A grainy black-and-white image on a screen. Cold gel on my stomach. Papery sheets crinkling beneath me. The soothing voice of the sonographer — then the panicked look on her face.
I remember it only in fragments, like snapshots from a film I wish I could forget.
‘I’m so sorry, Sarah. Your baby doesn’t have a heartbeat.’
I was lying on a hospital bed, completely alone, with no one to hold my hand or wrap their arms around me as I took in the news.
My husband was seven storeys down in the car park, banned from coming inside because of Covid-19 rules. My hands shook uncontrollably as I dialled his number. I couldn’t bring myself to say it; once the tears came, they didn’t stop.
The Mail’s Sarah Rainey (pictured) was told in August that her unborn baby did not have a heartbeat
We’d had an inkling something was wrong. I called the hospital the day before and they booked me in for an early scan — but the reality was unbearable.
I was almost three months pregnant; exhausted, hormonal, hungry all the time. When I put my hand on my stomach, I could feel a gentle curve, the beginnings of a life we had created.
We had told nobody — not our parents, not even our son, then 16 months old — that a second child was on the way. It was our joyous secret, a tiny kernel of hope in this bleakest of years.
And then, on a bright August morning, in a room full of beeping machines and soft-voiced midwives, I learned that the tiny heart beating inside me had simply stopped.
Three months later, just writing those words makes my heart heave. But reading the Duchess of Sussex’s powerful story of her own miscarriage in July, published this week in the New York Times, has given me — and countless others, no doubt — the courage to share mine.
Because I know how close to the surface grief like this resides; how news of yet another friend’s pregnancy, or casual enquiries from relatives about whether you’re trying for one more, can bring it all back in an agonising instant.
For some women, having a baby seems so devastatingly simple and stress-free; for others, whether battling infertility, miscarriage, stillbirth, IVF or something else entirely, it’s torture, a precarious tightrope between happiness and disappointment.
Sarah said that hearing stories of women in similar situations, including Meghan Markle (pictured) has helped her work through her grief
The statistics show how common this is: one in four pregnancies ends in miscarriage, most before 12 weeks. But I also know how hard it is to talk about. How hard it is — even for someone normally as rational as me — to accept that it’s not your fault.
Meghan and I were pregnant with our firstborns at the same time. My son Charlie was born in April last year, and Archie in early May, and so I can’t help but feel that our paths have somehow aligned.
Reading stories like hers, and others in this newspaper before, has helped me work through my grief, realising that I am not alone, and start to heal the pain I’ve previously locked away.
This was my second miscarriage. The first happened far from home, on a supposed ‘holiday of a lifetime’ to Australia in November 2017. I’d had no symptoms: I just woke up one day, almost 11 weeks pregnant, and there was blood.
My husband drove us to the nearest hospital, where, after six hours of waiting, we heard the news that broke both our hearts.
A ‘missed miscarriage’, they call it, meaning the foetus had stopped growing several weeks before my body realised. I took some tablets the doctor had prescribed — and, 48 hours later, it was over.
Sarah and her husband waited for their son Charlie (pictured) to turn one before they decided it might be time to think about having another baby
Months passed. My husband and I waited, then started trying again, then waited some more.
The following August, after what felt like an eternity, I fell pregnant again. Charlie, our beautiful, bright-eyed boy, was born last spring; our rainbow baby, bringing more than enough happiness and love to drown out all the heartache that had gone before.
Had it not happened, we told ourselves, he wouldn’t be here. So we threw ourselves into being the best parents we could be, focusing everything on him. Eventually, as we emerged from the sleepless fog of new parenthood and Charlie turned one, we decided, tentatively, that it might be time to think about number two.
Everything happened far quicker than we had imagined. I found out in July that I was seven weeks pregnant. Then, one sunny Sunday morning, it all went wrong. I couldn’t believe this was happening, at the same stage as before, all over again.
It was ‘chromosomal’, a nurse explained after my scan, meaning the foetus was never going to develop beyond a certain stage.
I had to decide, there and then, alone on a shiny pink sofa in the bereavement room of the maternity ward, what to do next. I chose surgery — the quickest option to remove the pregnancy remains from my womb — and was booked in for the following week.
My wonderful sister, a doctor, came across London to find me in hospital, bought me tea and cake and escorted me home, where I hugged my husband and cried until I fell asleep.
Charlie woke me the next morning by banging on the wall of his nursery and demanding Shreddies. Life with a toddler doesn’t stop for anything.
Sarah (pictured) said that if being locked away from loved ones has taught her anything, it’s the importance of talking to one another
The operation — a ‘procedure’, they call it, in a bid to strip emotion away — wasn’t as painless as they had promised but I was home in four hours, feeling empty and raw.
Going through it alone, because of Covid restrictions, made it all the more unpleasant. Once again, my husband had to wait outside and I sent my son to nursery like it was any other day.
The staff were kind and understanding but they were also businesslike; I was one patient on a long list. The surgeon told me she routinely does five procedures like mine every day.
Afterwards, I longed to hug my parents, for my mum to stroke my hair and tell me it would all be OK. But they live in Northern Ireland, where a local lockdown meant they could not travel over.
We have daily video chats, punctuated by Charlie bouncing around in the background. He is blissfully ignorant of what happened, providing constant distraction from the grim realities of life. If there is a bright side, it’s that we get more time with him, to celebrate the big-hearted, inquisitive, mischievous little person he is growing into.
Dealing with miscarriage during this pandemic has been extremely difficult, without the physical support of friends and family. But, in a way, the absence of social contact has also made it easier. We’ve been able to hunker down, shut out the world and appreciate what we have.
It’s strange, this sort of grief. I haven’t lost someone I love but, rather, I’ve lost the hope of loving someone — and while I know it’s important to let myself cry when I need to, I’m also conscious that some women have it far worse.
Chrissy Teigen, the American model and TV presenter, shared harrowing photographs from hospital after her third child, Jack, was stillborn halfway through her pregnancy in September. And Zara Tindall, the Queen’s granddaughter, had to publicly announce her first miscarriage in 2016.
I can only imagine the pain they endured. And I am so grateful to them, to Meghan, and to all the other women who have shared their stories. One day, I hope, in the not too distant future, I’ll feel ready to try again. For now, I’m just grateful for what — and who — I already have in my life.
This year has been an unbearably tough one in so many ways for so many people. But if being locked away from those we love has taught me anything, it’s the importance of talking to one another — and realising that we are never, ever alone.