I decided to use the medicine to induce the miscarriage. Rob, my husband, went home to get the children sorted – our neighbours had offered to look after them. I was then admitted and given the medicine to induce labour.

Given that my past labours were quick, they told me this ‘labour’ would likely be fast too. They gave me a cardboard pan and told me to put it over the toilet anytime I went. The midwife said if I felt the need to push, I had to have this cardboard thing under me. I felt completely ignorant at this point. What was my baby going to look like? I was frightened to ask because I thought it was something I should know the answer to. At the same time, I felt ashamed that my body hadn’t done what it should have done. It hadn’t carried this baby to birth.

After three rounds of medicine, with each round lasting six hours, nothing had happened. Once again, my body just wasn’t doing what it ‘should’ be doing: it couldn’t sustain the pregnancy and now it couldn’t miscarry properly. During this time, I received a text from my mum: “Tell your beautiful brave body – it’s OK to let go now.” I was suddenly able to reframe what had happened. My body hadn’t failed me. It was so desperate to be a mum, it refused to let my baby go. I was sent home and told to come back in when I miscarried.

Taking my kids for a walk, because we were only allowed out once a day at this point, I told them what had happened. My daughter, who was six at the time, gave me a cuddle and put her hand on my tummy. “I’m so sad that the baby will never get to see this because it’s such a beautiful day,” she said. It broke me.

A couple of mornings later, I felt something and ran to the toilet. There was so much blood. I called for Rob, shouting that I was losing the baby. I didn’t know what had happened, whether I’d passed the baby or not, and I couldn’t bear the thought of flushing the toilet. Rob came up to the bathroom with a bowl and a slotted spoon. I watched on as he fished around, not really knowing what we were looking for. When I arrived at hospital, covered in my own blood, Rob wasn’t allowed in and I was wheeled away on a chair, clutching a mixing bowl covered in cling film to my chest – the contents of which may or may not have been my baby. I looked at him through the glass and I just didn’t understand why this was happening.

Rob was cleared to come in as I was having an internal examination. Holding my hand, his face went white. There was blood up to my shoulder blades. I could feel the wet sensation across my back and in my hair. I genuinely thought I was going to die – this surely wasn’t normal. I thought miscarriage was like a heavy period, not like this. During the examination, the doctor removed the baby from my body. “This is your pregnancy tissue,” she said. I asked what that meant, and she repeated herself, adding “the products of conception”.

She wouldn’t say it was my baby.

Due to ‘pregnancy tissue’ becoming stuck in my cervix, I had to have an emergency surgery, and I was required to be awake during the procedure. All I wanted to do was go to sleep and for it all to be over. I felt emotionally exhausted and physically defeated. I wouldn’t allow myself to sleep because I was terrified of those waking moments when I’d think everything was OK. While we had initially been told we could take our baby home to bury, suddenly there were complications and forms to fill in – no one knew where the forms were or if it was even possible. It added a layer of anxiety to an already terrifying situation.

After it was all over, I was broken, sad and exhausted. It was the most frightening thing I’ve ever walked through. From the hospital, all I got in terms of support afterwards was a bit of paper with some ‘management options’.

I wrote down everything that happened – every single moment. I just had to get it out onto paper, and out of my head. My only comfort in those early darkest days was speaking to two friends who had been through baby loss. Hearing them share what they’d been through made me feel less alone.

Since losing my baby, and speaking about it so openly, so many of my friends have opened up about their losses, losses that I’d had no idea about. It struck me that we all have that opportunity for connection. With one in four pregnancies ending in loss, most of us will have friends who have been through it, but because societally we don’t talk about it, we’re left alone and isolated in our pain, wondering if our grief is in fact disproportionate to our loss.

Baby Loss Awareness Week: founder of The Worst Girl Gang Ever tells her story