I want to share my story with you, to help raise awareness and as part of my healing process. For the last 2 years, my (now) Fiancé and I have been trying to start a family. It's something I've always wanted, but knew I would wait until I felt ready, safe, loved, sure. And I am, in this I count myself blessed.

Falling pregnant and bringing a life into this world is something I thought would come easy for me. I love children and work with kids daily; I'm basically a big, energetic kid myself. However, my journey came as a huge shock to me. I never imagined it would be anything different from "we decide to try, we grow a baby, and we're parents", because that's how it's seemed for pretty much everyone else I know.

I've discovered it's called being 'lapped', when you've been trying for a while and someone you know falls pregnant; sometimes accidentally, with their first try, or even with a second child within that time. I don't begrudge the mothers one little bit, I have only joy for them, my misfortune is not their fault. The problem is that I feel the fault is mine.

Why can't my body do the thing it's pretty much designed for, to grow a baby? You see, fertility is not the issue here; we can get pregnant, but we've lost the pregnancy each time. And we're talking more than a few now. And every time, I feel like I've failed at being a woman, like it's my job to make it grow. I can't, and I don't know why.

I worry that I've left it too late (37yo), even though I'm fit and healthy, don't smoke, no medical issues etc. Testing has shown no genetic problems between my partner and I. So we've been told "keep trying, eventually it'll happen". I'm just not sure how many more times I can put my body, my mental state, and my relationship though this.

So that's where I am at. One huge factor that has helped me through all of this, is other women sharing their stories with me. Every experience is different, but no less painful. I slowly began to understand that NOT having a successful pregnancy first time is more common than society leads us to believe. It's just a miscarriage isn't talked about openly, it's not an occasion we celebrate with family or rush to update on social media. It's extremely personal, so we think we have to suffer it alone, in private, or in hushed voices with others who've been through similar. It's very sad, yes, but it shouldn't be shameful.

The taboo around miscarriage can be just as damaging to the hopeful Mam-to-be, as the ordeal itself. I want to be open about my on-going journey. I need to be; it's a chapter in my story now and I don't want to hide any part of who I am. We need charities like The Miscarriage Association to help raise awareness of it's normality, so the women out there who have suffered loss, are currently experiencing a loss, or are yet to know that they will, can say out loud, "It. Is. Not. My. Fault."