When Alexa first contacted me through my blog in August, leaving me a cryptic message, asking me to get in touch with her, I was slightly suspicious.

No-one had ever asked me to contact them before with regard to my blog content, much less in such an unconventional way!

I duly wrote to the email given, and Alexa quickly got back to me with the most incredible proposition – would I like to be part of a book written by loss moms for loss moms?

Would I EVER!

I immediately accepted, not even really knowing the details, just that this would get my voice and my story out there to be read, and that this was precisely what I wanted.

When I lost my first baby, Jesse, at a very early stage of pregnancy in November 2012, one of the main feelings I found challenging was isolation. No-one around me was going through this. Husby didn’t really understand the impact of it, or why I was finding it so hard to come to terms with. My family were helpful and supportive and loving, but I needed more.

I needed to know that other women had been through this and had come out of it okay. Or even okay-ish. Or even that they weren’t okay, and probably never would be again.

Not having ever been pregnant before, I wanted to know everything about what I could expect of this awful grief as the confirmation of my child’s life came in losing him. How much would it hurt my body? My heart? My soul? My mind? What was an acceptable length of time before I had to start ‘pulling myself together’? What might I feel? Sadness? Anger? Rage? Loneliness? Guilt?

I had already begun blogging by that point (initially, narcissistically, about whatever I fancied) and I knew the Blogosphere to be a mine of information – intensely personal, intimate stories of peoples lives – including their stories of loss. I latched onto that and began searching out and consuming other women’s stories of loss. Their experiences; their pains; their Afterwards’; their memorials of their lost children.

And as I read and absorbed, I began to feel less alone, and then, shortly afterwards, the women in my Real Life began coming out of the woodwork to talk in terms of their own losses, as I let them know about mine.

But they were too late. In those fragile, initial days, I’d felt the most intense loneliness ever. Betrayed by my body, abandoned by my child, and unconnected to any woman who Knew.

And that’s when I resolved to contribute my story to the wonderful world of the Blogosphere, and label it out loud – Miscarriage.

I would write every Truth, even (and perhaps especially) the hard, uncomfortable, challenging ones, because some day, somewhere, another woman might be sat at her computer, weeping in pain and loneliness as her child departs her body, wanting to find someone, anyone, who’d gone through this before her, and what it might be like.

The barriers have to come down. For this and every woman who goes through this feeling alone. Because it’s not fair to pretend that miscarriage is a non-event, when it’s the most profound hurt a woman might ever face.

So I’ve spread my writing on the topic (and infertility – oh yes, we got hit with the double-whammy after losing Sam in March) to try to combat those taboos and to begin making it okay for women to talk openly, honestly and respectfully on these subjects.

To be able to take this goal out of the computer and into the real world through Sunshine After The Storm is a huge honour, and an endeavour I am absolutely thrilled to be part of.

So if you’re a loss mom (or dad) yourself, or you know anyone who is, or who is going through it now, or even if you and all your nearest and dearest have been blessed with perfect pregnancies (or have chosen not to have any) – please buy this book – because really, we’re all in it together, and we all need to open those channels of communication.

We’ve made a start by sharing our stories in the book – now it’s your turn.

Lizzi Rogers, a non-professional blogger from the UK, is trying to write her way through two early losses and subsequent diagnosis of spousal infertility. She hopes and strives to write the Truth, the whole truth and sometimes even something uplifting, and whilst she wishes no-one had to go through the journey of child loss, aims to contribute usefully to existing resources available to help those who are in that position. Find her at ‘Considerings‘ or on Facebook at ‘The Invisible Moms Club.’