*Trigger Warning - miscarriage, fertility, anxiety.

This post was written in July 2025.

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I filmed that challenge when I was 9 weeks pregnant, we lost the baby at 14 weeks.

I didn’t want to share this news until after the summer challenge because I didn’t want it to overshadow all the hard work, thought and care I’d put into it and also part of me felt it might affect you too, practicing. I didn’t want it to overshadow you.

My business is all about holding people! And it helped. It helped me because my Pilates business is this whole little world, separate to my own suffering that allows me to put myself aside and focus on my purpose. I teach Pilates because I love people.

Last year I wrote a journal post called 1 year of motherhood and I thought I’ll make this a yearly thing around Seb’s birthday but then February (Seb’s 2nd birthday) came and went. I found out I was pregnant and I started writing this blog post in my head. My anxieties and worries about introducing a sibling to Sebby. How does that fit into his world. Our world that already feels at capacity.

I naively was so certain this baby was coming in November. Why was I so certain when miscarriage is so so common? Because how can we not start to envision and prepare for what’s potentially going turn our whole world upside down again in 8 months time!

Next time, I won’t let myself feel that. And I think that’s the saddest thing about this for me.

Next time, I won’t tell all my friends and neighbours and my local coffee shop baristas. I won’t start organising the baby’s room. I won’t get too excited when Sebby cuddles my small bump and say’s “Mummy’s baby in there”.

Because loss makes you weary. It swaps happiness for hope. But how grateful I am to still have hope in a world that is so lacking of it.

I’ve felt somewhat reluctant to write about motherhood despite it being my main existence perhaps because I’ve wanted to keep it sacred but partly because I feel like I don’t have much to add that isn’t already out there.

What I have to say about motherhood isn’t unique or deeply profound, it’s simply my experience. But what I’ve realised when I search online (usually during the early hours of the morning through bleary eyes) for some advice or guidance; the posts that I resonate with the most are simply other mums saying - hey this is my experience and I see you, I’m with you, you aren’t alone.

The first year of my son’s life, I was in awe. This tiny little baby was mine. The second and third year of my son’s life… oh I’m still in awe but I’m also witnessing my tiny little baby become his own person. I’m navigating how not to mess him up. Don’t overpraise, don’t bribe him with chocolate biscuits, let him be independent, hold him during the tantrum but let him feel it all.

Motherhood is the greatest example of how abundant the cup of the human spirit is. I witness it in my friends who are mums, I see them get to the bottom of their cups and find a sip more.

You can be completely at capacity physically emotionally mentally, your soul is on the floor from tiredness and overwhelm and somehow you aren’t on the floor, you are standing with tomatoey pasta drool on the shoulder of your Tshirt, you comfort your little person, rubbing their soft pillowy skin and they lift their head and look up to you and say “hi mummy” and your heart bursts open because this tiny little human loves you - despite your morning breath and bodily odour and leftover feta on your chin and the most awful outfit combo on that makes you look in the mirror and think “yep this is rock bottom”.

But these two things exist at once so this isn’t rock bottom, you are the highest star in the sky you have ever been.

…and you simply crack on with bath and bedtime.

We had a silent miscarriage so at a scan the sonographer told us “unfortunately I can’t find a heartbeat.” What do you mean? I started to shake my head, no no no. I just didn’t understand how this was happening. I didn’t understand and couldn’t believe it but I didn’t once feel “why me?” Because why not me.

Our house filled with flowers as I miscarried naturally the following week. Curled up on the sofa watching rubbish TV (actually what am I saying -Ginny and Georgia and Love Island is gold). It felt like someone had died. Had they? I didn’t know how to process it all to be honest. I still don’t. I keep remembering how lucky I am. I have Seb. I have my mum holding my hand and Sam, my husband, just being more than I could ever hope for.

When I went into the hospital a couple weeks later for a check up scan to check the pregnancy tissue had all gone, I hopped on the chair, shuffled my bum down, popped my feet in the stirrups, routine routine routine. But then the nurse asked “so how many weeks pregnant are you?”. She hasn’t looked at the little form which said my name and the reason I was in - a silent miscarriage.

When I’m in environments like hospitals I still want to be so liked, I want to make the staffs’ lives easier. It’s the god damn teachers pet in me. I always feel like I’m the problem. So I didn’t say anything. I think I even apologised to her for the awkwardness of it all. But later I spoke to another member of staff and said “do you mind if I give some feedback and went on to explain what happened.”

And when I was asked how many weeks pregnant I was, having just had a miscarriage and having just been 14 weeks pregnant but no longer was. I didn’t feel sad. I just felt like I needed to protect this happening to another woman. I needed to hold that future woman.

I took a few days off work, I whispered “oh no sorry we lost the baby” as people who knew said congratulations, I slept and cuddled Seb so tightly and then I got back to work. Mainly because I am the only person that runs my business so no one else is going to pick up the pieces and mostly because, I love what I do.

My bump faded away as I filled back up.

Filled back up with responsibility and to do lists and pick ups and drop offs and squeezing dinner plans in and sending birthday cards off and buying Seb a new water bottle and getting Lenny’s flea treatment and wondering if I should grow my hair out and trying to get Seb to brush his teeth and feeling guilty for not making a cottage pie by from scratch and feeling guilty for not changing the bed sheets weekly and feeling guilty for not calling my brother more often and feeling guilty for buying myself a new top and feeling guilty for not knowing what to say about what the f is going on in the world and feeling guilty for having so much to be filled up with.

I have all of the above thoughts while others have the single thought every day of “how do I keep my child alive today.”

So thank God for being full. I am full to brim with so much to hold but how lucky am I to be so full.

Love, Lottie x