Claire woke in a pool of blood with strangers standing over her. They said it 'happens all the time' when women miscarry

Claire Tonti came-to in a pool of her own blood. Above her, paramedics were chatting.

"This happens all the time," one said as the carpet on Tonti's bedroom floor slowly turned red. She was 31, it was the middle of the night and she'd just miscarried. 

"There was just no stemming the tide of blood," Tonti tells 9honey Parenting.

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Bundled into an ambulance bound for the local hospital, she listened as nurses debated the footy scores while preparing her for a dilatation and curettage (D&C) procedure to remove whatever remained of the triplets she'd been carrying.

Tonti was back home in a matter of hours.

Every year, about 110,000 Australians experience miscarriage but Tonti never thought it would happen to her until – with a splash of blood in her underwear and the agonising words "there's no heartbeat" – it did.

It was 2017 and she was 10 weeks into her pregnancy with triplets after a relatively easy pregnancy two years prior, and she had no idea what was about to happen.

"'It may be like a bad period', is what they said," she tells 9honey, "so I went home thinking, OK, it'll be like a bad period."

Tonti's miscarriage was nothing like a bad period.

"I started experiencing pain that was like the early onset of labour," she says.

It gradually escalated into violent "full-blown labour" that caused Tonti to lose so much blood she passed out in her bedroom. She woke to the paramedics standing over her.

Like so many Australians who experience miscarriage, information, follow-up care and mental health support for Tonti in the wake of her miscarriage was scarce.

When she called her obstetrician, who was otherwise "amazing", Tonti was told: "Your womb is sticky now, so it's probably best if you try [to fall pregnant] again immediately."

Those words haunted her.

"It felt like [I was being told] you're not supposed to grieve this. It's supposed to be a thing that happens, and you move on," Tonti says.

"I just sort of shut down. I had to parent, I had a two-year-old and a business to run, so I threw myself back into parenting and work, which I think a lot of women do."

With no support and social stigma weighing her down, Tonti didn't heal for years.

The one bright spark was the support and sisterhood from other women who started opening up about their own miscarriages or pregnancy losses, making her feel seen in a way no one else had.

It wasn't until Tonti welcomed her daughter in 2020 that she finally felt ready to reflect on her miscarriage and start to heal through music.

"I got really sick. My body stopped me in my tracks and said, 'you cannot continue,'" she confesses.

"That's what happens when we shove things down and don't address the trauma, don't address the grief … eventually you can't get out of bed."

Have you got a story? Contact reporter Maddison Leach at mleach@nine.com.au

Tonti started writing songs to process her trauma, both from the miscarriage and her son's birth in 2015, which had been a harrowing ordeal.

While labouring at hospital, Tonti felt bullied and dismissed.

A midwife treated her "aggressively" and told her to "shut up and get back on the bed" when Tonti tried to sing through the pain of her contractions.

After 16 hours in labour, a male obstetrician who Tonti described as "dismissive" performed an episiotomy and used forceps and suction to deliver her son. 

She ended up with a third-degree tear and was raced into the operating room. Tonti didn't see her son for several hours after he was born.

"My story is not even anywhere near the worst story that I've heard," she admits, but the experience left her deeply traumatised.

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Despite her physically and mental wounds, Tonti received limited support afterwards. While medical staff were very attentive to her baby's needs, she felt ignored.

"No one heard me. No one listened to my needs. I was ignored. I was told I was being hysterical," Tonti says. No one acknowledged her trauma.

It wasn't until 2020, when she made music about what she'd been through, that other women told her it sounded like birth trauma.

She took the time to process that, then in 2024 she unpacked her miscarriage with her new song The Beast, which releases today to coincide with World Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day (October 15).

With lyrics like "happens all the time they said / stay home til you've bled" and "blood and tears and fears and blame / and no one talks about the shame", the song helped Tonti finally heal.

"Once you are allowed to feel all of it, eventually, that's where the healing comes in," she says. "It's my story, but it's the collective story too."

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Tonti wants to break down the culture of shame and silence around miscarriage and pregnancy loss, as well as stillbirth, infant loss and birth trauma, but that alone isn't enough.

Parents also need better care when they experience these tragedies, from education, to mental health and other support services, and more support across the board for mothers who have just given birth, regardless of the circumstances.

The Albanese Government recently announced a $9.5 million funding package to help meet the physical and emotional needs of women who have experienced miscarriage, a promising step in the right direction.

But with 110,000 Australians experiencing miscarriage, 2,200 experiencing stillbirth, and 600 losing their baby in the first 28 days after birth every year, a whole lot more still needs to be done.

The Red Nose Grief and Loss Support Line is available 24/7 for anyone affected by the loss of a pregnancy, stillbirth or death of a baby or child on 1300 308 307.

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