Remembering Ronnie – Chloe’s story of love, loss and healing

On 12 June 2025, 17 weeks into her pregnancy, Chloe delivered her beautiful baby boy, Ronnie. After a long, difficult labour that included emergency intervention, he was placed in her arms. 

“He was so perfect,” Chloe says. “He was tiny, with delicate fingers, toes, a little button nose and long legs. I remember holding him and admiring him, just thinking how incredible it was that we had created something so perfect.”

But whilst meeting Ronnie was incredibly special, it was also devastating for Chloe and her partner, Adam. 

Diagnosis, devastation and decisions

After weeks of tests and painfully long periods waiting for results, they had discovered that their baby had hypoplastic left heart syndrome – a rare congenital heart disease affecting the heart’s structure and function and which causes abnormal development before birth. It was then that Chloe and Adam had to make the agonising decision to end the pregnancy. 

And, as so many parents who have experienced TFMR (Termination for Medical Reasons) will understand, the unimaginably traumatic decisions just kept coming – Chloe was asked how she wanted to deliver their baby. 

“I didn’t think I could take any more. I chose a natural delivery, but I was terrified. I had never given birth before – let alone imagined delivering a baby like this – and nothing, no amount of reading or scrolling, could have prepared me for it.”

Nor could Chloe prepare for the moment when they would have to leave the hospital with only a small memory box in her hands. Inside were the few precious keepsakes of their baby, so loved, but who they would never bring home.

A lonely place

“The support we received throughout the scans, diagnosis, procedures, delivery and post-delivery had been incredibly compassionate. But the moment I stepped outside those doors, everything suddenly felt very different. 

“I remember thinking, ‘Well… what now?’” Chloe says. “You’re suddenly in this whole new world of grieving for a baby that no one else has seen or held.” 

Navigating this uncharted territory can be overwhelmingly difficult for TFMR parents, who, reeling from the devastation of baby loss, have the added factor of stigma surrounding their experience, too. Alongside this, Chloe felt incredibly alone with the physical trauma of having and delivering Ronnie. 

“Although my husband and I spoke endlessly about our feelings and we talked about Ronnie all the time, I knew he would never truly understand what it was like to give birth to our baby. I was desperate to speak to someone to help me make sense of everything I was feeling.” 

In search of support

Determined to find support, Chloe reached out to the NHS in the hope of accessing counselling. By this point, she had begun preparing to return to work and was increasingly aware of how much she was carrying from the labour and delivery. 

“I was really struggling with the physical experience of what my body had gone through as well as the emotional weight of it. I felt like it had failed me. Not only had I been unable to carry a healthy baby, but my body couldn’t even deliver him. I was deeply concerned about how it might affect my motherhood journey in the future.” 

Like many parents’ navigating baby loss, Chloe soon encountered another difficult reality: long waiting lists for specialist support. When she contacted us for individual counselling, she discovered she was unable to access it because of funding restrictions in her area. 

The “Missing 20”

Sadly, Chloe represents one of the “Missing 20” – those families we highlighted in our recent campaign who are unable to access the charity’s counselling through their local NHS trust, and who Petals are forced to turn away. However, she was offered a place in our specialist six-week group TFMR counselling programme we offer for women who have experienced a termination for medical reasons. 

Although Chloe describes herself as an open person, she admits that the idea of speaking about her experience of having Ronnie in a group setting felt incredibly daunting. 

 “I remember thinking: how am I going to talk about this in front of other people? But I went in with an open mind. I thought: if it helps, it helps. And if it doesn’t, I haven’t lost anything. But I felt safe immediately. Everyone was so warm and compassionate, whilst it was deeply emotional sharing my experience of having Ronnie and listening to others, it was incredibly helpful. Some had gone through their loss only weeks earlier, while others were processing experiences from years before.” 

Listening to them unlocked feelings Chloe hadn’t realised she was carrying. “I’d suddenly think, ‘Yes, I feel that too.’ I realised that we were all carrying the same devastation and complexity of emotions that ending a pregnancy brings – the heartache, the love, the anger, the guilt.” 

A safe space to share

With the guidance of her Petals counsellor, Sumita, Chloe was able to begin to dismantle those feelings in this safe and supportive environment.

 “Sumita gave me the space to talk, to ask questions and dig deeper into things, without ever pushing me. Everything was at my pace,” Chloe explains. “If I wanted to share, I did. If I wanted to cry, I did.” 

Two moments from the sessions remain particularly powerful for Chloe.

“The first was when my counsellor said to me: ‘You have been through the hardest thing you have ever had to go through, and that’s losing your baby. You have already survived the hard bit.’” Those words have stayed with her. “I remind myself of that whenever I have a bad day,” she says. 

Another important shift came when Chloe was encouraged to talk about the love she felt for Ronnie, not just the pain of losing him. “When people talk about baby loss, they often focus on the devastation, the sadness and how hard it is – because it is,” she says. “But rarely do we have the opportunity to talk about our love for them.” 

Chloe began to reframe how she held Ronnie’s memory. “It was so important to have this space to talk. Through counselling, I’ve been able to focus on the love and joy Ronnie gave me,” she explains. “And I think that’s really important, because it’s those things that help keep his memory alive.” 

The impact of counselling has continued to shape Chloe’s life long after those sessions ended. Nine months on, she is pregnant again, a reality that, after Ronnie died, felt almost impossible to imagine.  

A new perspective 

“Petals helped me process the trauma of the labour and delivery, I don’t think I would be able to even think about that right now, if I hadn’t been to counselling.” 

But processing the trauma of Ronnie’s delivery has helped Chloe approach this new pregnancy with a different perspective. 

“I’m taking things that were said in those sessions and using them now,” she explains. “Pregnancy after loss is incredibly emotional,” Chloe says. “I can’t imagine how I would have even thought about going through it without Petals.” 

Stigma, support and feeling seen

For Chloe, the experience has reinforced how vital specialist support can be for parents navigating the aftermath of baby loss. Losing a baby through TFMR can be an especially lonely experience. The grief is profound, but it is often compounded by stigma and misunderstanding. 

“Losing a baby, particularly through a termination for medical reasons, where there is so much stigma attached, is an incredibly lonely experience. My counsellor had the knowledge and validated my feelings at a time when I felt really alone. Just having someone there to say, ‘Your feelings are all normal’ made me feel seen.” 

The power of specialist support

We know that Petals plays a crucial role in supporting families during a time when many feel they have nowhere else to turn.

 “Support shouldn’t stop when you step outside those hospital doors. That’s when you need it the most. Charities like Petals fill an emotional void that’s so lacking after losing a baby. They are there for you, whatever your experience of baby loss is, and whatever stage of grief you’re at.” 

For Chloe, Petals provided something invaluable: a space where Ronnie’s story could be shared, understood and honoured – and where her experience of having him could be something to treasure, rather than just a trauma. 

“Petals helped me process the trauma of Ronnie’s delivery, and I can’t imagine being pregnant again without having had that counselling. I will always be grateful to my counsellor for giving me that safe space to share Ronnie, and importantly to the other women in the group, whose courage in sharing their experiences helped me so much.”