Most working mothers who experience a stillbirth have the right to take maternity leave whilst they cope with the initial shock and trauma. But what if your baby is very prematurely stillborn and you are denied that choice? Here, local Sands member Serena Mitchell tells her story.

In January 2006, after two years of trying and resigning myself to the fact that we'd probably left it too late, my husband and I were over the moon to discover I was pregnant! Managing a busy press office for a national public-sector organisation, I knew that I wanted to give my team plenty of time to find a suitable replacement to cover my maternity leave. I had every intention of returning to work, but at 38, I was definitely going to enjoy my rights to a whole year off. So in March, being the conscientious employee that I am, I had already informed my manager and HR department of my intention to start my maternity leave in mid-August. 

I had already suffered some heavy bleeding in the early weeks of the pregnancy and had taken a couple of weeks off sick, but at the time had told the rest of my team I had flu. By April, my bump was really beginning to show and I couldn't hide the good news from friends at work any longer. Then I discovered that a colleague who sat close to my desk was also pregnant and due a few weeks after me, and we joked how we would soon be comparing notes. I remember telling her that she was now entitled to use the staff first aid room for a lie down if she felt a bit off colour I had already been taking the odd afternoon nap!

However, during the May Day celebrations, my carefully laid maternity plans went to hell. I had again been bleeding heavily since Good Friday. I was later diagnosed with a large blood clot behind the placenta, which finally caused my waters to leak and contractions to start at home on Sunday 30 April. In my ignorance, I insisted on watching an episode of the crappy American drama Invasion before I let my husband call an ambulance, even though I was on all fours in front of the telly rocking back and forth with the pain! I hadn't actually realised or even contemplated that I was going into labour.

Our beautiful little boy, Vincent, was prematurely stillborn at 2.56pm on 2 May 2006, at 20 weeks. Having gone through a five-hour induced labour, sucking on gas and air until I was high as a kite and swearing like I'd never sworn before, I gave birth to my small but perfectly formed baby, with little hands and feet, a button nose and cupid lips. A stillbirth in my book, but not in the eyes of the law. Had Vincent been born just four weeks later, he would have officially existed. We would have had to register his birth and have gained a death certificate. I would have been entitled to start my maternity leave. But at 20 weeks, this little baby didn't officially count: he was technically a "late miscarriage".

In a state of shock we left the Royal Sussex Hospital the following day. The spring sunshine was dancing over the sea, and we stopped for a cup of tea and a bun at a café on Marine Parade. I still looked pregnant in my maternity dress. This was all wrong; you're not meant to leave hospital without the baby you've been carrying.

Two days later, I rang my boss in floods of tears to let him know what had happened. Over the next few days, we were very touched by the cards, letters and flowers that we received from my work colleagues. I was signed off work for a further two weeks, and as we had a three-week trip already booked to the States, I said I'd get in touch again when we got back. The hospital was helping to arrange Vincent's funeral, which was scheduled after we returned from holiday since we had elected to have a post-mortem.

During our time abroad, we were both in a bubble. The shock of recent events felt like a dream, and we actually managed to enjoy our West coast road-trip from Las Vegas to San Francisco. However, the harsh reality hit hard as soon as we got back home. Feeling under pressure, I went back to work immediately on 13 June, only five weeks after Vincent was born and even before the funeral, which was delayed because the hospital had mislaid my notes! I don't how I managed that first day. I felt very panicky and cried all the way in to work, and wore sunglasses in the office for the first week to hide my red-rimmed eyes. They somehow gave me a sense of protection - a barrier to hide behind. 

Everyone was understanding, and I felt supported by my immediate work mates and line managers. With my doctor's support, I had negotiated a "staged return" to work with our HR department, which meant that I was on reduced hours until the end of July. 

However, the worst thing was having to see my pregnant colleague every day, overhear her talking about her maternity plans, and catch her admiring her growing bump in the ladies' loo. She must have felt awkward as she never said anything to me about my loss, and I couldn't bring myself to say anything to her in my fragile, jealous state, so we would just exchange awkward hellos. 

Vincent was cremated at Woodvale Cemetery on 5 July 2006. The hospital funded the funeral, and we worked closely with the bereavement officer to make the arrangements. The small service was just as we wanted it to be. We had decided to have a humanist ceremony, and the officiant was very sensitive to our needs. We chose various passages from my favourite children's books and nursery rhymes as readings, and on the day itself I found the strength to carry Vincent's tiny white coffin into the funeral parlour and to take one of the readings. I took two days off work as compassionate leave, and then it was back to the grind.

And so the long hot summer wore on. I was already barely functioning in my stressful job, full of deadlines that I no longer cared about, when my manager was made redundant. Suddenly bereft of immediate support when I most needed it, and faced with uncertainty in the office, I struggled on, increasingly experiencing anxiety attacks and crying continuously when I got home from work. Things came to a head in mid-August when I realised I was utterly exhausted by my grief, both physically and mentally, and fearing for my sanity and ability to hold down my job. Having explained the situation to my new temporary line manager and HR department, they suggested I take some time off. 

However, my doctor saw things differently: I was shocked and yet very relieved when she signed me off for the next two and a half months. She said that I needed time to grieve for my baby without the added stress of a high-pressure job, and what I was experiencing was completely normal under the circumstances. I also realised that I was approaching the time I would have started my maternity leave, and still had to get through Vincent's due date on 25 September. So I was signed off work until the beginning of October. Unfortunately, my sick note said "reactive state to miscarriage" - I gave birth to a baby, for God's sake! Why did it have to say miscarriage?

During the following months, I entered a depressive state, the emotional pain at times so unbearable that I wished I was dead. I missed (and continue to miss) Vincent so much; a part of me was gone, and I was left with so much mother's love but no baby to hold. However, I was determined to get through these dark days without the aid of anti-depressives and rediscovered meditation and yoga to help me through. I avidly read books on baby loss and grief and began to see that what I was experiencing was a normal part of the process. Although no stranger to sudden and traumatic death, as my father was lost at sea in a single-handed round-the-world yacht race when I was 26, losing my son felt far worse.

I decided to go away on my own for a few days to a retreat centre down in Devon, set in a beautiful farmhouse and run by a female vicar with bereavement experience. This gave me some important healing time just to be quiet and reflective. I started a journal to write down my thoughts about what had happened and painted some ancient river stones collected from Exmoor as a tribute for Vincent. These I later laid in the children's memorial garden at Woodvale. I also went to stay with an old friend who had a six-month-old daughter, as I really wanted to hold and cuddle a living baby.

Throughout this period, I got very angry with the fact that I was, by law, denied maternity leave. Most of the very supportive women I was meeting at the local Sands group had lost their babies after 24 weeks and so had been entitled to take their maternity leave, or were not working anyway. They had time to grieve without the added pressure of having to "get back to normal" at work in the first few months. However, the local Sands group was a lifeline to me, along with the specialist baby loss counsellor I had been seeing over the summer. 

By the time Vincent's due date arrived, I felt I had made progress, and we took a special holiday abroad to get through this next hurdle. However, I still felt that my confidence in relation to work was at rock bottom, and this was proved when I attempted to return at the beginning of October. On my first morning, I experienced another anxiety attack and felt like quitting there and then. When your baby dies, you feel a failure and work and career no longer seem important.

Luckily, I again had the support of a very empathetic HR staff member who really listened to me. I felt that I needed to be redeployed for a while to a less front-line post until I was able to rebuild my confidence. I was signed off for another month while a solution was sorted out.

I finally went back to work at the beginning of last November, on a six-month internal secondment. Slowly my confidence is growing, and although I still have bad days where I feel very demotivated and tearful, I feel I have the support to get through. I have been fortunate to make friends with another colleague who contacted me after she heard my story and offered to help, since she herself had lost her son when he was stillborn at full term four years ago. Meeting at work over a coffee with someone who really understands the struggles to resume some semblance of a normal life has been so helpful.

Looking back over the last eight and a half months, I can see how far I've come, but I still have a long way to go. I've been fortunate to work for a flexible and supportive employer, capable of coming up with a plan to help me retain my job. However, I still consider it unfair that women like myself who lose a baby just before 24 weeks are denied the right to take maternity leave, and are faced with additional pressures at a time when our grief is so raw and disabling. In hindsight, I returned to work way too soon, but had felt under pressure not to extend my sick leave. I've also found that there is very little written about the struggles of bereaved parents trying to move back into the workplace, and this is a gap that needs to be filled. I hope that my story will help others in a similar situation.

A factsheet on returning to work for bereaved parents and employers is available from the national Sands helpline by calling 020 7436 5881.