Even though it’s understandable that some people are fiercely private about such experiences, Waller-Bridge acknowledges, it was her friend’s “generosity of spirit” and “bravery” in giving the go-ahead for the story to be used in the show which encouraged many women in the UK to speak up about their miscarriages in public spaces, as well as shed a light on the silent suffering that so often defines the female experience.

“So much of season two is about what we don’t see,” she explains. “We watched Claire fight that miscarriage, you see the fight, you see the struggle…[she thinks] ‘this will not take over my evening’, ‘this will not ruin their evening’, ‘this is something I’m going to package and deal with later’.

“That moment she sits down, we know she’s not going to, because then her life will be defined by her and her ‘failure’ and knowing that that was actually where the strength of those characters lay, in their pain that they have, and the energy they put into fighting it.”

Miscarriage, as Fleabag so poignantly illustrates, is not always a medical emergency characterised by a trip to hospital. It does, in fact, occur frequently in public spaces, and when women do miscarry, they often downplay their pain to deal with the practicalities of the situation instead. As a long-overdue movement to end the silence and stigma around miscarriage and pregnancy loss takes hold, so too must we encourage frank conversation around the way women experience pain, and how we can better support them in their journey to recovery. Miscarriage is a part of everyday life, after all, and women’s experiences can’t be shrouded in secrecy any longer.

Image: Amazon Prime

Phoebe Waller-Bridge reveals the true story behind Claire’s miscarriage in Fleabag