ONLY days after having her pregnancy confirmed by a doctor, Grace O'Carroll felt a sinking sense of dread.
As the pain in her abdomen began to escalate, she just knew.
She was losing her baby.
She was about six weeks into the pregnancy.
"Looking back, I probably should have gone to hospital sooner, but I was probably partially in denial," Ms O'Carroll, 30, said.
"I was hoping it was an appendix-related thing, but I also knew that it wasn't. I knew what was happening.
"I was hoping it was an appendix-related thing, but I also knew that it wasn't. I knew what was happening.
Grace O'Carroll, 30, on suffering a miscarriage
"At the hospital they did a series of tests, and confirmed it was an ectopic pregnancy.
"It was obviously quite dangerous for me - although that wasn't really where my mind was at the time."
Ms O'Carroll was sent in for surgery.
One of her fallopian tubes had burst, and she had been bleeding internally. It needed to be removed.
"My partner and I were not actively trying to have a baby, but we were also not on contraceptives," she said.
"We had been together for about four years, so we were kind of seeing what happened. Sure enough, it happened - and it was a delight. But it was pretty short lived."
Related: 'Sometimes I just wanted to curl up on the lounge and cry'
Despite having the help and support of friends and loved ones in Newcastle, Ms O'Carroll felt a sense of loneliness and isolation - feelings exacerbated by COVID-19 restrictions.
Ms O'Carroll's partner had needed to return to work in Canada. Her immediate family live in New Zealand.
"I look back on it and it was a bit of a blur," she said.
"They were all really wonderful. It was such an unexpected thing to have happened and I think I dealt with it well. But I kept a lot of it inside."
A midwife referred her to Pink Elephants - a not-for-profit charity supporting people experiencing early pregnancy loss.
"I am so grateful she did," Ms O'Carroll said.
"Even though it was just online, being in the presence of other women who knew what it felt like and could empathise was really helpful. Whereas, through no fault of their own, everybody else could really only sympathise.
"It can be really hard for people to know what to say, and what not to say. And it's different for everyone. But you don't really understand what it is like until you have been through it yourself."
Ms O'Carroll hoped that by sharing her story in International Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month, it might help others to open up about their own loss, or encourage them to seek out - or support - Pink Elephants.
"Miscarriage is so much more common than you realise. And now I know how much it is not spoken about," she said. "I didn't necessarily need people to be perfect about it, I just wanted recognition and acknowledgement that it had happened in the first place. That it was real. To honour that life."
Pink Elephants Support Network chief Samantha Payne said the charity had been operating at "full capacity" to support people experiencing miscarriage in isolation. She said they'd had a 60 per cent increase in people joining their online communities during the pandemic, and an almost 30 per cent increase in requests for peer support counselling over the phone.
"Women are telling us they're going to scans and being told there's no heartbeat, and they don't have a hand to hold or shoulder to cry on. They're going into hospital pregnant and waking up after procedures without a baby, and no one beside them for support.
Every day in Australia, 282 women report a miscarriage. One in four pregnancies end before 20 weeks, and one in three women will experience a miscarriage.
It comes as a new Australian documentary, Misunderstandings of Miscarriage has begun streaming on Stan.
Filmmaker and former actress Tahyna MacManus (nee Tozzi) turns the camera on herself to give a personal account of her own losses while exploring experiences of infertility, miscarriage, and stillbirth.
