Victoria – Wedding Day and Charlie’s Due Date

My soon-to-be husband and I were delighted to find out at the start of 2026 that we were expecting our first child. We were over the moon and so excited to start our little family. We had 3 scans which showed normal growth of our little baby and a good strong heartbeat and so we excitedly told the whole world about our news.

We were also recently engaged and so following on from the healthy scans, we started to make plans for our wedding. We decided to book for August 2027 and made plans for a big, family friendly celebration, super excited about the fact that we would have our very own flower girl or page boy! We sent out save-the-dates to all of our favourite people. 

At the beginning of April we booked in for a private scan at a local clinic to find out the gender of our baby. I was now well into my second trimester and enjoying no longer feeling nauseous or completely exhausted the whole time. Unfortunately, the sonographer immediately told us gently that our baby was very sick and she arranged an immediate referral back to the hospital. After one of the worst waits of our lives, we were seen by a consultant who confirmed that our baby was extremely poorly, in fact dying, and recommended that we terminate our pregnancy at 17 weeks. We could see that our baby was deteriorating on the scans, even in that short space of time – there was fluid building up, they were moving less, and their heart was weaker. 

On the 11th April 2026, our little Charlie was delivered. This was one of the hardest things we have ever gone through. I suffered complications afterwards and had to remain in hospital for a few days and undergo surgery for a retained placenta. There are no words that accurately describe the loss and the pain. Not to mention the fact that you are post-partum without a baby to take home. Charlie was perfect and we later found out that she did in fact have Edward’s syndrome (despite my screening having come back as 1 in 5000 chance!).

With time, and lots of support from each other we have learned to cope with the loss of Charlie but we are both completely different people now. I was desperate to be pregnant again, I longed to feel another baby in my belly. When I was physically healed we started trying again, and wrongly assumed that because it was easy the first time to get pregnant, it would be easy enough this time round. Sadly that has not proven the case. 

The other thing that I started to feel looming over us – was the wedding date. Every month that passed I would calculate in my head “if I get pregnant now, I’ll have a two month old at the wedding” or “at least if I get pregnant by then I’ll be 6 months pregnant at the wedding” and so on. These thoughts felt extra heavy on an already heavy mind. One day we realised this was ridiculous – adding this extra time pressure! All we cared about was marrying each other and being there for each other – forget the big party. The realisation that we didn’t have control over when we would conceive again, but we could control our wedding date was a light bulb moment. We decided that night to instead have a tiny ceremony, with our absolute closest people only, at the local registry office and then go to our favourite restaurant for a nice meal. We looked at the calendar and realised that the quickest time frame we could organise this, actually ended up being the week of Charlie’s due date, and this felt like another sign that it was the right thing to do. 

We had been over the moon to have been expecting our little Charlie, and then the worst thing happened. Now, as her due date looms, I do get overwhelmed with sadness, but also happiness as I get to marry the love of my life. Maybe one day we will have a big party with all of our friends, but for now we will celebrate our little family instead, even if it looks different to how it was supposed to. 

We miss our little Charlie so much and know that she will be with us every single step of the way just in a very different manner than we ever imagined.