Before 12 Weeks: Revealing the hidden grief of early pregnancy loss
As we mark Baby Loss Awareness Month - we're sharing the heart breaking stories which were never told
Last updated 28th Oct 2025
Debbie Little always "just knew" that she was going to be a mum.
When she fell pregnant after marrying the love of her life, it felt as though everything was falling into place.
Sitting on her sofa in her home in North Lanarkshire, she sighs: "This story gets a bit sad."
Debbie's story
For the first two months, she and her husband kept their happy secret - until an initial scan confirmed there was no heartbeat.
Debbie was saddened - but determined, and quickly fell pregnant again.
This time, she attended a scan and described it as being like a scene from a film.
"Went to the scan, and I was about 8 weeks at this point, and they did that thing you see in all the movies.
"They searched, told me they had to get someone in to check, and then confirmed the heartbeat was gone.
"I just couldn't make it past 8 weeks.
"I remember just sitting on the couch alone, binging TV shows, I didn't want to see anyone. The second one was harder, because I was wondering: 'Is this the path I'm on now?'"
Debbie suffered the heartbreak of losing a pregnancy before 12 weeks four times within the space of three years.
She said: "The second you see those lines on your pregnancy test, you are a mum. So to lose it, four times in a row...it was so hard.
"I kept thinking: 'I am this baby's mum, and you're not going to take this away from me.' I had to fight, and fight, and fight."
Debbie decided to contact Tommy's - a UK pregnancy and baby loss charity which helped her take part in research to understand why she could not carry her pregnancy to full term.
They recommended a treatment based on her results - and thankfully - her fifth pregnancy resulted in her first baby girl, named Sophie.
She continued her treatment and had a second baby, Jessica, three years afterwards.
Today, her living room is filled with brightly coloured drawings, toys, love and laughter.
But Debbie explained that her grief has not disappeared, it has only changed shape.
She said: "It's not something that I talk about often anymore, but I think about it.
"Parenting is hard, it's tough. I look around my living room some times and it's chaos - but then you remember you were sitting in that same living room, crying, because you couldn't have this.
"I don't have a graveside, I didn't have a cremation, I don't have anything like that - but I know they're still part of me, part of our story, and that will always be the case."
Each October, she lights four candles in memory of the children that she never got to hold.
Louise's story
Louise Caldwell is writing the names of her three babies on ribbons to display outside of South Lanarkshire Council to mark Baby Loss Awareness week.
Each one was lost in early pregnancy - but she has never forgotten how it felt.
She said: "I blamed myself for all three miscarriages that I've had. I felt like my body had let me down."
No one apart from Louise's partner knew about the first two pregnancies - not even family or friends.
She described it as an incredibly isolating experience.
She said: "I didn't see anybody with my losses, and it hurt - it still hurts - that nobody was there.
"It's a terrible situation to be in.
"You've got that idea of keeping it a secret until the 12 week scan - that's been instilled in me for all these decades.
"The way society is, you're treated like your miscarriage should be a secret we keep so that we don't offend anyone. It shouldn't be that way."
Each October, she lights three candles in memory of the children she never got to hold.
The '12 week rule'
Charities and health professionals are now questioning whether it may be time to end the so-called '12 week rule' - which encourages women to keep their news secret.
We know that across the UK one in five pregnancies end in miscarriage, and 98% of those happen within the first 12 weeks.
Vicky Robinson, CEO of the Miscarriage Association, said the '12 week rule' leaves thousands of women every single year to grieve all alone.
She said: "I hate the so-called '12 week rule', because I think it's so unhelpful and yet it still pervades our entire society.
"This feeling that you shouldn't tell anyone you're pregnant before 12 weeks in case something happens - well, what if something does happen?
"That's exactly the time you need to lean into your support network, and if you haven't felt comfortable to disclose this news, having to tell someone you were pregnant but that you're not now is a really, really difficult conversation to have.
"We, as a charity, don't buy into this hierarchy of grief.
"Grief doesn't start at 12 weeks, or at 24 weeks - that is not how people experience loss.
"Historically, there's been this idea that we shouldn't talk about losses before 12 weeks because it makes other people feel uncomfortable.
"That all just feeds this very unhelpful narrative that this is something you shouldn't really talk about, and that this is something you should go through alone."
'There is a person-shaped hole in my family'
Amina Hatia has been an NHS midwife around 18 years, and now helps run Tommy's support hotline.
She is one of a small team who makes contact with around 40 people every single day - a large proportion of which have experienced a miscarriage.
The line gives them the space and time to talk through what has happened, ask questions, and receive support in both a clinical and emotional way.
Amina has experienced her own early pregnancy losses, and explains that openness and honesty is what helps women heal.
She said: "We know that those early losses have a huge impact on people in their lives going forward.
"It's not a ball of cells.
"It's a life. It's a future. It's a first day of school, it's the name you've picked out and imagining how they're going to look.
"When you lose a pregnancy, including in the very early stages, it's not just a loss, but that whole future which has disappeared.
"I have four children, but I've been pregnant six times. The children who are not with me, are still part of my family.
"I still know when their due dates were. I still know how old those babies would have been, and there's always that person-shaped hole in our family that we've had to grow around.
"When my children who are with me have their birthdays, I always think that there should've been another two people around the table with us."
Amina explained that she often sees the impact of the '12 week rule' first hand.
She said: "The isolation and the loneliness about early pregnancy loss particularly comes from that idea that you shouldn't tell anyone.
"This is the saddest part of it all - when I start talking about this, even family members will say it happened to them, and they've never told anyone.
"Coverage like this is so important because I know when I talk about this - there is a virtual hand-raising of 'me too', 'me too'. You look around the room and there are people who have never spoken about it - until now."
£1.5m NHS framework
Women's Health Minister, Jenni Minto, said the Scottish Government is committed to improving the experiences of women who receive miscarriage care.
She said: "I am really sorry to hear that women and their wider families feel like that, because it's simply not right.
"I was very pleased to be able to announce a £1.5m fund earlier this year to ensure health boards did have the right funding to enable them to support women who were going through miscarriage or baby loss at any point.
"Having spoken to a number of women, we learned they felt the service they got from the NHS was amazing, but there was, perhaps, a need to de-medicalise.
"We've got to look at healthcare as a much more wraparound service.
"We have the health board there to do the clinical care, but we look at other organisations to support patients too.
"I would love things to happen as quickly as they can, but we, at the Scottish Government, have made this funding available and I would hope health boards are working through what they need to do to provide the right service."
Workplace reforms
The UK Government is currently in the process of reforming the Employment Rights Bill, which will bring in a raft of changes for workers.
For the first time, it will make bereavement leave a statutory right for a loss at any stage in pregnancy.
At the moment, you only qualify for bereavement leave if the pregnancy is lost after 24 weeks gestation.
Employment lawyer, Rupa Mooker, explains that it will finally recognise this grief in law.
She said: "At the moment, many people who experience an early loss have no legal right to take time off.
"They tend to use annual leave or call in sick, so giving everyone the right to bereavement, even in those early weeks, recognises that this is a real loss that deserves space and compassion.
"This isn't just about giving time off - it's about how managers respond, how policies are written, and how supportive the workplace is.
"The Government's proposals definitely feel like progress - they acknowledge women's experiences and make compassion a legal right.
"But there is still work to do. Miscarriage and bereavements affect partners too and we must ensure workplaces can support everyone who is grieving."
Where to find support
If you, or someone you know, has experienced miscarriage or baby loss, you can find support.
Help is available from Sands, Tommy's, Baby Loss Retreat Scotland, Held in our Hearts, or The Miscarriage Association.
Before 12 Weeks podcast - where to listen
You can hear the full stories of Louise, Debbie and Amina wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple Music and Spotify. Just search Before 12 Weeks.