Losing a baby during pregnancy or soon after they are born can be an extremely painful experience - one that isn't often talked about.
That's why as Baby Loss Awareness Week draws to a close it is especially important to raise awareness about miscarriage, stillbirth and neonatal baby death in the UK.
At 7pm tonight, people will take part in a global Wave of Light by lighting a candle and burning it for at least an hour to remember all babies who have died too soon. They are asked to share photos of their candle to Facebook, Twitter or Instagram using #WaveOfLight.
Liverpool Town Hall will be also be lit up in pink and blue to tie in with the Wave of Light.
Ahead of this, we spoke to two mums who both lost babies and wanted to speak about their experiences to help other people going through the same thing.
*Trigger warning: The stories below may cause distress.*
"We buried him in my mum's back garden"
Demi Swindells from Dingle, was four months pregnant when she lost her baby boy in June this year. He would have been born in November.
She told the ECHO: "I just want to let people know they are not alone and you will get through it. It is still raw for me and I'm still coming to terms with it all. I think come November it will really hit me, as at the moment I should be buying baby clothes not flowers for his grave - although I don't like calling it a grave - we say it's his garden."
Demi found out she was pregnant in March just before lockdown. She was nervous but excited that her two-year-old son Reuben would have a sibling.
The 25-year-old said: "It wasn't planned but I just knew my body, so I took a pregnancy test and I was over the moon when I found out I was pregnant.
"Because of Covid, my first scan was delayed and I only had it at 14 weeks on May 18. The baby was settled and I wasn't going to find out the gender but I could see on the screen and she told me it was a boy. I was made up.
"My pregnancy up to that point has been going really well and there was no indication that anything was wrong."
Demi said that just two weeks later to she went to bed with her little boy and awoke in the night to a soaking bed.
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"I went to bed with no pains or nothing it was just a normal day. Then I woke up around midnight and I thought that I had been sweating or even wet myself, but my waters had broken and I didn't realise because that hadn't happened with my first son. I rang the Women's and they told me to come in.
"I was waiting to be seen by the doctor and ended up giving birth to my baby on my own in the bathroom at the hospital at about 4am. I didn't realise that's what was happening. I went to the toilet and when I went to wipe myself, I felt his little legs coming down, but I couldn't get him out."
Demi pressed the call button and the midwives came in to help her.
"I had no family around to support me just the nurses who I can not thank enough for looking after me so well during a really tough experience for me especially with the restrictions because of Covid-19.
"They gave me a bag containing all essentials that would be needed for a woman losing blood even brand new PJs. They also allowed my mum to come and comfort me.
"I wanted to see him but I didn't have the bottle. I asked my mum to see him and give him a kiss from me. The staff took pictures of him for me and eventually I build myself up to see him. But I wasn't expecting him to look like he did.
"He was very long, about the size of my hand. He looked so perfect and had all his features, toes, hands, ears. He was a proper little baby and I named him Reily."
Demi had to stay in the hospital because of her blood pressure, but her mum was able to take Reily home.
The former carer said: "We buried him in my mum's back garden and we've made a memorial for him. We want to keep Reily's memory alive.
"I have my good days and my bad days but I think it's definitely important to talk about it. I've never experienced anything like this and I didn't realise the amount of people who go through this. My partner and I are heartbroken, to lose any child is heartbreaking.
"But it's okay to talk about baby loss, it's part of the coping mechanism and I want every person to know who goes through this that you are not alone, it sure hurts like hell and you feel broken but you have to take one step at a time, you'll never get over it and you have to learn how to live with the pain."
"The grief that you feel when they are gone is overwhelming"
Fiona Casey, 49, lost her baby at five months pregnant eight years ago, but she said the grief and loss stay with you even after all this time.
She told the ECHO: "It's a horrible, horrible feeling. You feel like you lose a part of yourself and the grief and loss stay with you even after these eight years.
"I was living in Georgia in the US at the time, my husband and I had just moved there when I found out I was pregnant.
"I had problems quite early on with bleeding and then a heavy loss at around 10 weeks. I went to the ER and they told me it was vanishing twin. There was a loss of an embryo but there was still a heartbeat on the ultrasound.
"The care is very different in the UK and because of my age, it was classed as a geriatric pregnancy. So I was seeing my obstetrician every couple of weeks and he kept reassuring me it was fine."
The mum-of-two, who now lives in West Lancashire, said that her pregnancy continued and she had occasional spotting and suffered terrible nausea.
"I got past 12 weeks and everything seemed to be okay, but at 17 weeks I ended back in the ER as I started losing a lot of water, it was like a gush of water and I knew something had gone wrong.
"I was scheduled to see my OB and he did an ultrasound that showed all the water had disappeared. I was sat crying for half an hour while waiting for my husband to arrive and that's when he told us that it didn't look promising.
"I couldn't comprehend what was going on and of course you start googling. He said I had a condition called oligohydramnios, when you have too little amniotic fluid."
Fiona, a former art museum marketing director, went to see a specialist who explained the chances of survival and what would happen if the baby went to full term.
She said: "In hindsight, I was trying to cling on to all the positives, some babies survive and that if we could get to 25 weeks they could deliver the baby and it would be put on a ventilator.
"I was also given the choice to abort but as a Christian that wasn't an option for me. So for three weeks we hoped and prayed for 'Baby Hope'.
"The doctor explained that without water the baby can't move freely and can strangle itself with the cord, he explained what would happen if the baby died, and about the pain.
"I lost my baby at 20 weeks, in America, they class that as a stillbirth."
Fiona explained how she began getting strong pains.
"I was watching Downton Abbey when the pain started but I just ignored it because I knew what was coming. But at around 2am in the morning, I told my husband I need to go to hospital.
At the time Fiona and her husband Louie had no family living close by so they had to take their then two-year-old daughter with them to the hospital.
"Louie had to wait with my little girl outside, so I delivered my baby boy on my own in the delivery suite."
However, Fiona suffered huge complications and she started haemorrhaging and had to undergo emergency surgery.
"I thought I was just delivering the placenta, I started bleeding badly, my body had gone into shock and shut down. I needed a second surgery and had about 26 hours of blood transfusions over the next few days to recover.
"I did get to see my baby and hold him. We had him cremated and I brought his ashes with me in my handbag on the plane when we moved back to the UK.
"At the time, I had no family living nearby and I found my church very comforting and felt such warmth from the community at a time of utter need.
"But emotionally it was very hard to process, I started smoking again, and it was a horrible time and a low time in our marriage.
"The grief that you feel when they are gone is overwhelming. That loss of a life that you'd kept for five months you just wanted to go with that child.
"I gave up all hope of ever being pregnant again. I was grateful for one healthy child who I adored and loved and that was it.
But a year to the day of losing the baby, who they named Louis, Fiona and Louie found out she was pregnant again.
Fiona, who now works as a school bursar, added: "We were blessed with a beautiful baby girl Alex and I had such a good pregnancy
"It's not a case of replacing one with the other, but it took all the pain and angst away. I think it's so important to talk about baby loss. There is a different culture in America and it's not such a taboo subject, they talk more freely over there.
"My husband and I talked immensely about it and didn't shut each other out. You just need to keep talking.
"Whether your baby is two week or 20 weeks when they're gone, all your hopes and dreams are gone with it.
"But I can never be sad anymore because if I didn't have Louis, I wouldn't have Alex."
