Hi. I'm the mother of a stillborn baby boy. I was prepared for that during the next pregnancy in a weird way but what I wasn't prepared for was a miscarriage. I had a check up at 12 weeks and there was no heartbeat. My baby had died around 3 weeks earlier but my body had refused to acknowledge it and carried on with all the symptoms of pregnancy. I had to have a medical abortion via tablets. It was horrendous. What's killing me is that when everything "fell out", I panicked, I was throwing up and covered in blood and I flushed the toilet in terror. It was instinct. I now feel utterly sick to my stomach that I literally flushed this poor soul down the toilet! What the hell is wrong with me? I'll never ever forgive myself for it. They said I wouldn't recognise anything as a baby as it was early on but I still flushed my baby and I'm crippled with guilt and disgust

Go easy on yourself. We aren’t handed a handbook for this. My first question after my midwife told me that there wasn’t a heartbeat was if they could just knock me out and deal when it. We were too far along for that to be an option. I birthed my daughter in the hospital and am forever grateful for the nurses that had seen this all happen before. But I would have done the same if I had been at home. You did the best you could in the moment. I can only imagine how scary it must have been. Be grateful for your past self that handled the situation the best they knew how.