An Ealing resident has shared her story about the loss of a baby while pregnant in 2013.
Emma Fogden became pregnant following two rounds of IVF and her family were excited to welcome Ivy as a sister for her older brother.
Emma has now shared her story as part of Baby Loss Awareness Week (9 October 2024 – 15 October 2024).
Working with Twins Trust, she has drawn on her own personal experience and working as a therapist and written a booklet about coping with grief.
The booklet, Navigating Grief: Coping with loss in multiple births offers support to parents who have lost a baby or babies from a multiple pregnancy.
After seven rounds of unsuccessful IVF, Emma fell pregnant with her eldest son, who is now 13. After another two rounds of IVF, Emma discovered she was pregnant with her second child. But in the third trimester, Ivy’s heartbeat stopped and Emma and her family faced an incredibly tough time.
Emma said: “I’m passionate about people talking about baby loss and Baby Loss Awareness Week is a great way to remind us of this. It also offers a chance to remember the babies we have lost. In the UK we can be a bit hopeless about talking about grief. This week lets us remember, allow the grief and perhaps reach out to those who are struggling with loss.”
Emma added: “As a therapist I don’t usually share my own story, but I feel strongly that sharing our experiences and talking really helps. Hearing the right words or experiencing being really listened to can be a lifeline.”
Emma said she found support groups and charities that helped her when she was struggling to conceive.
She added: “I was incredibly lucky as just as I really felt my body was exhausted and I had no reserves of hope, I became pregnant with my eldest son. After my first born, I became pregnant after two rounds of IVF with my daughter, Ivy. We found that her heart had stopped beating near the end of our pregnancy. I was absolutely devastated. Delivering Ivy was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. But I was looked after very sensitively.”
At the time, the family was supported by an NHS psychotherapist, who helped them to make tough decisions about Ivy’s funeral and other important issues.
Emma said: “It changed the course of my life. I was working in publishing as an editor at the time. I already loved words, but the transformative power of having your story really heard struck me hard and I retrained to be a counsellor.”
Happier times followed when Emma discovered she was pregnant with twins, but it was a process that she found amazing and terrifying at the same time.
“I was a bundle of nerves for the whole pregnancy. When a scan showed I was expecting two boys I was so grateful but also had to accept that I wouldn’t have a girl. Luckily my twin sons are so different that I soon realised that you didn’t need different sexes to experience a huge spectrum of parenting,” she added.
While pregnant with her twins, Emma discovered Twins Trust and found a wealth of support about pregnancy, birth and beyond.
Emma then shared her own personal experience of baby loss and hopes the booklet will help others.
Emma said: “Writing the grief booklet allowed me to draw on my personal experience of what was helpful and what wasn’t. Writing the booklet was an amazing chance to draw all these things together. My hope is that this booklet will be a doorway to getting the support that’s needed at what is often the one of the most challenging times in people’s lives.”
Louise Bowman, Twins Trust’s head of family services, said: “Emma has used her personal and professional experiences to great effect to create a resource that really meets the needs of our community.”
For bereavement support and to download the Navigating Grief booklet, click here.
