place to exist, somewhere between hope and fear.
Then at 23 weeks, another complication appeared. I was now fighting preeclampsia as well. Every day felt like a battle to keep my baby safe. But sometimes, despite every hope and every effort, things still go wrong.
Just before Malakai’s final scan, I remember feeling him kick. It was strong and unmistakable, the kind of movement that always made me pause and smile during my pregnancy. At the time, I didn’t realise it would be the last time I would ever feel him move.
Looking back now, it almost felt like his way of saying goodbye.
When we were told there was no heartbeat, the world around me felt like it had completely stopped. Everything I had been dreaming about the life I had started imagining disappeared in a moment.
No one prepares you for that kind of loss.
My body then went into labour. For 14 hours, mostly unmedicated, I laboured to bring my son into the world.
At 23 weeks and 6 days, my beautiful son Malakai was born weighing just 345 grams.
So tiny, yet so incredibly loved.
In that moment, he was perfect.
He was my baby.
The grief that followed is impossible to truly put into words. It felt impossible to understand how something so small could leave such a huge space in your heart.
When you lose a baby, you don’t just lose them in that moment, you lose the entire life that was meant to follow.
The first words.
The first steps.
The laughter.
The birthdays.
The memories that never get the chance to be made.
But Malakai will always be my first baby.
He made me a mother. His life, no matter how brief, changed me forever.
His story didn’t end with him.
Because the strength I had to find, the care I received, and everything I learned through that loss shaped the path that eventually brought his little sister into this world.
Kalyani’s journey was shaped by Malakai.
He will always be part of our family, part of our story, and part of the love that surrounds his sister today.
Sometimes when I touch the pendant around my neck, I think back to that final kick the last moment I felt him move beneath my heart.
His name means “my angel.”
And that is exactly what he will always be.
My angel.
My first baby.
Forever loved.
Forever remembered.
And through the love that shaped our family and the little sister whose journey was shaped by his, Malakai’s light continues to live on in this world.
VERONICA
When people look at my family, they usually see a six-year-old daughter and a baby due in June 2026. On paper it might look like a fairly typical family story.
But between those two children are five pregnancies that we never got to bring home.
This baby I’m currently carrying is my seventh pregnancy.
Our first pregnancy happened two weeks before we got married. At the time it felt like a whirlwind start to our life together. We were excited, surprised, and trying to process everything that came with the idea that we were about to become parents. Unfortunately, that pregnancy didn’t last. It was our first experience of loss, and at the time we didn’t realise it would become part of a much longer journey.
After that, we experienced two or three very early losses. Falling pregnant has never been the issue for us. For whatever reason, it has always been keeping the pregnancies that has been difficult.
Eventually we welcomed our daughter, who is now six years old. Her pregnancy was straightforward and uncomplicated. Looking back, it now feels like a rare period of ease in what would otherwise become a much more complicated relationship with pregnancy.
Some of my losses were what’s known as missed miscarriages. One of the most confronting moments of my journey happened at a twelve-week ultrasound. Up until that point everything felt normal. My symptoms were normal. I had no reason to believe anything was wrong.
But during that scan we learned the baby had stopped developing.
A missed miscarriage is a strange and difficult experience. Your body still believes it is pregnant. Your symptoms continue. There are no warning signs that something has changed.
And when the loss is discovered, the process that follows can be long and physically demanding.
My body does not tend to miscarry naturally, so most of my losses have required medical intervention. That has meant medications, procedures like D&C surgeries, and extended medical management to help my body let go of pregnancies it wasn’t able to sustain.
It’s something that isn’t talked about very often — how physically intense miscarriage can be. People sometimes imagine it as something quick or simple. In reality, it can be long, painful, and in many ways very similar to labour.
One of our most significant losses happened in January 2025. That pregnancy had been publicly announced, so when the loss happened it was also very public. We were surrounded by support from friends and family, which we were incredibly grateful for.
But support doesn’t remove the grief.
Losing a pregnancy publicly also means navigating other people’s reactions, questions, and sympathy while you are still trying to process what has happened yourself.
Pregnancy after loss brings a completely different set of emotions.
Right now, I’m approaching 26 weeks pregnant with what we hope will be our second child — our second rainbow baby. While there is excitement and hope, there is also a layer of caution that never fully disappears.
It’s difficult to explain to someone who hasn’t experienced repeated loss what it feels like to carry a pregnancy after that history. There is joy, but it often exists alongside fear. Attachment can feel complicated. Every milestone can bring relief, but also anxiety about the next one.
We’ve chosen not to make a big public announcement about this pregnancy. For some people, that decision has been confusing. There have been comments suggesting that we’re hiding it, or questions about why we haven’t shared the news more widely.
The truth is, it isn’t about hiding anything.
It’s about protecting ourselves.
After experiencing loss, especially public loss, announcements can feel less like celebrations and more like moments of vulnerability. Sharing the news too widely can feel like inviting a level of exposure that we simply aren’t ready for again.
Sometimes even well-meaning comments can be difficult to hear. Things like “maybe this time you’ll finally get your baby” or “you’re actually having one this time” can land harder than people realise.
What people often don’t see is that pregnancy after loss isn’t just about waiting for a baby. It’s about carrying the memory of every pregnancy that came before.
Each of those pregnancies mattered. Each of those babies was hoped for and loved.
Participating in this photography series felt important because it acknowledges something that so many people experience quietly. Pregnancy loss is far more common than most of us realise, yet it’s still something that many families carry privately.
These photographs help create space for those stories.
They remind us that grief and hope can exist side by side. That healing doesn’t mean forgetting. And that every pregnancy ,no matter how long it lasted , becomes part of the story of a family.
As I move through this pregnancy, I carry all of those experiences with me. The fear, the resilience, the grief, and the hope.
And with a bit of luck, in June 2026, we will finally get to bring another baby home.
JULIA
Georgina’s Story
For a long time I wondered if my story belonged here. My baby lived for two years and two months. Compared to many others, that felt like such a long time.
But it has now been ten years since I lost my baby, and there has not been a single day in those ten years that I have not missed her.
Georgina was my third child. She was born as a VBAC, healthy, strong, and wonderfully large. I remember asking how big she was, and her father said, “Four pounds.”
I looked down at this enormous baby in my arms and laughed.
“I think you mean four kilos.”
She was so big that none of the tiny clothes we had packed for the hospital fit her. She had been squashed in the birth canal and looked a little crumpled and funny at first, but to me she was the most beautiful baby I had ever seen. I loved every inch of her.
Georgina completed our family.
Her big brother and sister adored her from the very beginning. They would sing to her, make faces to make her laugh, and gently play with her tiny fingers and toes. Our house was full of noise and movement and the ordinary chaos that comes with young children. It was busy and joyful and beautifully normal.
Then, when Georgie was eight months old, something happened that would quietly begin to change everything.
We had just come home from playgroup. She was sitting on the floor in front of me when suddenly she tipped forward and began making strange movements. At first I thought she was choking. I picked her up quickly, patting her back, checking her mouth in panic.
I called an ambulance.
But by the time the paramedics arrived she had returned to her normal self. They checked her over, said her vital signs looked fine, and eventually left. I tried to convince myself it had been nothing.
I thought perhaps she had choked on a puzzle piece. But when I sat down and put the puzzle back together, every piece was there.
In that moment a quiet, heavy thought settled in my mind.
My baby had had a seizure.
A few hours later it happened again.
She fell to the ground and began seizing. This time the ambulance took us to hospital, where I was told it was most likely a febrile seizure.
But the seizures did not stop.
Over the months that followed they became more frequent, more violent, and more frightening.
And yet, Georgie remained full of life.
She was the most vibrant little toddler. Always moving, always curious. When she woke in the morning she would immediately begin chatting away in her little babbling language, flipping through books in her cot and calling out for us to come and get her.
Each morning we walked the big kids to school. Georgie sat in the pram and talked the entire way, telling me all the stories of her tiny world.
On the walk home we passed a park, and every single day we had to stop so she could swing. She loved the feeling of flying through the air. I would push her for what felt like forever, sometimes thirty minutes or more, while she laughed and kicked her little legs.
The only way I could convince her to leave was by telling her we had to go feed the chickens.
She loved the chickens. She would plunge her hands into the grain bucket and throw handfuls everywhere while the chickens scrambled around her feet. She would squeal with delight as they pecked and fluttered.
So much of our life happened outside then.
There were afternoons in the garden, bouncing on the trampoline, wandering to neighbours’ houses, or checking on the chickens again. At church she wanted to greet every person she saw and would wander happily over to bang on the drums. At the shops she would run up to strangers and wrap her arms around them in hugs as if they were lifelong friends.
She loved singing songs and reading books. She had no interest in television. Her favourite foods were yoghurt and baked beans.
And every day she would call her granny and her aunty on the phone and say her favourite word.
“Yep.”
It was the word she used for everything.
She was quick and bright and bursting with life.
But in the middle of playing, while walking across the yard or jumping on the trampoline, she would suddenly fall to the ground and seize.
We eventually saw a paediatric neurologist who prescribed medications. The seizures continued, but the medication slowly dimmed some of her sparkle. My joyful little girl became tired and sometimes tearful.
Whenever she seized I would hold her tightly and follow the seizure plan we had been given. When it was over, her favourite thing in the world was either a breastfeed, when she was still feeding, or a very long hug.
Sometimes the seizures were so severe she had to be rushed to hospital. Once the doctors were able to stop them, she would sleep on the paediatric ward. In the middle of the night she would wake and hear the nurses moving about.
She would call out to them happily.
Once she was awake she was ready to party, convinced the night shift nurses were there purely for her entertainment.
When she turned two, I began to notice how different things were becoming. Other children her age were speaking clearly and developing quickly.
Georgie wasn’t speaking words. She was clumsy. And her seizures were still not under control.
I started asking more questions.
Then came the October long weekend.
My sister came to stay with her five children. The house was full of noise and excitement. The big kids slept together in the garage, and Georgie slept in the room she normally shared with her sister.
That night she struggled to fall asleep with so many children around, but eventually the house quieted and she drifted off.
The next morning the big kids woke early.
Georgie didn’t.
I went into her room to wake her.
She was lying face down on a knitted blanket.
She was cold.
She was blue.
In that moment, the world stopped.
I walked out and quietly told my sister that Georgie was dead so the other children would not hear. My sister gently gathered all the kids and took them to McDonald’s for breakfast so they would not know something terrible had happened.
My own children were five and seven.
I called the ambulance.
Then the police came.
At some point friends began arriving. I lay on the verandah in complete shock while they stroked my hair and tried to comfort me.
I stayed in that shock for months.
Our home, once loud and full of life, suddenly became unbearably quiet.
My two older children went to school each day, and somehow the world kept turning, even though my own world had shattered.
Ten years have passed now.
Sometimes I try to imagine what Georgie would be like today. She would be twelve years old, starting high school, growing into a young girl with her own personality and dreams.
But I cannot quite picture it.
That future was taken from us.
Sometimes it hurts deeply to watch my friends’ children grow up, living the years that Georgie never had the chance to live.
But she is still part of my life.
She is in the memory of the swing moving gently in the park.
In the sound of chickens scratching in the yard. In the laughter of children singing songs. And in the small, simple word she loved so much.
“Yep.”
I carry her with me every day.
And I hold onto the quiet hope that one day, beyond this life, I will see my beautiful girl again, and I will finally hold my baby in my arms.
CASS
I’d already had four miscarriages before 10 weeks and three beautiful babies by the time I fell pregnant with Mason. I was so confident that I knew everything that could happen.
We waited the usual 12 weeks before we told anyone. We had started getting his three older siblings excited about the idea of another baby.
Then the complications started.
First it was fetal growth restriction. I remember thinking, this is fine …. we’re out of the danger zone.
Then they found a subchorionic haematoma from my placenta detaching. Again, I told myself everything was fine. He was still moving and still growing, just at his own pace.
When I reached 23 weeks and 4 days pregnant, life was busy. I had three toddlers to chase after and the usual chaos of the day. But that night, after the bedtime routines were done and the house was quiet, I realised something that stopped me cold.
I couldn’t remember feeling him move all day.
We rang the maternity ward and did the usual thing they tell you to do. Lie still and count movements for an hour. Nothing.
So we called my best friend to come sit with the kids and drove to the hospital to get checked. Even then, I still convinced myself everything was fine. Maybe he was just going to be a quieter baby. My other three were all so different from each other anyway.
When we arrived, they tried to find his heartbeat with the Doppler but couldn’t. They took bloods, my veins were being difficult like they always are, and told me they’d do an ultrasound.
I remember actually being excited because I thought I’d get to see him again.
But the screen was turned away from me, and the sonographer kept his face completely neutral. I asked if I could see him, and he said the doctor would be in shortly to talk to me.
Even then, I didn’t really understand what was happening.
When the doctor came in, he said they couldn’t find a heartbeat. That I would need to come back the next morning for them to start the process. They took more bloods and told me to call at 7am to find out what time to come in.
The only thing I remember feeling was the overwhelming need to get home and cuddle my other three. It all felt wrong. I was out of the danger zone.
When we got home, I stayed in the car until my best friend had left. There were only two weeks between our due dates and I couldn’t bring myself to talk to her.
I didn’t sleep that night. I moved between sitting beside my children watching them sleep and sitting on the lounge crying.
My ex worked with the family business at the time and didn’t want to tell them the news over the phone. So he left at 6am to go tell them in person and organise for his mother to watch the kids while we went to the hospital.
Five minutes after he left, I started haemorrhaging.
At first I didn’t really understand how serious it was. In fifteen minutes I had already had to change three times. I felt gross, so I got into the shower.
When my ex came back home, I had passed out in the shower.
He called an ambulance. Three crews arrived. I remember coming to while they were discussing how to get me safely out of the bathtub. His mother had arrived by then too.
I kept begging them not to take me through the house because I didn’t want the kids to see me. I was also trying to explain that the bruises on my elbows were just from the blood tests the night before.
It was lights and sirens the entire way to the hospital.
Mason was born in the ambulance on the way there.
The maternity staff were incredible. They explained that I had experienced a grade 2 placental abruption and that they were taking me straight to the operating room.
For a long time I couldn’t talk about any of it.
When I became pregnant again, I didn’t tell anyone until after 27 weeks.
But the experience completely changed how I see the idea of an “appropriate” time to tell people about a pregnancy. Now I advocate to anyone who will listen: tell people when you are ready.
Don’t wait for the first trimester to pass because someone decided that was the safe point.
No one should have to grieve alone.
Mason would have been 15 this year, and there isn’t a single day that I don’t think about who he would have been.
KATIE
Bronte Lindsay-Louise Hawkins’s Story
We had been trying for a baby for a few months with no success. Shortly after our engagement in early August 2020, we were overjoyed to discover we were pregnant in early September. In the beginning, I experienced some bleeding, which made those early weeks an anxious time. But at 5 weeks and 4 days we saw your tiny heart beating, and in that moment you felt so real.
We excitedly bought bandanas for your fur brother and sister and shared the news of your arrival with our families and closest friends.
When we had the Harmony test, we were elated to learn that you were a girl, and all the results came back normal. We began dreaming of the life ahead. While planning our wedding, being mega sick with nausea and vomiting we were growing you. Each week we followed along closely, checking which fruit you were that week and how big you had become.
I bought a bassinet, and my sister placed a tiny lentil in it to represent you. We would look at it and imagine the day a baby would be lying there.
At our first trimester screening, you appeared perfectly on the screen. You even seemed to give us a little wave. But the scan showed a thickening of the fold at the back of your neck. Combined with my blood results, this led the maternal–fetal medicine (MFM) team to recommend a CVS (chorionic villus sampling) to test for chromosomal abnormalities.
We agreed to the procedure, and a sample of my placenta was taken and sent for testing. The wait for results felt incredibly long due to slow cell growth. Eventually, we were told the results showed mosaic Turner’s syndrome. The MFM team explained that because the result was mosaic, it might only be present in the placenta and not the baby. They recommended an amniocentesis to find out for certain.
A sample of amniotic fluid was taken to determine whether you were also affected by Turner’s syndrome or if it was limited to the placenta. We also met with a geneticist who spoke to us about Turner’s syndrome—its possible impacts on development, quality of life, and life expectancy.
Waiting for the amniocentesis results was agonising. Our minds constantly replayed different scenarios. Having previously worked in baby loss and maternal–fetal medicine, we had always said that if something was seriously wrong with our baby, we would choose to terminate. But when the time came to actually make that decision—to sign the paperwork and commit to it—it was one of the hardest things I have ever done.
After 8 weeks of waiting since discovery we might not get to keep you, the results confirmed Turner’s syndrome, I consented to a TFMR (termination for medical reasons).
Because it was Christmas, there were delays, which made the process even more difficult. We began the termination process on the 29th with the first tablet, and I was admitted to hospital on the 30th. In the days leading up to admission, I had just started to feel you move.
I was given several tablets to begin the process. In the early hours of the 31st—New Year’s Eve—you were born. I caught you myself and pulled you straight to my chest.
You were so beautiful. So tiny and so perfect.
Daddy and Nanny stood beside me in awe as you lay on my chest while I gently stroked you. But you had already gone before you arrived, your heart and lungs unable to cope with the labour.
We spent the entire day with you. We cuddled you, sang to you, slept beside you, read to you, bathed you, and had a photoshoot so we would always remember you. I organised hand and foot casts so we would have precious keepsakes to hold onto forever.
We named you Bronte because daddy always imagined having a blue eyes blonde haired girl running around on a beach so we had called you that name since we knew you were a girl.
However you have both mummy and daddy’s middle names so that part of us goes with you always.
When the time came, we said “see you soon” and left the hospital.
Some of your family came to meet and cuddle you at the funeral home- memories that I will treasure forever.
We held a small funeral with our immediate family. We chose songs to celebrate you and the life that could have been. We wrote letters to you and placed them in your casket so they would stay with you always. Seeing you drive away in the hearse broke me but that day, you showed us rainbows, I know it’s so you want us to know you are still around.
Later, we held a memorial on what was meant to be our wedding day. Surrounded by our closest friends and family, we shared your photo proudly and read the letters we had written to you. Once again, you showed us a rainbow.
We had so many hopes and dreams for you, our beautiful girl. In the end, we carried the pain so that you would never have to.
I keep my toes painted shades of purple to honour you and have you name, hand and foot prints with a rainbow tattooed close to my heart
Even now, five years later, I still carry guilt for the decision we made. I still wonder who you would have been and what your life might have looked like.
But you will always be our daughter, and you will always be loved.
We speak of you often and keep you close, with your ashes lovingly placed inside your bear. You now have two little brothers who know your name and talk about you often. They look for you in the rainbows, just as we do, and it feels like your little way of saying hello. You will always be part of our family, always remembered, and always loved. Bronte forever 20 weeks.
