‘The world changes in an instant’: the impact of stillbirths and miscarriages

On Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day, October 15th, three mothers talk about their bereavement – and the long road to healingAnne Marie Gillooley, whose baby Max was stillborn, says the photos of him are 'the most precious photos that we have'. Photograph: John Gillooley After the birth of her stillborn baby boy, Anne Marie Gillooley had “such a strong sense of wanting to make memories with him”.She says she didn’t realise at the time “how important it was to healing”.In 2014, her son Max was born at 41½ weeks. Gillooley (43), who is from Donegal but lives in Dublin, says she was told her son had no heartbeat following a scan.“The world changes in an instant,” she says, speaking in advance of Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day, which is marked every year on October 15th.READ MORE“Everything that you thought you knew and could expect and could rely on, just is swept out from under your feet,” she says.“The only thing that kept me going through labour and delivery was this stubborn belief that I had in my head that they were wrong.”She describes the experience as “terrifying”. “I didn’t know if I would be okay to hold him, I didn’t know what he would look like,” she says. But once Max was born, she felt differently: “He was just so beautiful and so perfect and completely silent.”Anne Marie and her husband were able to spend a few days in hospital with Max.Anne Marie Gillooley now volunteers as a photographer with Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep. Photograph: John Gillooley “We were parents and we were so proud of him, and we were in awe of having created this little person and there was absolutely the grief of him not living,” she says.A midwife made them aware of the photography service offered by Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep. The desire “to remember what he looked like and to hold the proof of his existence” was “so strong”, she says.The photos with Max are “the most precious photos that we have”, she says.Since their experience, Gillooley has become the charity’s chairwoman and volunteers as a photographer. Helping to make memories for other families has helped her to heal and is “a huge part” of Max’s legacy, she says.“I felt so broken and I thought, even if I go on to have other children, every memory with them will remind me of what I’ve missed with Max,” she says. “Now I’m able to say to them 12 years later that this road that is ahead of you is extremely difficult, but you will find joy again.”A remembrance candle for Liam and Grace, twins of Nina Doyle, in front of buildings lit up as part of Féileacáin's Wave of Light Nina Doyle, who lives in Dublin, said she always wanted to be a mother. However, after going for tests she was told she had unexplained infertility and started IVF.After three rounds of IVF, resulting in two miscarriages, she then became pregnant without IVF but had another miscarriage. Then on the fourth round of IVF, she became pregnant with twins in 2018. Just shy of 23 weeks, labour started and Doyle was told by doctors that her babies would not survive.“It’s hard to put into words the level of fear, the level of having to give birth to babies that you knew were going to die ... while they were inside me, they were kicking,” she says. Within hours of receiving the “devastating news”, her babies were delivered. Liam was stillborn and Grace was alive for 31 minutes. The “silence was deafening” after Liam’s birth, she says, but she recalls the “rush of unconditional love”.“I couldn’t believe he was here. I couldn’t believe we were finally parents,” she says.She and her husband brought their babies home, “making memories, but it’s heartbreaking to fit a lifetime into such a short amount of time”.[ Irish women’s birth stories: ‘Women are so vulnerable when they’re pregnant’Opens in new window ]“It’s just like an absolute bomb went off and everything changed forever,” she says.Now in her 40s, Doyle is a regional co-ordinator with Féileacáin, which supports people affected by the death of a baby during or after pregnancy.She says she wanted their lives to “really matter” and became involved with Féileacáin in memory of her twins. She set up the Féileacáin Wave of Light in 2019, which lights up more than 200 buildings in blue and pink across the country.Róisín Moriarty (44), who is from Cork, had a miscarriage during her second pregnancy 11 years ago.She says she was “ignorant” to what could go wrong following her “perfect” first pregnancy.At about 10 weeks, she miscarried.Róisín Moriarty's son, Dessie, died following a miscarriage at 10 weeks in 2015 “Your whole world just falls apart ... it’s just mind boggling,” she says.Moriarty and her husband named the baby they lost Dessie.On leaving the hospital, she was handed a booklet put together by the Miscarriage Association of Ireland (MAI). She says the grieving process was “very isolating”, and she contacted the association.“You definitely feel less isolated when you know you’re not alone,” she says. Six years after her miscarriage, she became involved with the MAI.“It probably took me that long to actually go: ‘Oh, I’m actually okay now to talk about my own miscarriage and to talk to other people about theirs,’” she says.Getting involved was “healing” for her and she is now the secretary of the MAI and a volunteer. Her husband is also involved. It is a “nice way for us to remember our baby”, she says. Moriarty has two daughters, now 14 and 12. She says she was pregnant with her younger daughter at the time of the due date of the baby she miscarried.This was “bittersweet”, she says. “The grief comes back for the loss of your other baby. The worry is always there when you’re pregnant after a loss.”See Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep, the Miscarriage Association of Ireland and Féileacáin (support line: 085 2496464).IN THIS SECTION