Rhiannon Eyre

For my little baby bean

50k is a daunting distance. If you’d told me a few years ago that I would willingly choose to run that far, I probably would have laughed at you. But this isn’t really about the distance. It’s about the little person who gave me a reason to run it.

My little Bean.

When I found out I was pregnant, everything changed. There was suddenly this tiny little life that I loved more than I could possibly explain, and a future that I had already started imagining.

I remember seeing my baby on the screen and seeing that tiny little heart flickering away. It was one of those moments that feels almost impossible to put into words. There was my baby. There was a heartbeat. There was hope.

And then, there wasn’t.

One moment I was looking at that tiny flicker on a screen, and the next I was being told that there was no longer a heartbeat.

I don’t think there is really a way to prepare yourself for that kind of loss.

Pregnancy loss can be incredibly isolating. The world doesn’t stop when yours does. Everything around you continues moving, while you’re left trying to understand how something you had loved so deeply could suddenly be gone.

For me, one of the things that made an enormous difference was the care I received from the Early Pregnancy Unit.

They cared for me at some of the most frightening and heartbreaking moments of my life. They didn’t just treat what was happening physically; they gave me kindness, compassion and somewhere to turn when I felt completely lost.

I genuinely don’t think I would be in the stable place I am today without the care and support I received from them.

That is why this run means so much to me.

I’m running for my little bean.

I’m running for the babies who were loved deeply but didn’t get the chance to grow up.

I’m running for the parents who have had to leave hospitals without the future they thought they were going home to.

I’m running for the people who have experienced baby loss and perhaps felt like they had to grieve quietly while the rest of the world carried on around them.

And I’m running for the incredible people who care for families through those moments. The people in Early Pregnancy Units and baby loss services who sit beside people on some of the worst days of their lives and help them find their way through.

I can’t change what happened to bean. But I can carry bean with me.

And in September, I’m going to carry that little memory for 50 kilometres.

Every step will be for the little life that meant so much to me.

And hopefully, by raising money and awareness, I can help make sure that someone else going through this doesn’t feel quite so alone.

For my little bean, Always. 🤍