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To anyone looking at the image attached to this story, they can simply see an ultrasound. When I look at this image, I see so much more. This ultrasound is of my current pregnancy with my little boy Freddie-Ray, due in April 2018. To say me and my partner are ecstatic is a huge understatement, in more ways than one. Let me take you back to June 2016.

"I think you should sit down..."Those words, those six minuscule words that usually would seem so innocent—in this instance, it was not. Myself and my partner had gone into the slightly dark room filled with tonnes of equipment that I still think even now looks slightly like a Nintendo 64 but for finding babies. We were here for our first ultrasound. We were apprehensive, but we assumed that's how everyone feels before one of the biggest moments of new parents' lives; seeing their child on that Nintendo 64 for the first time. Myself, on the other hand, felt more than apprehensive. I felt dread. You see, I have always had what I call my sixth sense, which is where I swear I can literally detect when something bad is going to happen, and ever since I had woken up that morning it was all I could think and feel. My partner told me that I was just being silly and that everything, of course, would be fine, just I wait and see.I lay down as every other girl, woman, lady, and mother had done before me and made way for the stupid bit of tissue that tucks into your undergarments and immediately breaks and sticks to everything on contact. The cold jelly slopped on my skin, making a kind of squelching noise, and then followed the probe, sliding left to right. The sonographer who, when we walked in, had such a lovely smile through her red lipstick, suddenly became sullen and was full of thought, her eyes darting back and forth across the screen. She said very little, only saying very fleeting words about what she was looking at on the screen. She then placed the probe back on the Nintendo 64 and asked if it would be okay to do an internal scan, as she said that baby was hard to see. I agreed, thinking it was just because I'm on the larger side and it's difficult for her.

Out came what can only be described as a light saber.That's going inside me, seriously?

I lay there "thinking of England," as they say, grimacing thinking that this light saber cannot possibly go up any further than it has! After a while, I readjusted myself and stood up, to which my partner turned around to the lady and asked so innocently, "Do we pay for the scan pictures in here or at the desk?" To which those horrible six words were uttered.

I immediately sank to the chair and had tears stinging my eyes before she started to speak, knowing that my sixth sense had been right all along."I'm not quite happy with baby's head and how it is forming compared to how it should be at this stage. I am just going to see if I can make an appointment for you to go to Gloucester to see a specialist with better equipment that will see more. It will more than likely be nothing to worry about, but I'd like to be sure." She left. I cried. My partner limply put his arm around me. I could tell he was as shocked as I was, but he finds it harder to show. The red lipstick lady returned and informed us that she'd made an appointment to see a specialist that day. We scuttled out of the dimly lit room and were ushered round to the exit without any other of the excited parents seeing our sorrow, as, let's be honest, it puts the fear of God into anyone. The walk home from the hospital was quiet. I decided I needed to see my mum as anyone would in that instance. As I walked through her front door, my Mum came to greet me with open arms, and then saw my face and hesitated.

"Oh god what..."

I explained everything I could, the best that I could through tears and fear. My partner was a lot calmer at this point and filled in the blanks where I was unable. My sister assured me that some ultrasounds are just shoddy and that, in the bigger hospital, I'll see that everything is fine and that I will be wondering what I was worried about. I wasn't so convinced.

My partner went and sat on the wall outside so he could phone his mum, dad, and step-mum to update them all. I watched him out of the window, and for the very first time since we had been together, I saw him cry. Men are "never supposed to cry" because that's weak, and no man wants to be seen as weak. But that day, I had never seen him stronger. He'd held up for me when all he really wanted to do was to break down himself.A couple of hours later, we sat in the waiting room in the brightly lit hospital with floors so white they blinded you. By "we," I mean myself, my partner, my mum and my sister. When I was called through, we all piled into the room together. The doctor didn't even bat an eyelid. Again I had to have one of those light saber like rods shoved up...well...you know.After some silence and calculations, the doctor turned around to all of us and said, "It's not good, I'm afraid."Through the tears shed by my mum and my sister, the doctor proceeded to tell us what was going on. I sat silently listening, whilst hearing the harrowing thing that was my family crying in emotional pain. I must commend this man before I continue. He has such a hard job to do and I could see he did not want to have to tell me this. He explained everything with sensitivity, but as informative as he was able. I will explain in my own words the information that turned our worlds upside down that day.

Anencephaly.Ever heard of it? Neither had I. Spina-Bifida.Ever heard of that? Thought so.Anencephaly is another form of Spina-Bifida and it basically means that the skull is hardly formed, if at all, which means that the baby's brain is exposed to the fluid around it. The reason this happened? A lack of folic acid. Most women can have the standard amount of folic acid in normal pregnancy vitamins, but for some reason, my body was just not taking in enough. Had I have gone to full term, which some parents do decide to do, my baby would have more than likely died in minutes, hours, or days. And honestly? I wasn't strong enough to go through that. My partner and I decided that day to have a TFMR (Termination for medical reasons). We came home that day and I cried most of the time. If I wasn't crying, it was just silent, so much so you could hear your own heartbeat. Neither of us knew what to say, what to do, or how to be. It was like a part of our relationship had been ripped away..June 15th, 2016, will always be our little one's birthday, which on record would be the 'termination' day. I detest the word termination because that makes it sound like we didn't want our baby. I did. We did. We all did, but we were not willing to put a tiny defenseless being through all that suffering.

The months that followed were the worst I have ever experienced in my life. My partner and I had split. It had driven a rift between us that we felt at the time could not be healed. He became buried in his work and I became buried with my ever-growing insanity. I became a version of myself that I never want to meet again. I was bitter and angry at every woman within a mile radius of me that was pregnant or had just given birth. I was wishing horrible things upon them and was making out how no one deserved to have a child if I couldn't have mine. Awful, right? I know. May I just add in that this is not me, and I am disgusted now with the thoughts I had and the things I said. I hated everyone and everything and I was convinced that this was how I would feel for the rest of my life. No one even knew how to act or what to say around me, because I made it so difficult for everyone. I kept thinking: Why should I make it easier for everyone when I'm the one hurting? No one deserves that when they are just trying to be there for you. Not long after all this happened I had left my job and began to work somewhere else, which was a great help for me as it put my mind to other things and got me out of a rut of sorts. I think if I hadn't have gotten that new job, well...let's just say I don't know where I would be now. A few months after I had started my new job and finally started feeling slightly like me again. Myself and my partner managed to set things straight and we got back together. Things were rocky to begin with, I won't lie. Relationships are difficult anyway, but when you've suffered a loss then multiply that by 100. Although I think we realized that it was harder to be without each other than it was to ride the waves and stick together. I also realized how difficult it is to go through something like this and to be a man. Throughout all the problems, the heartache, and the sorrow, he was being strong for me and I, at the time, thought he didn't care. Oh, how selfish of me to not realize back then, but I know now. Grief takes hold of us in lots of different ways.We never knew the sex of our little one, as it was just too early on, but everyone was saying how they thought it was a boy, so that's what we decided. We named him John David Taylor. John after my late father and David after his late uncle. Two people that I am sure will be looking after him up there.

The purpose of writing this? I want other parents to know that, whether they have been through a miscarriage, a termination for whatever reason, or problems conceiving altogether, that you are not alone. And no, the grief and the pain never goes away, but I assure you, it does become easier to live with.Here's to the future, and to John's brother Freddie-Ray.In memory of my angel, who I will one day see again...