We can't sweep the hidden heartache of miscarriage under the carpet - Laura Collins, YEP Editor

Grief is a very complex and challenging emotion.

It is a dark sadness that looms over us as we try to comprehend the loss of someone very close to us.

We all deal with grief in a different way; it can be overwhelming, all-consuming and also all too easy to sweep under the carpet.

But where do you even begin when it comes to grieving for someone you have never even met?

This is the first time I’ve felt emotionally able to put my thoughts on paper.

This has been one of the hardest columns I have ever written. I’ve started, deleted and rewritten this many times of the last few weeks.

Only my closest inner circle know that sadly I have had the trauma of two early miscarriages.

Just a small handful of people even knew about my delight at seeing those two little lines.

But sadly it wasn’t meant to be - my hopes for the future were quite literally flushed down the toilet.

Women are told that they have to keep early pregnancy to themselves because of the risks of miscarriage so then followed a stream of awkward conversations about what had happened.

I won’t gloss over it. Those conversations were awful and the worst part was this all happened during the height of lockdown.

All I wanted was a hug from my mum and best friend and to be told that everything was going to be alright.

Instead my husband and I had to find a way of dealing with this almost unspeakable grief on our own.

And this wasn’t the first time we had to dust ourselves off from this.

We’ve been here before but the second time seemed to hit me even harder.

Perhaps it was the isolation of the height of lockdown that played a role in this.

In the weeks that followed I had to block the subsequent baby announcements from some of my closest friends on social media because I simply couldn’t deal with reading about it.

I felt like every post was just twisting the knife - I desperately wanted to be happy for them but I just couldn’t. I wasn’t being mean but I was just simply overwhelmed by what could have been.

The little things often are the biggest triggers.

Thinking about when the anniversary falls, when the due date should have been and even the Royal baby announcement earlier this year made me think about what might have been.

Thankfully I have the most amazing support network around me and I am eternally grateful for that.

I know I am not on my own as sadly one in four pregnancies end in miscarriage.

But as a society we really need to open up and talk about this seemingly taboo issue. It has taken me a long time to open up about my experiences - and many more women will be suffering in silence or simply don’t want to talk and that too is fine.

Early miscarriage is not spoken about enough and we have to start making strides to combat this. But beginning the conversation has to be a good starting point.

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