“It’s not good news,” is never the phrase you want to hear from your obstetrician.

She didn’t say it was bad news, but not good is almost as bad as bad.

I thought I was about six weeks and a few days pregnant and had just had my first ultrasound scan as part of my treatment for my recurrent miscarriage.

The not good news was that although there was an amniotic sac in my uterus, my consultant couldn’t see anything inside it. There was no yolk sac and no fetal pole. There was no sign of a baby developing.

I was told that it was still early days and though I know more or less when I ovulated, you can never be sure when you actually conceive, so I was sent home for a week to see if there was any progress during that time.

A week is often called a long time in politics or in football, but let me tell you, it is an eternity when waiting to see if you are going to have a baby or not.

Having suffered four previous pregnancy losses, I was already anxious that I could start bleeding at any point, but my anxiety and stress instantly multiplied on hearing the not good news.

Every day and every night was a challenge that I had to get through unscathed, and every time I did, I felt a tiny bit more hopeful that maybe my baby was just a slow grower and was waiting to make itself known.

My emotions were a spin the whole week: I had to try and be positive and nourish that hope, while preparing myself from the fact that I may well lose this pregnancy too.

My mood was up and down and up and down and I struggled to keep my fear under control despite good signs such as stronger pregnancy symptoms and a lack of any bleeding.

The moments just before my second scan were true hell. The stress had built up to a crescendo and I wasn’t sure that I could go through with it, preferring ignorance and a slither of hope over the cold, hard truth.

I knew it was over when the abdominal ultrasound failed to pick anything other than the sac up and the doctor said she needed to do an internal.

The silence as she searched through my uterus for signs of life was crushing.

My heart was beating so loud and so fast I thought it would burst. My husband took my hand as it became apparent the not good news was becoming bad news.

Removing the wand, my consultant explained what had happened – that there was no embryo and that there was bleeding around the sac, which suggested it was already starting to come away of its own accord.

My world fell apart again. I was being dealt another body blow to take my breath and reason away.

I held back the tears as we discussed my options, but guidelines mean I have to wait another seven days for a scan before any management of my miscarriage can be carried out – just in case something changes.

There is a high chance that it will start naturally before then and I have to phone the early pregnancy unit if it does.

So I am now left waiting for my miscarriage to happen, knowing it will at some point and knowing it will be horrible. I am afraid to leave the house in case it happens suddenly, like it did once before, and I am so, so sad and frustrated that I have to go through this again.

Getting my head around this is my priority now but I also know that the most important thing is to try and collect the ‘pregnancy material’ so it can be tested.

It’s likely to be another of those things that nobody could have done anything about but it would be useful to know for sure.

In the meantime I am just waiting, not knowing what to do or how to spend my time, but knowing that I have no choice but to pick myself up and start again if I want to have another baby.