Pippa O’Connor has shared an emotional message to mark one year since she suffered a heartbreaking miscarriage.
The 36-year-old, who is due to give birth to her third child this month, suffered a miscarriage in October 2020 – before she fell pregnant again earlier this year.
Taking to Instagram this morning, Pippa wrote: “Today marks the start of #babylossawarenessweek… I never knew it existed until I was sitting in hospital last October 9th waiting to have a DNC.”
“I was Googling and scrolling wanting to read something I could relate to. Thankfully there’s a lot more information out there and people sharing their stories more than ever before…”
“I think it’s so important to keep these conversations going.. you aren’t alone in what you’ve been through and sometimes you just need someone to say I know how you’re feeling, that feeling like you’ve just fallen through a trap door..”
“I get it and I’m sorry and it’ll ease with time.. so I’m just sending much love to anyone that needs it.. be kind to yourself.”
Pippa announced that she’s expecting another baby with her husband Brian back in May.
At the time, the POCO founder admitted she felt “lucky” to be pregnant again after suffering a miscarriage last year.
Pippa said: “We’re just on cloud nine. Brian and I are so thrilled. We love babies and we always knew we wanted another baby but it never happened after Louis so we were kind of at peace with that.”
“I’m so happy with what we have and so grateful with what we have that I didn’t want to be always wishing for another but we always said if it happened, amazing.”
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“Then last summer I got pregnant which was the biggest shock, I literally could not believe it. And then unfortunately I had a miscarriage in October.”
“I don’t want to be sad or getting too emotional when I’m actually so happy… So that was October, I went for my second scan and unfortunately there was no heartbeat,” she explained.
“I know so many people have been there and there are going to be so many people watching this who have just gone through it today or last week. We all know how common it is but I still think it’s unsaid.”
“To be honest, I don’t even know when I would’ve opened up about it if I wasn’t lucky enough to be pregnant again now because I suppose we don’t really want to show vulnerability and I don’t want to feel sad.”
“But then I know how I felt at the time and I just wanted someone else to say, ‘That happened to me’. You want to be able to relate to someone.”
“I’m so conscious of not wanting to upset people but I’m just sharing my own story and I just wanted to be truthful about what I went through,” Pippa said.
“You look at Instagram and you see someone sharing their lovely news and it can look like everything is perfect all of the time, but I can guarantee everyone’s been through something along the way.”
Pippa and Brian are already parents to two boys – Ollie, 8, and Louis, 5.
If you are looking for support or information regarding pregnancy loss, you can contact the Miscarriage Association of Ireland at www.miscarriage.ie.
