Pippa Sheehan opens up on her six miscarriages and the lost children she’ll always hold dear

TV journalist Pippa Sheehan has her hands full with her young son, but the six babies she lost are never far from her thoughts.

As a journalist for Channel 10, Pippa Sheehan has reported on her fair share of sad stories, but it is her own story that has proven the most heartbreaking of all.

In the past four years, the Brisbane mother-of-one, 34, has lost six babies to miscarriage, the most recent being twins last month.

Just this year, Sheehan, who lives in Brisbane, has experienced three miscarriages with two more in 2018 before she fell pregnant in 2019 with her now-two-year-old son Alfie.

It’s not a journey Sheehan, alongside her husband, ever thought she’d take, nor a story she ever thought would be hers to tell.

Yet, here she is, grieving the loss of six babies she never got to meet but had pictured a future with – the lost babies she desperately hoped for and will never forget.

“Quite often we’ve had people say, ‘just the one?’ when we’re at the shop or if we’re out somewhere,” Sheehan said.

“It’s lovely and we have been blessed with a beautiful little son, however, just the one visibly, yes, but I hold seven babies in my heart and it’s really hard.

“They are all loved and, yes, we have just got the one but they’re all precious.”

At the end of the month, Sheehan will chop off her hair to raise money for the Pink Elephant Support Network, an organisation supporting those impacted by early pregnancy loss or miscarriage.

The bold gesture is to coincide with pregnancy and infant loss awareness month which runs throughout October.

Sadly, the infertility journey is one that’s far too common.

Channel 10 journalist Pippa Sheehan with son Alfie, 2. Picture: Tara Croser

In Australia, one in three women and their partners experience a pregnancy loss in their lifetime, and one in four pregnancies are estimated to end in miscarriage, according to Pink Elephant.

The majority of those losses happen prior to 12 weeks, and for Sheehan, all her miscarriages have happened before 10 weeks.

As Sheehan wraps her arms tightly around Alfie, she’s reminded of the joy among the darkness – her miracle that gives her strength.
She’s acutely aware of how lucky she is to have her son and very mindful of the circumstances and struggles others are facing on their own journeys to becoming a family.

But she said it didn’t make her losses any easier to handle.

In 2018, a year after Sheehan and her husband got married, the pair fell pregnant for the first time, only to be told at 10 weeks there was no heartbeat.

Eight months later, Sheehan had her second miscarriage.

“The first miscarriage was absolutely flooring … it cut me out at the knees,” she said.

“It was a devastation I had never experienced in my life.”

It was the start of what would become a cruel few years of loss, grief, loneliness, isolation and pain.

“You have a certain expectation that everything will go well and you will be able to hold your bub in your arms,” she said.

“There is no good way to tell you that there is no heartbeat, there is no nice way of hearing that.

“The grief takes over your whole body, you become the grief and there is nothing more.

“The grief doesn’t go away with time, you just grow around it.”

Sheehan said what hurt the most was the unexplained losses, with plans to now undergo extensive medical testing to find answers that she hopes will help in the future.

The road has often been lonely, said Sheehan, but she credits her husband for her strength and the support of family and friends who have navigated her through the darkest days.

“It can hit you for no reason, it could be a beautiful moment looking at a gorgeous new mum walking down the street or dad holding their little one,” she said.

“You see the love in their eyes for their child and 95 per cent of the time I’m fine and I love it and it brings me joy but sometimes it will hit you and you’re looking at someone else’s child with tears in your eyes.”

Sheehan is sharing her story in the hope it will make others feel less alone and start a louder conversation.

“The other thing can be triggering and upsetting are the words ‘at least’,” she said.

“At least you weren’t further along, at least your body knew what to do, at least you didn’t meet the baby.”

“Some one of the most stinging things can be things they don’t even know they are saying in the hopes of being kind.”

There’s only so much grief she can take, and Sheehan is open to other options to extending their family in the future.

For now though, she still holds hope of having another child of her own and will always remember the ones she’s lost.

“We are not in the same position but in a similar position to so many other families, parents, mothers and caregivers who wish they’ve could have met their babies,” she said.

“It’s incredibly heartbreaking but they’re always there with us.”

To support Sheehan, visit https://www.pinkelephants.org.au/my-fundraising/104/pippa-sheehan