Leanbh Mo Chroi means ‘Child of My Heart’ in Irish. We originally chose this name because we felt it captured the depth of a loss of a much-wanted pregnancy following a poor diagnosis; the feeling of wanting to keep them in our hearts and cherish the memories we did have.

We have since decided to abbreviate the name to LMC. The reasons are two-fold: Firstly, a lot of people found it difficult to pronounce the name!  Secondly, we wanted to reflect the much-needed choice that a woman should have when faced with such heartbreaking news. So, LMC now also stands for Let Me Choose.

Early members all had the shared experience of having to travel for a termination following a poor diagnosis. However, we realised that the most important factor in offering support to you is not about what decision we arrived at.  The most important factor is recognising your need for a truly safe space to explore your own feelings, where you can arrive at your own decision on whether or not to continue the pregnancy.

This is the most heart-breaking of decision-making processes, which takes place alongside the beginnings of the grieving process. We believe that this process must be supported in a compassionate non-directive way. Having lived through this experience ourselves, we quickly discovered that there were no specific support groups for people like us in Ireland. We found that our feelings of loss were compounded by feelings of isolation during this time.

Many of us in the group have taken the difficult decision to end our pregnancy, but we wish to make it clear that of foremost importance to us is that that choice rests with the woman herself.

We feel it is absolutely vital that she feels supported at all times in a manner that is respectful of that fact.

Deciding whether or not to end a much-wanted pregnancy is an incredibly difficult decision. Every situation is unique to that individual, their circumstances and individual diagnosis.