Nottingham Forest: Chelsea Pitman on miscarriage and pregnancy

Pitman thought having a baby would “be so easy”.

She feels her body, which allowed her to achieve so much in netball, “failed” her when she needed it most.

“I was like, ‘OK, my body allowed me to achieve everything there was to achieve in the sense of netball, but it hasn’t allowed me to achieve the one thing that I really wanted’,” she says.

One miscarriage came on England duty, shortly before Covid-19 triggered lockdowns.

Pitman was close to the three-month pregnancy stage at which point many people share their news with friends and family.

“It was really tough,” she recalls.

A cruel twist of fate meant Pitman, who knew she was miscarrying, was selected by UK Anti-Doping for a post-match urine test.

“For people that don’t know, you need to pee in a cup, and when you’re miscarrying, obviously things are happening as well. I just remember looking at the team doctor, going, ‘this is the worst week of my life’,” she says.

Pitman urges anyone going through pregnancy loss to “lean on the ones that you love” rather than delay conversations.

She elected to “just put it somewhere and then deal with it later”.

Eventually she told her story on social media and also spoke to BBC Sport about the toll of the lost pregnancies.

Pitman found she was not alone. A wave of support followed.

“I was like, ‘why do we keep this quiet?'” she says.

“The amount of women that were like, ‘oh my gosh, this has made me want to open up to my family and stuff’. It’s sad, because it is quite a lonely place if you do what I did and just keep it in.”