After experiencing miscarriage, Sarah began speaking openly about the loss of Baby Phoenix and discovered just how powerful sharing her story could be. Now pregnant with her rainbow baby and expecting in October, she is preparing to take on the London Landmarks Half Marathon with Team Tommy’s – using her fundraising journey to raise awareness, remember Baby Phoenix and show how much difference sharing a story can make.
Tuesday 9 December 2025, something happened. At 11 weeks and 2 days pregnant, I started bleeding. In that instant, my life turned upside down. I always, always knew becoming a mother was destined to be part of my journey. It is my purpose. What I was not prepared for. At all. Was being pregnant, and then not being pregnant.
The weeks of my miscarriage were surreal, painful and unbelievably difficult. But what I also wasn’t prepared for was how little we talk about miscarriage. It is something that so many people experience, with 1 in 4 pregnancies ending in miscarriage, yet so often it is suffered in silence. So I’m on a mission. Not to cure my grief, find a way forward, or look for the positives… I’m on a mission to share the heartache of my story and to encourage others to do the same.
You are not alone. I am not alone. We are not alone. The more people I talk to about my miscarriage, the more I’m met with a compassion that comes from a shared experience.
Unsurprisingly, I’ve found myself surrounded by people who have been pregnant and then not been pregnant. But each of us has been coping and managing in our own way, behind closed doors. That’s not okay. This amount of grief and heartache shouldn’t also come with an apprehension to tell people.
Since sharing my story, women have contacted me to thank me for putting into words things they could not at the time. So maybe, just maybe, my words can help to validate someone else’s feelings. They might give someone the chance to read my story and feel just a tiny bit less alone.
The grief is not less painful when it is shared, but it is far less lonely. And at a time when you’re suffering one of the most horrific experiences of your life, feeling a little less alone goes an awfully long way.
I am now pregnant with my rainbow baby, who is due this October (2026).
We often assume that contrasting ideas and feelings cannot exist simultaneously, like the presence of one counteracts the other. But it’s just not like that. One thing I’ve learnt is that every negative thought or emotion around my current pregnancy is completely separate to the utter joy I feel about my rainbow baby. We need to find a way to normalise talking about those negative thoughts without assuming that the positives have been obliterated.
For too long, society and social etiquette have dictated what we should and shouldn’t talk about openly. We grow up with an understanding of what we can and can’t say without necessarily knowing why or where those beliefs have come from. It’s 2026 and the world has come a long way, but I still became pregnant with this belief that pregnancy is all rainbows and sprinkles. Tommy’s has helped me accept that while pregnancy is beautiful and magical, it is far, far more complex than that. Emotions intertwine and often contradict one another, and there is no one single road that we all follow.
Tommy’s has become the single place I look for information throughout my rainbow pregnancy. Having somewhere reliable to go to read up on concerns or worries, without getting lost in the black hole of Google, has been invaluable. In the early hours of the morning, when my mind is racing, it’s the first place I go.
It has been a much-needed reminder throughout the last seven months that every thought, feeling and emotion I have for my beautiful rainbow baby is valid. Tommy’s provides far more than just information, although that information is invaluable. They’ve helped to give women like me a platform to share the whole of their story, not the socially acceptable filtered version. Reading others’ stories helps me feel less alone, and I hope my story can do the same for others.
I signed up to join Team Tommy’s for the London Landmarks Half Marathon 2027 to run in memory of Baby Phoenix. By the time the LLHM comes around, I will have given birth to my beautiful rainbow baby, and I hope to be able to stand side-by-side with other amazing people who are running in memory.
For me, this is more than raising money, this is about raising awareness. Awareness for the amazing support Tommy’s provides, and awareness of how tragically common miscarriages are. I intend to use my fundraising journey to not only share my own story, but also to support others to share theirs.
If just one person reads this and feels slightly less alone, then it will have been a piece worth writing.
