You are not the only one. But you may not know that yet.

After losing a baby, it can feel as if you have entered a world nobody around you understands.

People continue with ordinary conversations. Pregnancies are announced. Babies are born. You may smile, answer messages and return to work while carrying something enormous that few people can see.

I once believed I was the only one too.

I was not. But because miscarriage and stillbirth were spoken about so little, I had no idea how many parents were living with a similar silence.

My story began with hope

In 2005, I lost my first baby through miscarriage. In my heart, she was a girl. I named her Jasmijn.

The pregnancy had already created a future in my mind. The loss happened early, but it was not small. A dream ended, and I carried the experience into the next pregnancy.

With Tom, I heard a heartbeat and watched my baby move on the screen. I felt happiness, love and hope. Then my blood pressure began to rise.

At 19 weeks, while I was in France, I became critically ill. I was taken back to the Netherlands by ambulance. My body was failing, and the doctors feared for my life.

HELLP syndrome changed everything

I had HELLP syndrome, a serious pregnancy complication affecting the blood and liver. The only way to stop my condition from becoming even more dangerous was to end the pregnancy.

That meant letting Tom go so I could stay alive.

Tom was stillborn at 23 weeks and 5 days. He weighed 340 grams. At his cremation, there was a white rose.

A year later, I became pregnant with Tim. I wanted to believe the outcome would be different. I reached 25 weeks and 1 day, but HELLP syndrome returned. Tim was stillborn too. At his cremation, there was a sunflower.

Two sons. Two births. Two goodbyes. And a mother who had survived while her children had died.

Silence made the loss more isolating

When something this life-changing happens, you expect the world to have words for it. Often, it does not.

People may avoid your child's name because they are afraid of upsetting you. They may change the subject, offer a quick comforting phrase or expect life to return to normal.

You begin to notice how often you make the story smaller for other people. You say you are fine. You leave your child out of an answer. You protect the room from discomfort while carrying the full truth inside you.

That silence can make you believe you are the only one who still thinks about your child, struggles with certain dates or feels both grief and joy in the same life.

You are not the only one.

Making stillbirth speakable starts with honesty

Stillbirth becomes more speakable when we stop hiding the human stories behind the word.

It starts when a mother can say her child's name without the conversation closing down. When a father is asked how he is doing months later. When friends remember the expected due date. When workplaces understand that returning to work does not mean the loss is over.

Speaking openly does not make baby loss heavier. The loss is already heavy. Honest language makes it less lonely.

We do not need to turn every conversation into grief. We do need room for the child to remain part of the parent's life.

Your child can remain part of your life

There are parents who return to gatherings about baby loss year after year. Not because they have failed to move forward, but because recognition matters.

In a place where nothing has to be explained, there can also be laughter, plans and new beginnings. Your child does not have to disappear when life becomes lighter. And life does not have to stop because your child died.

This is what I have learned through my own life: love and loss can remain, while happiness returns. You can build a future without abandoning your child.

You are a mother, even when nobody sees it

You are a mother when your baby was lost early in pregnancy. You are a mother when your child was stillborn. You are a mother when the world moved on before you were ready.

Your child existed. Your child matters. Your motherhood does not depend on whether other people know how to recognise it.

And somewhere, another parent may be carrying the same thought in silence: I must be the only one.

Every honest story makes that silence a little smaller.

Read more about Desirée and Jasmijn, Tom and Tim, listen to the Baby Loss Podcast, or discover the book Stillborn