Mike: I remember the nurse saying that she looked great when she was born. And she was, she was – she was exactly what you’d expect a baby to look like, but just smaller, like everything was there in proportion, nothing

Emily: Perfectly formed, yeah.

Mike: Like I mean, it wasn’t like a – like a fetus, you know, they’re slightly still developing. Like she, she was ready. All she was going to do from there was get bigger.

Emily: Mmm.

Mike: She was perfectly formed. So, to

Emily: I think we were even shocked at that. Because I

Mike: Yeah.

Emily: -that was one of the things I was really anxious about, it’s like, what is she going to look like? Is it going to be disgusting?

Mike: Fingernails, and little things like that, as well. Just these tiny details that – to me, that’s – that wasn’t a miscarriage. In no way, shape or form. Medically it was. But I don’t, I don’t think it was.

Emily: Because I – yeah, we were worried of what she’d look – I didn’t know if she’d still look sort of like blobby, or – you know, be squid-, I don’st know. I just didn’t know what to expect at all. So, I, we were both surprised, weren’t we?

Mike: Yeah.

Emily: And when we’ve shown people photos, they’re like “Oh, my goodness – she is a, like just a tiny little baby.” So, yeah. I think that terminology – I don’t know how you’sd, on earth you’d go around changing it. But I do feel like it doesn’t do justice to what we went through.

I found that really, really hard. Because Grace was born at twenty three weeks. And to me, she looked like a baby. And it upset me for them to call her like a miscarriage. Or like the – what they used as the terminology.

Because to me, I’ve heard of babies surviving at twenty three weeks. And continuing. I just can’t understand why they use that terminology.

I don’t – yeah. I, the one I lost at fifteen weeks, I would say yes, a miscarriage. But not the one I lost at twenty three weeks. I hated the terminology, it really upset me.

I think there needs to be some other terminology used.

And then labour happened. And, you know? The fact that I had to go through the whole process of giving birth and everything, actually like – I just didn’t feel like that I was going to have to have him. I didn’t realise how big he was going to be, and how formed he was. You know? I thought like – Because they kept saying to me, “Oh, it’s a miscarriage. It’s a miscarriage.” Because obviously before twenty four weeks, they don’t count it as a live baby.

But so in my head I was like ‘it’s not going to be like this, it’s going to be like, like just blood or whatever. But you know, I had to full on give birth, and. And they had to take the baby out. And then I had to give birth to the placenta.

And I think there’s those two groups of people who talk about what’s happened, the people who – you know – are very – have a very early miscarriage, before twelve weeks. Or people who will have a proper baby to hold, and to – you know – even if it is stillborn. And then there’s that people in the middle, who – I didn’t have a clue what I’d have to do. I kind of thought I might go to the toilet and the baby would go. And it, it doesn’t work like that.

I think [sigh]. It was because he was – The later pregnancy, you’ve felt them. I’d felt him move. He – Everybody knew. And a lot of people, like a lot of very close friends knew about my first pregnancy, but. Yeah. It was kind of like that was our accepted fact, that this was it. Whereas you – although we hadn’t expected to have a miscarriage, it’s – that’s more common. And so [sigh] after a little while, it was kind of like ‘right okay, well this is a normal thing that happens. With the second pregnancy, it was like, ‘well this is what our life is going to be’, and then that was snatched away. And we’d bonded. And seen him on the ultrasound, so.

With the first baby, we’d never seen – I think no, actually, I think I’d been in at seven weeks and had seen a tiny little – tiny little dot with the first pregnancy. But it wasn’t kind of seeing a baby on there. So it was – And then the actual process of giving birth, the fact that you did actually – I did give birth to him. And I don’t – I think a lot of people just don’t – they don’t either think or realise that that is something that you go through. And so that, that all still happened. Yeah. And I still – I mean, this all quite hard to talk about with anybody that I know.

I think it’s almost like because she hadn’t reached twenty four weeks, it wasn’t legitimate, it was – Because it was still termed as a miscarriage.

And because there hadn’t been a birth certificate or a death certificate, it’s almost like everyone – it’s almost like it was minimised and wasn’t that big of a deal.

Not just for the people who were involved at the hospital, but for like families as well. They didn’t really seem to grasp what had happened, or how horrific it had been. Or that you know, a few days here and there shouldn’t really make much difference. I mean, I think if she’d have been born at twenty four weeks, I think Kirsty would have been able to have like some maternity leave. Which I’m sure would have really helped her. She’d have very much appreciated that extra time off work. As it was, she was – she was back there herself after a couple of weeks. So. I don’t know. I’m sure it wouldn’t have helped the loss or the grief to have had the paperwork, but I think perhaps how other people dealt with it, they might have been a bit more sympathetic, I guess is the word. A bit more understanding, that we’d been through something quite, quite bad.

So it’s just like – it’s just like insult to injury, isn’t it. Same with the birth certificate. We got a little – was classed as a certificate of life. But really, it’s just a printed out bit of paper that the hospital gives you, that’s not formal, it’s not recognised, and it’s not official. Like a birth and death certificate, I think – they just give your baby that bit of, bit more dignity. Rather than – You wouldn’t feel that you’d need to explain it so much, or like how you’re feeling. It’s like a – And it’s almost like a recognition of your grief. Like if you’ve got that birth and death certificate, like they were here and then they died. And like the way you’re feeling is valid. Whereas it doesn’t feel as valid if you don’t have those. The one thing that’s like really important to me, which I keep, in her memory box – like I keep all her stuff in, but the most important thing in there is her little wristband. They put the wristband on her. You know, saying ‘baby Josephine.

And then I remember saying to the midwife, “What do we do about a death certificate? What do I have to do about all of that?”

And she said, “It’s okay, it’ll all be explained in the leaflets that we’re going to give you.” And then the realisation hit me, that I knew somewhere in the back of my mind that it had to be twenty four weeks. And I said, “I’ve just had a miscarriage, haven’t I?” And she says, “No, you’ve just had a baby.” That is what I would say to anybody now that talks to me about late – late miscarriage. Or, what we had that night was a baby. We got to cuddle her, we got to put clothes on her. And that is not a miscarriage. And we did have a couple of family members refer to her as miscarriages. And I put – I said, “Please don’t refer to her like that again. We had a baby.” And I don’t know if it helped particularly. A lot of our experience with Rebecca, I can see from two angles. I know why it was done. And I know why it would be seemingly to help us, but also, did it really? And when I’d asked about the birth certificate, we got given like a fake birth certificate. And I know that some people would probably love that. And I know that that was given to us because they wanted us to know that they recognised we’d just had a baby.

I don’t want a fake birth certificate. And I think out of the whole experience, my hang-up has been the birth certificate. She was two days short. They had a crash team there. We had a baby, but she’ll never be recognised by UK law. She’ll never – she just didn’t exist. And people treat you differently. People do treat it like you’ve had a miscarriage. And they’ll tell you about their experiences of having a miscarriage. And I’m not going to take anybody’s pain away, and say that my pain was worse than anybody else’s. Because it’s a very individual thing. But it’s just a different experience. And I don’t think you can put them in the same box. And having a loss of a baby at fewer weeks and having one where you have got a baby, they are different experiences. Same kind of pain, but different experiences. But I was all of a sudden in this other box that I didn’t want to be in.

Mike: I, I don’t like – Miscarriage is obviously in common usage, everyone uses it. If you’re pregnant and you don’t have a baby, it’s a miscarriage as well. But I think from like a – There has to be some better way of like categorising different stages of what a miscarriage can consist of.

Emily: I feel she’s more under the stillbirth bracket. Because I gave birth, and she was still [laugh]. You know? So I sort of feel like that actually fits the description much better.

Mike: Yeah.

Emily: I quite often say I had a stillborn daughter. Because I did. I gave birth, and she wasn’t alive.

Mike: Yeah.

Emily: So actually, I think she falls under that bracket. I don’t know why at twenty four weeks it is considered a stillbirth, I don’t know. There’s obviously a reason behind it, but I – I think if you have to go through a birth, and the baby doesn’t survive, to me that is what

Mike: Yeah. I mean, the different – yeah.

Emily: Because I think sometimes when I’m trying to give someone a kind of quick version of it, saying I had a miscarriage just – again – brings back that sitting on the loo and bleeding. It doesn’t tell people what we went through. Whereas if you say stillborn, people are like “Oh.” And they get it. You know?

I do find it hard, just with – When she was born, specifically. Because you’re not categorised as a stillbirth mother, I find that hard. I feel sometimes almost like I’m a fraud. Like my baby didn’t matter as much. Even though to me, she does. But to other people, they might just see it as ‘oh well, it’s a miscarriage, like how are you so devastated, you know, why aren’t you over it yet, why is it – why is it that you can’t move on?’ But like to me, like – like my daughter died, I can never move on from that. Like I’m always going to be heartbroken. There’s no good that comes out of a baby dying. Like it’s not like when someone’s old or ill, and they’ve had a fully life. Like when a baby dies, it’s just – it’s always sad forever, forever. I’ll never ever feel okay about it. And I mean, I’m a lot better. And I can talk about it. And you know, I can function okay now. But I’ll never be – you know – happy about what’s happened. I’m always going to feel devastated over it.

When I’m 90, I’ll feel like that.

And the difference of if she’d been born after twenty four weeks? So the maternity leave, and –

Yes.

– birth and death certificates?

Yes. So important.

Yeah. Which – Are there some of those that are really?

Well, it just makes you feel like you’re less significant than a mother whose baby had been born dead a couple of days later, and that’s just not the case. You know, my baby existed, and she was here. And I laboured and delivered her. And I held her. And I had a funeral for her. You know, she was a real person. Like I felt her move. And, I – I feel like any woman that goes through that deserves the same recognition as a woman who has a baby a little later on. I don’t think that you should be categorised. It’s almost like you’re being punished, on top of all your heartbreak. It feels like a punishment. You know, like you’re pushed down into a subcategory of loss, and your grief should be as deep as somebody else’s. And that’s not how it is.

You know? ‘Mother Carly’ on her little band. That’s like the only real medical documented proof that I have that she was here. And so that band’s so precious now, because I don’t have anything else. Except her – I’ve got like a little document, like I got with her ashes. But those are the only official things that I have of her.

Once I delivered her – it was twenty three weeks and six days. And I regret to this day that I hadn’t hung on to that Tuesday, and I could have a birth certificate and death certificate. And I really wish – There was no – They said I could have carried her for a few weeks. And they said infection can then set in.

But because I was so – in such a like, such a state – I wish somebody had explained to me, “Look, if you just – you know. If you choose to wait another day, you can have a birth certificate and a death certificate.” And it wasn’t until, I don’t know how long after, that I realised – I tell people I was twenty four weeks. Because she wasn’t a miscarriage, she was stillborn. She was a baby. She was formed. She was little, she was tiny, but she was perfect.