Waking up in the middle of the night to intense cramping and heavy bleeding after seeing a positive pregnancy test has to be one of the hardest things for a women to deal with - not disregarding the feelings of the father-to-be either.
I was only around five/six weeks but due to early testing, we had just over a week for it to sink in and for the excitement to kick in.
It was Halloween night that I ended up in A&E, miscarrying with a guy who was dressed as dead Aladdin staring at me through his curtain. That image is one of the most haunting images of the whole scenario.
Three whole months went by after the miscarriage and it got harder to deal with the more negative pregnancy tests that I took. Then in the February, I finally tested positive and it was a very mixed-emotion moment for both myself and my fiancé. After having one healthy pregnancy and a baby boy, to having a miscarriage, we couldn't let ourselves get too excited.
One day I was positive that I'd get to meet our baby and the next day I was negative and was waiting for every slight niggling cramp to turn into another miscarriage.
Nine months later and through a rather stressful pregnancy of early contractions, but thankfully no early labour, I gave birth with a successful VBAC to a beautiful daughter, Iris Raine.
Throughout my pregnancy and since Iris' birth, I have days where I look back on the miscarriage and the what ifs. What if I hadn't miscarried? What would that baby have become? I think they're the typical questions that go through people's minds.
It was particularly hard when I was in the middle of my pregnancy but would have been at my due date.
My miscarriage taught me a lot. It taught me to appreciate, cherish and most importantly, love.
When we fell pregnant in October 2015, we knew we wanted a baby and were excited at the prospect of becoming a family of four, Lucas becoming a big brother and the memories we were going to create as we extended our little family. After the miscarriage, it became clear just how much we wanted those things. We appreciated how lucky we were to be able to fall pregnant and lucky enough to have a healthy little boy.
After seeing that positive pregnancy test, we didn't take advantage of the pregnancy. We cherished the little bump, we loved it more than we ever did before as we knew how much we wanted it and how grateful we were to now be watching our second baby bump growing and moving.
I watched the apps change, day by day, week by week. I cared more about little fingernails forming than ever before as we refused to take the pregnancy for granted. When she finally arrived exactly one year to the day we discovered we were pregnant with the pregnancy we lost, it became apparent that a little bit of that pregnancy would never be forgotten and as a firm believer of 'things happen for a reason' it felt so much more true. It felt like we had gone through that in order to make us open our eyes and to know how much we really wanted it. Things happen to test you as a parent and a partner, and it did, but with a positive outcome.
I learnt to look at my son and to cherish him more than ever before. It was hard, as he was the best thing to ever happen to me and I adored him, but I managed to find more love from somewhere. I learnt to appreciate how lucky we were, I learnt to trust in my body and to love yet another little tiny, crying human - that I grew.
My miscarriage taught me to be brave and the strongest mother I could be for the sake of my son, and to look at life with a more positive attitude and have a more optimistic outlook on life.
I am so grateful to be a mummy to Lucas and Iris and although the miscarriage was a difficult time in my life. Iris wouldn't be Iris and I cannot imagine not having her and her little personality in my life now.