Cornwall mum who suffered two miscarriages calls for change to appointment settings
Sammie Wheeler has described the heartache of being near expectant mums
A woman from Cornwall who has experienced two miscarriages is calling for a separate area for follow-up appointments at the Royal Cornwall Hospital.
Sammie Wheeler from St Austell experienced her first miscarriage last year and, after hearing the news that she had lost her baby, had to return to the early pregnancy unit by the Eden Ward for an appointment to discuss her options.
Whilst there, Sammie found herself near expectant mums and babies.
"It was a really, really hard time for me"
Sammie told us: "It was then that I found the most difficult. There were a lot of pregnant women and newborn babies around and it was a really, really hard time for me. We discussed options and decided to let it happen naturally, so it was another nearly three weeks.
"Then, on the 13th of March, we lost our baby".
Sammie is calling for a separate space or exit where women can leave the hospital without passing other expectant or new mothers, after hearing upsetting news.
She described the experience of losing a baby "horrible" and added that sometimes people struggled to say the right thing to her.
"A lot of people would try and comfort me in that at least you have a healthy baby and of course we're so grateful for him but it doesn't take away the pain you're going through at the moment.
"You get an extra layer of guilt of am I ever going to be able to give him a sibling.
"Every person responds so differently"
"What I found comfort in someone saying to me, might trigger somebody else. It's such a tricky thing and sometimes I struggle to comfort someone else going through it. Just letting people you're there for them and try not to give people advice".
Since her first experience with a missed miscarriage, Sammie had a chemical miscarriage in the summer.
She has been sharing her stories online and on her social media, to help encourage support for other women going through the same.
Sammie said: "There's so many of my friends on social media who've gone through it and not felt like they could speak about it. In recent years, celebrities have shared theirs and that's been huge in raising awareness.
"A lot of people don't know how to respond to a woman going through a miscarriage so it's just being able to talk about it".
She has planted a sunflower in memory of her first little one and daffodils in memory of her second; Sammie also created memory boxes to remember what she has been through.
"We plant sunflower in March and they bloom in September which would have been our baby's due date. Watching that grow and then flower was such a help to me".
We approached the Royal Cornwall Hospital for a statement about appointment settings at Treliske.
The hospital said: "The setting for those in the very early stages of pregnancy isn't as we'd want it to be at present and is sadly a consequence of a building designed in the 1950s when baby loss just wasn't acknowledged".
Bosses added that they hope to be able to make improvements going forward.
Read more:
How Cornwall hospitals provide support for people experiencing baby loss
'It was soul-destroying' - Bereaved parents face postcode lottery during Baby Loss
Brave mums share their heartbreaking stories of baby loss