Sam - Petals Charity

Sam’s story: TFMR, Pregnancy After Loss, and finding healing through running

I had the unfortunate need to be supported by Petals after a TFMR five years ago, and I am so grateful they exist and could be there for me when I was in a dark and confusing place.

Alongside counselling, running has given me so much; it’s provided an outlet to process my grief and a way to make new friends and connections. This year, I have run the London Marathon, Lakeland 100 and the cherry on top – The Ring o’ Fire, a 130-mile coastal ultra marathon circumnavigating the Isle of Anglesey.

This is the furthest I have ever run in one continuous effort but this worthy cause gave me the strength to keep going when it got tough.

Over the course of 2025, I have opened up about my story, the journey that training has taken me on, and ultimately conquered these challenges and raised money along the way, so Petals can support other people in the same way they supported me.

I’m really not sure what I would have done if Petals hadn’t been able to support me; I think my life and my relationship with my family and my children would be very different. I would like the money I’ve raised to fund as many counselling sessions as possible, so many more parents can be supported.

Here’s my story…

In September 2020, at a routine scan, it was discovered that our baby had suffered a brain insult leading to loss of brain tissue and hydrocephaly, where fluid had accumulated inside the skull.

In a single appointment my future changed, my life changed and I was changed.

You don’t ever want to have to choose between terminating a pregnancy on medical grounds or having a live birth and sending the baby straight into palliative care, but that was the decision we faced.

So, at 37 weeks gestation, we terminated the pregnancy.

I am grateful that we had the option for TFMR but there was a lot of guilt and shame that came with that decision. I don’t regret my decision, but I struggled to speak about it with family and friends because it created lots of conflicting feelings. I avoided my feelings for years until I got pregnant again in 2022 and that pregnancy brought back all the memories from before. I was terrified that this pregnancy would end in loss too…

People would comment on my pregnant belly in the street and they would ask me about the pregnancy, ask if I was excited. I wanted to scream ‘no!’ at them, run away.

I found pregnancy after loss really hard because you can’t hide the fact you are pregnant: everyone talks to you about it, it’s all they see. I didn’t feel like a human anymore, just a grumpy incubator.

My experience of pregnancy after loss has changed the way I interact with pregnant ladies now, I don’t bring it up unless they do, I don’t explode with excitement because they might feel as scared as I did.

The Pain of the Unknown

Our loss in 2020 was towards the end of COVID restrictions; we hadn’t seen family or friends for most of the year. I had to go to my appointments and scans on my own and because of the deaths from COVID, the morgues were full and pathology units were busy. This all meant that the post-mortem of our baby couldn’t be performed in Oxford, they had to be moved to Southampton.

The results from the post-mortem were delayed because of the back log and this meant we had 6 months of waiting and wondering what happened to our baby.

This didn’t help my mental state or my sleep, I suffered with insomnia and when I did drift off to sleep, I was plagued by nightmares. In the end, the post-mortem results were inconclusive. They didn’t know what had caused the brain damage. That was hard for me to accept.

I liked answers, I was waiting for an answer, I was depending on the answer for some closure. If we knew what had caused this brain damage, surely, we would be able to avoid it if we had another child.

That was a huge part of the reason that I struggled with pregnancy after loss. There were lots of unknowns and unanswered questions, everything felt out of my control.

The Road To Healing

After our loss in 2020 I was so angry at my body – it had failed to perform a basic task of reproduction. I know that sounds entitled but it was how I felt.

I needed space for myself and I wanted to punish my body. So, I entered an ultramarathon. Not a healthy thought process, I know, but I wasn’t thinking straight.

I hated running. I had never run further than 10 miles in my life. So I thought I would enter the 100km Race to the Stones event along the Ridgeway national trail.

I had a year off on maternity leave and no newborn to look after. Running would give me something to do and teach my body a lesson for failing me. That is how it began: unhealthy thoughts and a bad plan to avoid my feelings of loss, grief and shame.

The wrong reason to enter an ultramarathon. As it turns out, it was exactly what I needed. I started a training plan as soon as my c section recovery would allow, couch to 100k. I built up my training runs, I enjoyed the scenery, I cried on benches, I screamed into the wind.

Running was my therapy, it was my outlet, it was time alone to process my feelings, and at some point in the process, it turned into a way to appreciate my body again.

I ran longer and longer distances in training. Me! My body did that, it ran and it coped and it got stronger. Eventually in 2021 I ran the 100km event and I loved it. My family supported me along the way and I felt more at peace with my body and what it had achieved.

How Petals Counselling Helped

I had not been open to the option of counselling at first, that is why I did not seek support immediately after our loss in 2020. I wanted to ignore it, to hide from it, pretend nothing had happened.

Admitting to myself and my family that I needed help was hard but it was the first step in the right direction. I had bottled up my feelings for years, hadn’t properly processed what I had been through physically or mentally.

After the termination, our baby was delivered via C section due to the enlarged skull. I had requested a general anaesthetic because I didn’t want any memory of the procedure for my brain to torture me with.

Before my first Petals session I felt scared, like I would be uncovered and exposed for the first time since my loss. I felt a bit unworthy of help because I was pregnant again. Surely, I was ‘fixed’. I knew I wasn’t.

My counselling sessions started when I was 7 months pregnant. It took me a couple of sessions to get used to the open talking. It was what I needed but after 2 years of trying to forget and block out the memories, it took a bit of work to remember and start processing what had happened.

I am very grateful for the additional sessions I was given because after my son was born in November 2022, he was admitted to hospital a week later with par echovirus meningitis.

I was furious at the universe; how much can you throw at one person?!

The continuation of sessions allowed me to receive support as I processed the birth, the meningitis and also the first few months of motherhood with this new baby.

At first, I struggled to bond with my son because I hadn’t let myself believe he would arrive safely.

Throughout my pregnancy, I was bracing myself for another late stage loss. So when he did arrive safely, I was not prepared and I floundered.

My petals counselling sessions gave me a safe space to admit everything that I was feeling and also teased out the emotions that I didn’t realise I was feeling.

It was really helpful to talk to someone neutral and most of all someone who has experience with grieving parents. I felt like I was feeling the wrong feelings and it was such a relief for my counsellor to tell me that was normal, it sort of gave me permission to listen to my emotions rather than ignore them because I felt like they were wrong.

If you’re on the fence about counselling, fill in the triage form, ask the question, chat to someone. When the triage person spoke to me and asked questions, it made me realise how much I needed to talk to someone.