Spinning Plates with Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Episode 193: Lauren Petrie

Episode Date: October 12, 2026

Lauren Petrie is a bereavement midwife. The time when you would meet her in her professional capacity is at the most painful time of a parent’s life: when you have been told, during your pregnancy, that your baby has died. Lauren’s eldest daughter Mia is studying at University. Her second daughter Jada was stillborn. It was Lauren’s experience of how she was treated - good and bad - during that traumatic time, that has influenced her career and determination to create positive changes in Jada’s name.Lauren’s story came to my attention when comedian Russell Howard shared earlier this year that he and his wife Cerys had lost their baby, and how they had been helped in their darkest times by Lauren.We talked about how important it is for parents to spend time with their beautiful baby after the birth, to hold and talk to their baby and to take photos, to create the only memories they will ever have of that child. With Baby Loss Awareness Week running 9-15 October, this felt like the right time to bring this chat to you. Although this is incredibly difficult subject matter, Lauren is warm, generous and wise, and she left me feeling inspired by the way she has leaned into her grief, and has created a hugely positive legacy for Jada.TRIGGER WARNING. This podcast contains upsetting content about losing a baby. Spinning Plates is presented by Sophie Ellis-Bextor, produced by Claire Jones and post-production by Richard Jones. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm Sophia L'Esta and welcome to Spinning Plates, the podcast where I speak to busy working women who also happen to be mothers about how they make it all work. I'm a singer and I've released eight albums in between having my five sons, age between seven years old and nearly 22, so I spin a few plates myself. Being a mother can be the most amazing thing, but it can also be hard to find time for yourself and your own ambitions. I want to be a little bit nosy and see how other people balance everything. Welcome to Spilling Plates. Hello, I speak to you from the past. Not so distant past. It's Monday, it's Monday the 5th of October and I'm walking under an unseasonably warm October sun here in London town. It's, I mean look, it's lovely. I've left the house in my

bloody jelly shoes and no cardi, but it's kind of weird, isn't it? We know, we know. We know, I know it's not right, but it's still feeling quite good for the soul today. I'm loving seeing all the autumnal colours. Quite like the change of season. And I don't know about you, but whenever there's a change of season, it always kind of makes me reflect a little bit and feel a bit. I don't know, is it sadness a little bit that summer's, this year summer's already been and gone.

So I woke up this morning feeling a little reflective. And it might have also been because I knew I was going to have a very important conversation today because I speak to you from the same day where I spoke to be guest. A little while back, I was looking on the internet and I saw a new story about the comedian Russell Howard and he'd put up a note on his Instagram to share the heartbreaking news that when Russell and his wife were having their second baby, their second boy, unfortunately their baby was still born. And he said in his message, I just want to say a thank you to our incredible bereavement midwife, Lauren, who really helped us.

And I thought, who is this? Lauren! And what an incredible role that is, a bereavement midwife. And what an amazingly poignant moment to support a family when they are going through the birth of a baby, but it's already known that that baby is not an alive baby. So I did some research and I found out exactly who it was and today I bring you a conversation with her. Her name's Lauren Petri.

Lauren has two daughters. Mia, it is 21. Uni and Jada who sadly her heart stopped beating the same day that Lauren gave birth to her. She was due to have a C-section and she'd gone along for a scan, when they were due to have the operation,

and they said, we're sorry, we can't find a heartbeat. And so she had the absolutely devastating news that she was not only, she'd only found out that her baby had died, but she knew that she also had to give birth to this baby. And she knew from that moment on that something in her life had changed. changed forever.

And it's changed her life in many ways, not least the fact that she decided to turn her profound grief into something positive that could leave a legacy in her daughter Jada's name. So that is the name of her baby, baby Jada, that could also help other families going through the same thing. And so Lauren retrained as a bereavement midwife, life following that moment and the death of her baby. And now she's helped hundreds of families going through the same thing.

And honestly, I can think of no one you would want more in that room with you and Lauren. She's a special person. She is experienced, wise, empathetic, calm, nurturing. all the good stuff. So it was real. So I'm walking along a busy road, as usual. It was such a privilege to talk to her. And it was also really important to me

that we released this episode during Baby Loss Awareness Week. And so I'm very aware there might be people listening for whom this is really triggering, upsetting. It brings to light a lot of real trauma. So if that's you, I'm sending a hug your away and I hope it is some comfort that Lauren, who has been through this experience firsthand,

is working so hard and has done so much to really help other people going through the same and give them an experience that will provide them with memories and something comforting in the time that follows and the grief and trauma that comes from the experience. So yeah, I will leave you with Lauren. She's incredible. And I'm just, yeah, consider me sitting next to you with my arm and use your lesson because it's a very sad thing to think about. But how brilliant to reduce the taboo and to help the healing.

So see on the other side. It is really nice to meet you, Lauren. You too. Thank you for having me. And I've been really looking forward to speaking to you because we had a lot of a little phone call a little while back. And I could hear the warmth and generosity and wisdom in your voice from that point. And yeah, look, I started this podcast to really explore all aspects of motherhood

and also how it can be interweaving with career. And I think for your story, it is so incredibly poignant. In fact, your experiences with being mother to your two daughters is absolutely. shaped everything about how your life manifested. So why didn't we start off with your work? If I was having a baby, at what point might our paths cross? A couple of points. So depending on the situation, so I'm a bereavement midwife. And it may be that in some cases parents have an antenatal diagnosis where the prognosis is that it's not really compatible with life and we need to make plans for palliative care. You may meet me at.

at that point where you want to talk about funeral plans or even just what would happen when the baby's born, what are my options, can I hold my baby, can I have a blessing, can I have time with my baby? It might be those kind of conversations parents want to have it in advance to prepare themselves and to know what's coming. Not all parents do, and we understand that because you're still committed to your pregnancy and your baby's still alive and so why would you want to meet a brief mid-riff at that point? Or it may be that you come in, as in the majority of cases for me, women will come in. It may be that they've had reduced fetal movements, or they've had some bleeding,

or something's happened that's made them come into hospital for a check, and when they arrive, they're told that their baby has died. And at that point, you would meet me, or when you come back into hospital for your induction. So this is like, obviously, incredibly traumatic, devastating moment for these parents in any of the situations. in which they might encounter you. Yeah. And so you've obviously come into the world of bereavement, midwifery,

because of your own experience. Yeah. So what are the ways that it's dealt with now that have changed from your experience? So if it was happening to someone that they come in and there's no heartbeat, what would be the expected, what options would they have? I guess the biggest thing is that when I had Jada, that was in 2013, there wasn't there weren't as many bereaved midwives for one at all I was lucky enough that at the hostel I had her there was a breathing midwife she was brilliant and so that's the first thing is even having the resource available to have a specialist midwife available to speak to and care for you and secondly it's more about awareness and education and people understanding how to have those conversations the guidance around a minimum standard of care as well that should be offered things like having bereavement rooms they weren't available then. People would just be in a normal hospital room. And even still, there are still

hospitals out there that I think could be in a better position in terms of the resources that they have for people. Things like counselling services. At the time, we had a brilliant, I had a brilliant counsellor called Caroline, Caroline Weeland. Actually spoke to her this morning, funnily enough. And she had been volunteering her time as a counsellor because there was nothing set up. Now we have charities in place and also specialising counselling for black and Asian women as well. So those services have grown massively over the last decade, I'd say, which is so important because that mental health that you're going through after a pregnancy, you don't have any more contact with your midwife because you have 28 days care.

28 days is nothing in that situation. Six months down the line, three years down the line, who do you go to? You don't have anybody. So the mental health services that we have are so important now in terms of support and then think about future pregnancy and preparing yourself for that as well, going into the next pregnancy in a really healthy, as healthy as possible mindset. And so I think those are the biggest things, training education and resources really. And so in terms of the bigger picture, how, I don't suppose you know

how likely you are to have a bereavement midwife in the hospital which you're registered? Well, it's now become a standard. Oh, it has? You should have specialist bereavement midwives. It kind of depends on the number of births that you have in the hospital of how many midwives you have for those services. So for us at my hospital, we have a really, really high number of births. So we're naturally going to have a higher number of deaths. So we need to have more midwives to be able to support that.

If you're in a hospital where you have less birth, you might have a bereavement midwife maybe four days a week or maybe a full-time midwife as well. but most hospitals now would have a bereavement midwife. And it's really important to say that all midwives are trained to offer bereavement care. This isn't something that's only dependent on there being a bereavement midwife there. Every single midwife in this country is trained to give bereavement care. Everybody knows how to do memory making, should know how to have difficult conversations and support families as well. The specialist role really is about that extra part of being able to support families on a bit of a deeper level,

understanding the intricacies of all the admin because there's so much admin to do for this and also that follow-up person and having a named person as your follow-up because the midwife in the delivery room is only there for the birth. I should imagine that's actually the really crucial thing is about the longer-term relationship and support

in the next bits. Definitely. As you say, otherwise, your midwife is there for the birth and for the outcome of the birth and whatever shape that is and then it gets passed on, right? Yeah, doesn't it? Exactly. or what level of need you have.

Exactly. But when it's happening that you're called in, you know that they're going to need the sort of support that you can offer for the months. Some families will only want to speak to me once. Some maybe want three times. Some speak to me for six, nine months later and some will still contact me in a future pregnancy

and say, okay, I'm pregnant again. What do I do? Who do I need to see? This is how I'm feeling about it. I'm really scared. I'm really anxious. So that relationship goes on foot, can go on for a very long time. And I feel like it's really important then to, I feel like all midwives, you have to be able to make a relationship with somebody very quickly. You know, you're in a very intimate situation. But it's really important for me.

I feel like that I really established that relationship with families early on as possible. Yeah. Because the one thing that I really felt as soon as my midwife came in, I felt, I really trusted her straight away. I felt that she came in and she just picked me up off the floor literally and looked after me. and that's what I wanted to emulate and everything that I do for every family that I look after, I want to be that rock for them. And to be that, you have to be able to create that trust

and relationship from the very beginning. I should imagine you're very good at that. I mean, I hope so. I mean, we're all human, right? So we're not naturally going to always gel and there might be little, and it's a very difficult situation to walk into and want to jail with somebody.

But I think I'm just really honest and open, and sometimes I will share. my story if I think it helps the situation. I don't always. But I really hope that when you do anything with love and authenticity and genuine wanting to help somebody, then that will naturally come across and that would never get in the way of something being misunderstood as to why I want to help somebody. That's so true and the intention when empathy is at the root of it. It's a very powerful thing. That connection can form very fast actually. I think our instincts, particularly when we're vulnerable actually

and you can tell when someone is like, okay, you are my rock in this. Yeah. And one thing when we spoke on the phone before that really struck me, and I found it, I don't know why it really moved me so much, but you were saying that when someone is giving birth to a baby that they know will be stillborn,

that the language doesn't change with the tone changes. So the way that someone would be encouraged and kept on, you know, keep the momentum going for the birth. Yeah. And it's so, I always, whenever I'm in that situation, I always think back to when I was pushing with Jada. And with Mia, I'd want just a bit of a backstory. I was like, Earth Mother, I want the birth center,

I want whale music, I want hammocks, I want water, I want to use the pool. And that didn't happen. I had an emergency section. It was not very nice. But I had a baby and I was so grateful for that. So the next time when I had Jada and I was in all fours and I was almost trying to recreate what I wanted to have the first time round. In all fours and pushing, but I said to the midwife, I just stopped pushing and I said,

I don't have any motivation to do this. What am I doing this for? I've got no baby at the end of it. I've got no prize. And when you're going through all this pain and energy and effort to do this, you get something at the end and I'm not going to get that. And then she said to me, which to this day I still say to other parents, she is your beautiful baby

and I know that you really want to meet her and in that moment I said yeah and she knew that I didn't want to have any doctors in the room I just wanted to be really peaceful nothing against any doctors out there I just wanted it to be really calm and peaceful and intimate and she said to me

we're getting to the point where if you don't push I am going to have to ask for help which was the right thing to say because she did that was the reality but that was what I needed to hear and I kind of flipped myself over got into a semi-recumbent position and I just went for it.

And that was my motivation that I needed to hear in that moment of she is your baby. You're going to be able to hold her and meet her. Because ultimately that's what we do want to do. We still want to be able to meet and hold our babies. So when I've got a woman in that situation and, you know, she's just finding it difficult or she's transitioning as any woman would, like you say, the language is the same, but the tone is different. So instead of saying, come on, you're doing it, you're doing so well, keep going.

and you're just like you're doing really, really well, keep going, you're doing so well, you're going to meet your beautiful baby, and you just tone everything down a little bit, but the language is the same. Yeah, and I think that in that absolute devastation of a completely altered reality and trying to grapple with all the things you had in your head, the way you thought life was going, and suddenly face with this completely unknown new moment. It is so important that to remember there's still a baby there.

And that you will want to hold your baby and engage and that these will become the memories that exist if they were here. And it's the only memories. And that's so important to remember. You know, you have a lifetime with your children of memories, but the only memory you have with your baby that's died is at that moment and the hours that will follow. So important.

So important. To get that right and to give people the time to create those memories. Yeah. And even the memory of giving birth, that's still a memory. Or the memory of holding her. I held her for like 10 hours. She stayed with me. And I naturally came to a point, which a lot of people do,

will naturally come to a point where they're ready to say goodbye. But I still, to this day, feel like I didn't make enough memories. So I've only got a handful of pictures. And nowadays, people will have an album full of pictures, which is beautiful. There's this really amazing charity called Remember My Baby. And they come in. And as you were to the live birth, you know,

you're holding your baby, you've got your arm around your husband, and you're doing all those pictures with your hands with the baby's feet in the heart. And we do that for families as well. And they walk away with just beautiful albums of pictures of their babies. But I didn't have that.

And I really wish, that's the one thing I wish I'd done was take more pictures of her. But it sounds like you were in a language. landscape that maybe was still evolving to support your parents. Because actually, you know, this is such recent history. I wonder why this has been so, this hasn't been looked at as much detail. It's still evolving now. Yeah.

Because when I was reading today one of your interviews and then there were lots of comments underneath. And the comments were just breaking my heart because there were women saying, oh, this was me. 20 years ago, 10 years ago. 60 years ago, some people have come. to me and told me about. And in those days, babies were just swept away, just swept away, put into a room and never to be seen again. Never to be spoken about.

I know. And we have something, so there's something coming up called Baby Loss Awareness Week. And it's about raising awareness, really, of baby loss and pregnancy loss. And at the hospital that I work at, we'll put this little tree up. And you can come along and put a message or a name on the tree. And so many people, because it's in a hospital, it's not just maternity, so many other people from older generations will come and say, you know, I had a baby in 19, whenever, 60, 1970,

and I never got to see my baby, and I never held them, and I never even had a name. Some people don't even have a name, which is so important. And so that is held, that pain is held for so long. And I always think about how that impacts the next generation. Yeah. And how their daughter or their son and felt about when they were pregnant and having a baby

and the impact of how their mother and their experience affected them, it's just, it's so important to have what we have now. And I think, yes, we are in a much better place. It can be even better. It can always be better without just me being a perfectionist and wanting more. But it's really important that we are doing the best that we can, not just for the families now, but for the future.

Yeah, and I don't think you're, from what I understand, from what I've been seeing so far, your drive, I don't have perfection. I think it's because you've had this experience and you've obviously done something that a lot of people would find really hard to do, but you've absolutely stared it straight in the face and tried to really go through every element. Where is there going to be the things I just have to sit and deal with?

And where could I've had, where could the support shift? That was a very conscious decision on my part, though, to deal with it. in the way that I have, and it was a turning point, and I remember it, and it's something that is so a bittersweet to me. This is going to get a bit deep now, just for anybody that is listening. But I was sitting on my kitchen floor, and I was literally a very, very, very dark place, and it was a contemplation of what am I going to do here? And I think I told you that I'd read this book, Levels of Life by Julian Barnes.

and it was talking about his grief after his wife died. And in the book he said, if I were to take my own life, who would be here to make the world remember her? And I thought, yeah, that's a really good point, actually. I hadn't thought of that. And I said, okay, I'm going to make a decision now that I am going to face this. I am going to deal with it.

I said to my counsellor, I don't want to be 70 years old and asking where my baby is. I feel like I need to go through, really deal with this and really process this. and face head-on everything that comes my way to be able to make, not make sense of it because I can't make sense of it, but to make it worthwhile and positive and something meaningful out of this

because otherwise why am I going through all this? Yeah. And so I then made a conscious effort to say, okay, I really have to deal with this face on. And a lot of people will say to me, why do you do this? Why do you go back to work every day in the same room where you gave birth

with her name on the door? Isn't that torture? And actually it's the opposite. It's really healing because it's making you remember that everything that I'm doing is for her. It's Jada's legacy. Yeah, it's her legacy. And it's helping so many other people, which gives it meaning. For me, that was the most important thing.

I think that that's such a resonant thing about the meaning and about giving her, she existed. Yeah, that's exactly it. And I think for everybody, they want to know that all the people we love have, have the concentric circles of how they've affected things and the positive that comes out of their existence is a very instinctive feeling I think that comes with love. Yeah.

And so I can absolutely understand that. And I've always felt that if anything happened to any of my children, I would say their name all the time. I'd want everybody around say their name, say their name. There is a campaign called say their name because of the importance of the acknowledgement that they existed and they still exist in our worlds. Yeah.

And look what Jade has done. I know. Look what she's done. I'm proud of her. It's incredible. And also an amazing way that humans can take something so extraordinary painful and find a purpose. That was also a lesson though to Mia. I was very, very conscious of her single.

She was seven years old. She turned seven a week later. Oh, it was her birthday a week later? Oh my gosh. If you'd seen me, you would have thought. thought, what on earth is going on in this woman's head? Because I went into mum mode. And I thought, I have to pull it through for Mia for her birthday. I can't let her down. We had a bowling party. And looking back, I probably looked like a manic woman. And I was in reality. But I felt like I had to

keep it going for her. And I was so conscious of, and even to this day we still talk about it, about life and what life will throw at you and how you, you may not have control over what happens to you, but you have control of the way you then deal with it. I was so conscious of her going through life and understanding that even when the worst times happen to you, you have a choice of how you then deal with that. I needed to role model to her how to be able to manage terrible things that happen in her life. And this is one of the ways that I could show her that. Yeah, wow. I can picture that, as you say, that sort of energy of like, okay, the party still has to happen and booking it all and just feeling completely all over the place.

I think it's the guilt. I felt so much guilt. To this day, the one thing that will make me the most upset thinking about things is the impact it's had on Mia. I had a vision of having three children and a family home and all of those things that I wanted to give her. They're saying that I had. And then when Jada died, that all came crashing down and I feel mum guilt for not giving her that family. And so that birthday was me saying, I can't let this now take this away from her as well. I've taken so much already. I need to keep going, give her the party and give her the amazing life.

And I think as well with your, you know, when you're turning seven, you're still so much in your early childhood. Yeah. So somewhere in you is this desire to set a tone that things still happen, just to have your friends around you, still celebrate her life events.

Yeah. also probably not really able to process very much at all so soon and also so unexpected I mean presumably you had very little experience at all with even this happening to anyone even anecdotally yeah and in my family I remember when I was at the hospital and my mum walked into the scan room and the first thing my mum said was things like this

don't happen to our family and so many people say that because you go through life just not having to deal with things like this and I never forget her saying that and I said, but they do, Mum, but it's just that we don't talk about it and they have been for decades but we just haven't spoken about it

and as soon as you do start speaking you then learn that it happens to so many other people So as a mum how did you navigate your grief alongside a little girl who's only just turning seven? Sometimes I would literally scream into the duvet because I just felt I just needed to release the love I feel like.

I had so much love and frustration, a little bit of anger, but not a lot, but just this energy inside me that I couldn't release. So I would sometimes do that. I didn't want her to see me being crazy, but I was okay with her seeing me upset because we're human and she needed to understand that if, something like this happens, it's okay to be upset. And I say that to a lot of parents. It's very difficult to kind of get the balance of being able to function, do all the things you need to do, but still be honest and be in your truth about what the situation is. It's really important for children to learn that. Children are extremely black and white. And when it happened, I said to my mum, I need to be the person that tells me her. So I went home. I'd gone home, I think it was on

the next day after I'd given birth. She died on the 27th of March. She was born. on the 28th, which was actually the day that I was supposed to have a Caesarian section. And so on the 28th in the afternoon, I went home to me and I said to her, she said, where's my sister? And I said, well, she's in heaven. And on the way home from Mia's school, we always drove past Wall Lake Cemetery. And we'd always wave to the people that were there and say, hi, hello people that are there, like, we hope you're okay, wherever you might be.

again, me trying to kind of bring her into understanding life and death as a lesson for any child. And I said to her, you know, the place we drive past every day, that's where her body will be, but her spirit will be with us. And she said, well, what happened to her? And I said, well, her heart stopped working. At this point, I didn't know why she died, but I did know that her heart stopped working. And so I said that, and she said, okay. And then that kind of was the end of the conversation. And I thought, I don't feel like, I don't feel like an adult.

he's spoken enough about it, but as a child, that was what she needed to hear. It's very black and white. And then it was only a few days later that we arrived home and her friends from school would send a bunch of flowers for her, the class. And she completely broke down. And that, for me, even when I think about it now, it just breaks my heart. Because I can, to this day, count on one hand the amount of me, the times that me has cried like that. And I think then the reality of the situation, She could just feel everything that was happening. And so I then said, okay, I need to approach this from a place of truth and with her and honesty. And when we're both feeling upset, it's okay for us to process that.

And ever since then, that's how we've dealt with it. I bet you guys have the most amazing relationship. Yeah, we do. And we still talk about Jada. We have this little thing where, if anything goes missing in the house, we're like, Jada, where's my earring? Or where's my ring? And we kind of integrate her into her life like that. But it's not our core thing that we have every day.

You know, life goes on. So we respect her. We love her. We acknowledge her in a way that's kind of lighthearted, but she's still with us. Yeah, and I think keeping it a casual, ongoing connection is actually very representative of what family life feels that most of the time, isn't it? It's not, this is the bit where you'll sit down and that account.

It's an everyday life within the fabric of every day. for the rest of Mia's life, she will have her like that in her head. I really hope so. Yeah, and even the moment, I was listening to you talk about how it was like Jada knew when Mia was near, so every morning before school she'd get to bed with you and she'd start kicking. Yeah, yeah. So they have, like, they had a sisterly been going on already. Yeah, yeah.

I wonder where you got the presence of self to wave at the, the Mort Lake Cemetery. I don't know. I think it's just one of those things as a parent. You understand the things you need to teach your children, right? You know you have to teach them really good values, morals, and a balance of the life and the world around us. And part of that was, I'm driving past this place every day. Why am I not mentioning to her?

It was just a natural thing to bring into our conversation of, well, this is where people go when they've died. And you can go there and their loved ones can spend time with them. And it doesn't mean that they're not a part of your life anymore. It's just a different way. of loving somebody. Yeah, and also the ongoing nature of things. I think it's, well, for me, it's very healthy to have the idea of the people that have

gone before being part of life as it is now as well. And it sounds as well, it may be this, because before your training is a bereavement midwife, you'd been at the other end of the spectrum with elderly people. It was so crazy, but so I used to work in a nursing home. So that's what happened after you. you had your first movie right? So after Mia, I moved into a working in a nursing home. Lovely, lovely place and it taught me so much. It's also a convent. So I was surrounded by nuns. Extremely wise people who just taught me so much. And at the point when Jada died, I went back to work

there briefly. And I was in quite a negative space when I went back there. And I had some really, really good conversations with my manager then, Sister Jennifer, who is just an amazing woman at perspective and not just putting a positive spin on things and, you know, in a religious way or in any kind of way, just getting you to get perspective on something and looking at the whole picture and acknowledging how you're feeling but also being able to look at other sides and perspectives of things. So yeah, I was working in elderly care and it taught me, it kind of prepared me for because everything I learned there was transferable about dignity, about respect, about intimacy, about being a part of that privileged space in somebody's life, whether that's at the

beginning or at the end. So I learnt so much there. And in a funny way, it did prepare me for what was coming next. Yeah, and the poignancy of being, when someone, when their spirit leaves, is something incredibly poignant about being present for that moment in someone's life. And It sounds a little bit like Sister Jennifer was actually an incredible mental health counselor. Because what that's doing about framing is really incredible, isn't it? Because it's so, if you start to lose hope, that's when things get really bad, right? So when you're talking about something senseless and painful and sad for someone to be able to say, well, let's put this perspective and see it, look at it from different angles and see where we can,

find something that's comforting. Yeah, exactly. That's a skill, isn't it? To be able to talk to you about those things. And as you say, the dignity and the respect for that environment as well, because you were aware for years, right? Yeah, seven years. Yeah.

But when you first had, after you'd had Jada and tried to go back there, you just thought. No, it was just, it was almost like I needed to take myself out of that situation because it was just a constant reminder. And being around the residents, bless them all for loving me so much that they care. so much. And I'd meet people that then had forgotten it had happened and might say, oh, what's happened to your baby? And it was just, it was just a bit too much too soon. Yeah. But that presumably would happen in your everyday life as well.

Yeah, it did happen in everyday life. And it was so, oh gosh, navigating that first six months to a year, I'd say after she died was just horrendous. Because you bump into people that you haven't seen and they last saw you when you were 30 weeks pregnant oh how are you how's your baby because now you look you know six months after you would have given birth your body's back to normal they think the baby's probably at nursery you have to explain to them what's happened some people were really really lovely and some people I mean to put it bluntly they just weren't they'd said things that were really stupid and people do say that and I always say when I'm doing my teaching about this we are human.

We are going to make mistakes and we are going to say things that probably not the best thing to say. The most important thing you do in that moment is you apologize and acknowledge what you've said because if you don't, they will hold on to that forever. And I definitely have.

There's a few things that one of the moms at school when I was dropping off Mia because when I went into Labor of Jader, I was at the school in the Easter Assembly. And she said, oh, where's your baby? And for whatever reason, she hadn't been told what had happened. And I said, she died.

Mia was standing next to me. And she said, oh, don't be silly. And I said, I promise you, I'm not being silly. And I kind of looking, I straighten the eye to say, like, my child's standing here, I'm trying to keep it real with you, but let's not make this more difficult than it needs to be. She literally walked over to my car and looked in the back seat to see where my baby was. And I just, from that day, I never spoke to her or even said hello to her again because I just thought, you're an idiot. I mean, that is next level.

Exactly. And so there are some things that people can say, you know, you've got more children, don't you can have another one. All those things are really not helpful because if you've got 10 children at home, you wanted that 11th child. It doesn't matter how many children you've already got or you're going to have in the future. It's just so minimizing in that moment to say that it doesn't matter. Nothing will take that away. So there were some things that were said that I could understand but weren't helpful. There were some things that were just horrible. Yeah, and I suppose thinking about it, some of these things would be the things that were said for decades, centuries. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that thing of, you can have another one. Oh, yeah. At least you've got me, yeah. At least you can get pregnant. All of those things, you just think, no, please don't ever say that.

No, and I suppose. It's not coming from a place of maliciousness. You know, we're fixes. We want to take people's pain away and fix everything, don't we? So we'll say whatever we can to try and ease the situation. Yeah, and like you were talking before about the deal. generational as well. People have experienced something and they maybe were never taught how to, you know, use their

language around their grief, around their mourning. Yeah. I mean, a lot of how we grieve in terms of the cultural side of it is to do with the Victorian era, which was very much about, okay, you wear your black and you do your funeral and then you don't really talk about it much after that. Yeah. So I think, you know, we're still doing the work, aren't we, to heal all of those things as well. And I think people just don't know what to say.

I know, but I think just don't know what to say. But then I'm thinking about you, when someone's gone through this, they must also feel responsible for how their news is going to affect that person. Yeah, it is a massive burden. Yeah. And even to this day, it's so difficult because with my family, I'm not going to get upset, but I can speak to my sister really open. I can speak to my friends, but I feel the burden when I speak to my mum,

because I know how much pain she had as a mother watching her daughter go through this is awful. And so I don't ever, you know, she'll want me to open up and be, have really, really honest conversations with her about it, but I don't want to give her that pain. So it's a balance of needing to support her as well through it, needing to have that mother-daughter relationship, but not wanting to give her more grief. Do you know what I mean? And I guess with that experience,

you can, the way to soothe that guilt you might feel about being responsible, it's just to remember that for everybody, I mean, look where you found your support and the people you know you can share it with, your mom will have those people too. Yeah, yeah. So for the two of you, if that's not an area you deal with together in that way.

Yeah, yeah. So long as it's being dealt with somewhere. Yeah, exactly. Then that's how those things work. Yeah. But yeah, I suppose you're, when you come to it, if Mia decides she wants to become parent, then you'll be, that'll be the, you know,

then you can maybe do some of the conversations and. I think, I always think about that and how, how I'll be. And I, when I was working up, I went off for a little holiday at another hospital once as a matron. And we had a woman that came in and one of the mothers was requesting a certain birth plan because she had had a previous loss. And we were saying, well, it's not really a devised. And it's going against guidance.

We don't need to. This is a healthy, normal pregnancy. But it was the impact of that mother's experience now on her daughter and how that was impacting her daughter's care plan. So I always think I have to really check myself when me is pregnant to not encroach on her. her journey because it's not a given that that the terrible outcome will happen for her. And I suppose, I mean, if anyone is exploring anything that might bring to the surface, the difficult things, it's you.

And I'm aware that you're, I can actually, I can understand where the healing comes from helping other people that are going through the same experience. But the thing I would be curious about is how it is to be, because for a lot of people, they don't even want to be in a medical environment, the hospital. that can be very triggering for one of the better word. So how have you made peace with those things, the unexpected of the environment, the sounds, the smell, the, you know, all of that activity? I really have learnt the professional and the personal and separating the two,

even though I always say to people they're not separated because you can't have one without the other, you know, we're human. But I've really learnt that when I put my uniform on, And I don't have to work on the ward every day. I'm primarily based in an office. But I go to work and I wear my scrubs, regardless of where I am. Because if I put on my uniform, I'm putting on Lauren the Midwife head. If I go in my own clothes, I feel like it's like a boundary thing.

I don't know, it's really strange. But it mentally and psychologically, it just makes me get into the mode of professionalism. And so when I go into hospital and I hear the emergency bell or I go in and they're like, There's a crash call and I'm thinking, oh my God, the worst might happen. Actually, I'm professionally thinking, preparing myself, how can I support in this emergency? What do I need to do? What's my algorithm? What's my guideline?

You know? So it's creating the boundary for me. And then when I leave the hospital and I take that off, I go back into Lauren mode. And I can process as myself as a human, how I'm feeling about it. But I always say to people that that parents' baby's death is their grief. It's not mine. If I took on everybody's grief, I wouldn't be here today. I'd be a mess.

And so in the same way that Jada is my baby and it's my grief is the same way that I approach other people's situations. That's their baby and their story. It's not for me to take that on board. It is an extremely sad situation. But mentally and emotionally, there's a boundary that I won't allow myself to cross in terms of taking on too much. It sounds like you have to be incredibly.

intuitive and tuned into yourself to be working in this space. Yeah, but learning also not to be cold with that and be very clinical with it. I'm still human, I'm still empathetic and give compassionate care, but I do it as a professional midwife, not as Lauren a mother. Wow, that's so much for you to think about. Yeah, it is. It's draining, it's really draining sometimes. And there have been times when I feel like, am I overstepping a little bit?

am I taking on a bit too much? But then I do check myself and I'm good at doing that. And I've got a lot of people around me that will say, do you think you need to take a step back or are you okay? And so if you said, okay, I need to have some time. Then that will happen. Okay, that's good. So there's all the safeguarding for you as well.

Yeah. Yeah. So I can see you can take a lot, but you're still, as you say. Yeah. Yeah. I'm very conscious of it because, A, I've been a manager. So I'm aware of support. need for support, but I'm also aware that I am a human, I am Lauren, I'm a mother, I'm a sister,

I need to be able to do all those other things in life. And if I need a time out, it's because I need to still be able to function in my life. And that's important to me. So I'm very conscious of how I feel mentally and physically to be healthy, to be able to help myself and other people. And how many families do you think you have helped? Oh gosh. You keep a tally. I mean, I have a tally at work, but are hundreds. Hundreds. All those babies. I know.

All those names. Yeah. And my connoisse all say to me, how do you remember them all? But I do. I just remember them. I remember the story or there'll be something about the situation that say, oh, yeah, that was so-and-so, because I've just remembered it. Because they mean something to me. And when you were, that moment when you were in the kitchen.

And you thought, right, something has to come out of this that feels better than this. For Mia, I have to model it. Was that when you started the fundraising for Jada's room? Kind of the same time, probably a little bit before that. So when I gave birth and I was obviously working in the nursing home, my job was a quality assurance manager. So I was there to make sure that the standards were maintained, look for any improvements and find the gaps to make things better. So I was lying there. And naturally, as a lot of people do when they do, when they're doing it.

grieving, they're going to work mode. So I found a bit of paper and I just wrote down all the things as she's lying next to me that I felt were really good about the maternity service and things that I felt could be improved. And there were lots of things that could be improved. Some of those things were we need a bereavement room because I was lying in the hospital bed. Her dad was lying on a yoga mat in the corner. It was freezing cold. We instantly were separated. And I always say this, like the physical and the mental work together. If we can stay together, physically. that I feel like that would have helped us mentally. But we were separated instantly.

We didn't have that time as a unit together physically. So that was one of the things. You know, something like having a kettle in the room because we didn't want to go out into the corridor, hearing other babies, him bumping into other dads, like, oh, what have you heard? I've had a girl.

I've had a boy. And it wasn't fair to do that. So I gave the list to my bereavement midwife, and she called me back and she said, oh, we've looked at the list and actually thank you because there's so many things that that we want to do, but we don't really know how to get it started. Funding is really difficult.

A lot of bereavement care and resources is charity funded. And so I said, okay, I'm going to get you the money to open this room. And I put the phone done and I thought, Lauren, you idiot, what have you signed up to? You are not going to be able to get thousands of pounds, but I just had the determination to do it. Went back to school and spoke to two of the mum, Sophie and Imogen, who'd been there at the point when I was contracting

and they said, we'll help you do it. and we did a sponsored walk of Hadrian's wall and we raised, I think, the first time about £10,000 £13,000. When they invited me back into the hospital to see the room, I was, I nearly, honestly, Sophie, I nearly dropped to the floor, I couldn't believe it, I saw her name on the door,

and I didn't know they were going to call, name it after her, I thought they were going to call it the Dove Suite or something, and when I saw her name on the door, that was when it clicked, and in that moment I thought, this is her legacy, I've now started something and I've got to see this through because I can't walk away from this

like this is really really important and then I thought I can do so much more now and it just opened up the rest of my life even that's so extraordinary so do you think it was actually just seeing her name on the door and part of you maybe thought I can't leave her here I can't be a name of a baby where the mum's not here anymore

that makes a lot of sense to me Yeah. How poignant is that? And it's amazing that you immediately wrote down all the things as well. And that's heartbreaking the idea of the physical closeness with the, of course, the other parent. And how it almost immediately set you on different trajectories, different courses, how you grieve. Yeah. And I say to parents now, it's so important that you guys, you're going to grieve in different ways. You have to give each other space to be able to do that.

but ultimately you are a team and that's the thing you hold on to. And even if one of you wants to do counselling and one of you doesn't, you still support each other within that. It's so important because this does affect people in their marriages. It affects them going back to work financially. There's so much more of a repercussion. A lot of work has been done by Professor Alex Heasel. He's like my oracle of pregnancy loss.

He doesn't even know it if anybody's ever listening to this. he can tell him because I love him. But he's done so much research and work on stillbirths and loss. And he looked at the repercussion of stillbirth in terms of global impact, personal impact, in terms of your actual life. What does it mean for people, not just in that moment of losing a baby, but for the rest of their life? Wow, that sounds incredible. Because it is a holistic experience.

Yeah, you can't isolate it. It's your whole life. And I think that's what's so unique about your role. all as well because for a lot of people, they might remember the midwife that was there when they gave birth, but that's one moment in what follow. But for people where it's the start of grief, of mourning, that continues, that role would be something you'd want to keep in their, keep going in their life. So for you to commit to being that person for people is a big deal. It's so, it's tricky. You know, we don't have case. We don't have context. We don't have

Continuity. Continuity is like a buzzword in maternity, right? We know that it's really, really the best thing. We know that having the same midwife throughout your pregnancy is gold standard. But we don't have that. So I now step into that role of that. Because when a woman does become pregnant again, what's she going to do? Go to do a referral. Nobody knows who she is. Nobody knows the backstory. There's a robot that's processing it. There's no human interaction within that. So I give them that continuity to say, I am your named person now. And even though I'm not kind of supposed to be helping in the next pregnancy, that's not really my role. There isn't anybody else out there to do that in some hospitals. And so I will be that person for them. Well, that's incredible because that's a big thing for people to. Yeah, I think it's needed. It is needed.

And so you said that once you saw Jada's name on the door, and you were like, okay, nothing's going to hold me back now. So what does that look like for your future plans? So that was in 2014. We opened the room on the 24th of September 2014, so just over a year, a year and a half after Jade had died. And I was sitting in the opening of the room, and at the time, there's a lady called Jacqueline Dunkley-Bent, who was the lead midwife at the hospital.

She's now the lead midwife of the world, literally. She works for the WHO. Wow. And she said to me, yeah. That's the person that was at the hospital then? Yeah, at the time. Whoa. And she said to me, you know, we've done all this work together.

We've done all these improvements. You're working with all these other charities. And you're a parent consultant for the NHS. You've done all this work. Why aren't you a midwife? And it's funny because when I had Mia, I thought, oh, I could be a midwife. You know, I think I could do a good job. But it was just a passing thought.

And then when Jada died, she said, you know, you've seen both sides of the coin. And so you coming into this with so much rich, lived experience to be able to help other people. Even if you don't go into bereavement, it's shaping you as a mother as a human to be able to do this job. That's what this is about. And so I thought, yeah, actually, maybe I could do this. Mia's at an older age now. She's settled in primary school. I've got really good support from my parents in terms of childcare.

And so I said, okay, I'm going to do it. I went off and did an access course because I was a mature student. Hadn't been in school for long enough to be able to then go and do a degree. did the access course, went and did my training at Kings, and then trained in the same hospital that Jada was born in. Wow. And now I'm still there now. And you work alongside someone that was there.

Yeah, all the staff, the doctors that looked after me, everybody that I had looked after me, I now work with. And does that help keep you in touch with the memories as well? Yeah, I think it does a little bit, but it's more of the driving force for all of us as a collective to make things better. we really want to make things better. And there are a lot of these people, people that met Jada. Yeah.

Well, that's significant too, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. Takes it outside of that room. Yeah, they met Jada. They were my mentors when I was training, and now they're my colleagues. So it's such a really deep relationship that I have with them. I bet, the deepest. Really.

I've been through such a significant life event, but also met your baby. Yeah. and help shape what your life has become about. I see it's incredible. And so if anyone listening is aware of something like this happening in someone they knows life, what would be a good way they can support someone? I think it's individual to that person, first of all. Don't try and dictate what you think the person needs.

Ask them what they need. And also it's about your own skill as a person. What are you good at doing? If you don't feel comfortable to have a difficult conversation, and don't do it, but just, you know, make a dinner or just say, let's go for a walk or send a text and say, I'm thinking of you, I don't know what to say, but I'm thinking of you. That's okay. Yeah. That's better than saying something that, some silly thing that somebody might say, but I just think it's about asking the person what they really need and just being there for them.

That's, I think you're right, and yeah, don't say that. And if you do say something you say, I think you're so right just to say, I'm really sorry, I don't know why I said that. Yeah. Because I think it's okay to acknowledge that this is something we're not necessarily taught how to deal with it. Yeah. And what about if this is something that's happened to you and where you're... It's a tough one because when I... I think if you'd met me at the time and I was having that really dark moment, and I was seeing a counsellor, I had midwives and everybody around me, I don't think anybody really knew the truth about what was going on with me. I really, really was good at hiding it.

So I think my advice would be, to be honest with even just one person about how you're really feeling. because mental health is, you know, at the pinnacle of all of this. And even if it's just one person that you tell how you're really feeling, that person can keep an eye on you, and maybe help you to find a support group or a counsellor or speak to your GP or your midwife or, whoever that might be, but just speak to one person about how you're really feeling because I was able to kind of save myself, I guess,

with the help of Julian Barnes. He doesn't even know it. but just to give yourself, I guess, the opportunity for someone to help you. What was it about the Julian Barnes book that particularly struck it, the cord? I mean, I know he's talking about the death of his wife, but how did you... I could just, it was so relatable. The things that he was saying, I just, I could feel it. I understood the things he was saying and the emotions that he felt.

And it just gave me a bit of guidance, I guess. It told me what I needed to hear. And so he had turned the loss of it. He decided to be the witness for his wife. And I guess I saw as well that in that book he talks about, I might want to get this right. I think he said grief is like a, like goes upwards, it's just climbs. But mourning just continues.

Yeah, continues, yeah. And I thought that was a really, quite a unique way to talk about how you deal with death in the aftermath. I haven't really heard of it like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and it's acknowledging how, like, you know that I think people say it gets better with time. Oh, it doesn't get better.

It just changes. Yeah. I don't know why we've got that phrase even in existence. Because it never, it's, I don't know anyone that said, and that turned out to be exactly right. It's just not true. You know, I always, I spoke to a parent recently and I was saying to her, she's like, how does it change? And I said, well, for her funeral, in her funeral, we kind of dedicated Stevie Wonder, isn't she lovely? and when I used to hear that song

I would literally break down in tears because it took me back to the funeral day which is the absolute worst day in all of it and I was in supermarket recently and they were playing it and as it came on I thought I could hear the dun dun dun do-dum

and I thought oh god I'm going to cry and then I didn't and I actually sang along with it because I feel like I'm in a bit of a different place and it's not to say that I'm not going to go back to feeling sad I don't put any expectation on myself anymore to say, okay, you're okay now.

I never will know if I'm really okay. I just feel in a healthier place with it, and that's the change rather than it being better. Yeah. You know? Yeah, it's like you, I mean, they do say you learn to live with it. Yeah, it's, yeah. But I guess the significance of grief as you wear it,

as you continue your life alongside it, is an absolute bond with that person. becomes symbolic of all the love. And ultimately that's such a, like a bittersweet feeling of love. I'm only speaking about, I haven't had, I do think we need different language sometimes around loss because I think that there's different, some deaths are tragic. Yeah. Losing a baby is tragic.

Yeah. It's like the ultimate of cruelty. Yeah. It's against the grain of everything we would expect because that person, and Jada never got a chance to do anything beyond have her birthday. So I think that we need different language for that, but the way that grief shapes our hearts and the way we live in terms of the strength of the love, that thing is that,

you know, in Julian's words and his book, in the way that people continue life, that's the bit where you think I can, I'm proud of having that feeling because it shows the death of my feeling for you. Yeah. And also I've learned, how much it's taught me and how much it's changed me. I'm so grateful for that. That's the gift that she gave me of how it's made me so much more of a, I feel like a better person, I hope, maybe somebody else can vouch for that.

But I feel like it's made me fuller and more patient, definitely, even though my family might disagree with that. But just more softer and less agitated by things, I'm much more relaxed. relaxed about the, I don't sweat the small stuff. Because in comparison to what I've been through, it is not important. Actually, that made me think of a long time ago. I spoke to Mary Berry and she'd lost her son, yeah, and he was 19. And she said the same thing, actually, that she gave her this difference of perspective and she was just calmer about so many things.

But she did say every once in a while if someone's really upset over something small, she can feel this flash in anger. Yeah, it's not important. of being angry about something that doesn't matter at all. I think just when we're going back to what we were saying about if somebody, if it's happening to you, one of the things that I do speak to people a lot about is understanding you now as the person you are now.

Because when you grieve and when you've had a loss, it changes you so much as a person that that can really throw you off. Because the conversations you had before, the jokes that you thought were funny before, just the things in general that you might speak about don't become relevant anymore and you're kind of left like oh who am i then because all those things before were what i kind of related to or what resonated with me that changes and you really have to go for a process of understanding who you now are as a person so you're i'm not only as

grieving jada but i was grieving lorren i was grieving the person that i was and i feel like maybe i'm a little bit closer to where i was but in a in a new 2.0 version of loren you know yeah I think that's so wise. And I guess also within that, you're also a different mother to Mia. Yeah, 100%. But for the better, I hope. Yeah. Yeah, and that's her life will be shaped by this sister that walks alongside.

I just think it's, I mean, look, if we're in any doubt of the legacy of Jada, not only with the, you know, just the, you know, it went from your experience to the room, to your work, to the people whose lives you've affected and then the reason I saw your name I know you've been very brilliant and the spokesperson for various campaigns but I saw the comedian Russell Howard message and he'd put

this note up about he and his wife with their second baby they had a stillbirth it happened months before he felt ready to share it and he's doing amazing fundraising coming up in February sold out completely incredible and he'd said I want to say about

our midwife Lauren because she was incredible and I just thought I have to know who is she sounds special who's she? My phone was blowing up that day. Everyone said, is that Lauren you? Yes, it's me. Yeah, but look, that's all following on from Jada. But look, you can see how Jada has shaped your life. But the other way around is you're, as Jada's mum, you've been the way you mother her.

It's incredible. It doesn't stop. You don't stop being a mum whether your child is here or not. And that's the thing, isn't it? I still have a duty to her. And my duty is to make sure that she is a good person. That's what I intended for my children to be good people and do good things. So if she can't be here to do that, that is my duty to make sure that I do that for her. Well, I think that's like the ultimate symbol of how motherhood shapes us, actually. If you're mothering from the get-go, without. out your baby here and all those milestones to make your life about how they can still shape things the better is like there can't be a better way of summing up what that maternalistic does. Oh, well, I'm so glad that Jada was in the world. Oh, thank you. That is such a lovely thing to say thank you.

I mean it. Thank you, Lauren. It made me cry. We did so well after somehow. We did so well. Thank you. Deep breaths. I think after we finished recording,

not just Lauren and I, but my producer Claire as well, who all just sat there for a minute and then all had a hug, gave each other hugs, because I thought there was so much about the conversation that was so moving, and Lauren and I were so, we really did hold it together for quite a long time. And then at the end, yeah, we did get emotional. but it's an emotional thing.

But I think for me, the thing that I found so profound was, yeah, the instinct to mother, to mother a baby, even if that baby isn't here. And look, look at what Jade has done. Look at what she's given to the world. Look at how she's helped those families. You know, her life didn't just begin and end on that day, that she's given so much to Jada's room at the hospital, to the experience changing for the better,

other people's experience are the same thing, to all the families that Lauren can now help and how she's channeled her grief into saying, I bear witness to my daughter, and my daughter's life meant something, and it will change these people's experience for the better too. So I found that incredibly powerful. and also somewhere out there is Lauren's daughter Mia,

who sounds like a force for good too, by the way, so the generations will continue with that good stuff. And thank you so much to Lauren. Thank you for the generosity of sitting with me and sharing her story, even though that is her actual first-hand lived experience. It's not just something she trots out. This is going back over something incredibly painful,

but she's generous enough to share that with us so that it can help. And it does help. I really believe it helps. And now I'm in the park where it's a little bit quieter. And it's been good for me to have a good walk in this nice, fresh day. And think about how lucky I am with all the things that can give me, you know, a bit of stress here and there, but really let it all fall away. The conversations like that, those experiences, that's really what it's all about.

and yeah, I hope if you're listening, I hope if you've been anywhere affected by the conversation, you'll find all the resources you need. Wherever you found your podcast, we've put some links there for you to the charities that were mentioned and to other ones. I know the charity Sands has been very helpful for people and that's behind the Baby Loss Awareness Week,

as well as charities like Tommies. And thanks to all the people as well that Lauren name checks for all the work they're doing as well. The counsellor who worked for nothing until people were like, actually this is a really important resource and gave her the support and the doctor, who she said was just an incredible person and doing all the work with the research of how it affects people.

The world is filled with good people, really. It's nice to have the faith in humanity about all that stuff too. So thank you for lending me your ears. Thanks for the support with the podcast ongoing. Thank you to Lauren for sharing her story. Thank you to Claire for sitting in the room with us and taking notes even though she was very emotional with what we're talking about, understandably.

Thank you to Alame for the gorgeous artwork, to Richard for editing. And I'll see you again with another chat. I am very lucky. I love these conversations so much. But thanks for giving the podcast such support so I can keep having these amazing chats. It's an enriching experience and I really value.

Thank you. All right. See you in a week's time and just be a little bit tender with yourself now because sometimes when you have these sit and you're listening on these chats it can leave you feeling a little bruisey. So just take it easy, do something fun or something nurturing, whatever makes you feel a little bit looked after and do that. All right, lots of love. See you next week.