I'd never heard of a missed miscarriage then I had three but I won't give up

I'd never heard of a missed miscarriage then I had three but I won't give up Kelly has a rare condition which affects her ability to have children A couple who have had three missed miscarriages and lost their daughter one hour after delivery are “not ready to give up on (their) dream of becoming parents”, as they fundraise for IVF with genetic testing. Kelly Morshead and Pete Chaplin, who live in Guildford, Surrey, have been trying for a baby since 2022, but they have had three missed miscarriages – and Kelly had a missed miscarriage with a former partner. They fell pregnant again, describing this as a “miracle”, but complications meant Kelly had to be induced early, and she gave birth to their daughter Ava at 22 weeks in September 2025, and she weighed 500g. Ava died about one hour after birth, but Kelly, 37, and Pete, 35, were able to hold her, have professional pictures taken and make imprints of her “tiny” yet “perfectly-formed” hands and feet. Kelly was told she has a very rare chromosomal condition, which affects her ability to have children, but the couple still have hope. With Kelly and Pete’s NHS-funded IVF options running out, they are now fundraising for further IVF rounds with genetic testing abroad as they said they cannot afford the costs to pay privately in the UK. Kelly, who works in customer services for Hyrox, told PA Real Life: “It would mean the absolute world (to become parents). You ask any parent about their child, we would give anything to have that – to be able to be kept up all night, to be able to deal with a child when they are unwell and to be that safe place for a kid. “If we were able to just get this chance, get another chance, it would just mean the world to us because we haven’t run out of hope yet, we haven’t run out of faith yet that it could still happen for us.” Kelly said she had her first missed miscarriage in 2019 at 11 weeks after two and a half years of trying with her then partner. A missed miscarriage happens when a baby dies in the womb, but there are no symptoms of miscarriage, such as bleeding or pain, according to the pregnancy and baby charity Tommy’s. Kelly said: “I had no idea (a missed miscarriage) existed. It was such a shock that you could go in to the scan, and there had been a heartbeat at a previous scan, and then there wasn’t, but nothing had happened with your body. “There was no bleeding, no cramping, no nothing, just the heartbeat stops. Your body is still acting like it’s completely pregnant.” Kelly and her ex-partner separated shortly afterwards and, during the Covid-19 pandemic, she met Pete, an electrician, online. She said they had some “brutally honest conversations” about whether they wanted children, as Kelly was “scared” after the previous loss. However, they both decided they wanted a family and, after about six months, Kelly conceived naturally in April 2023 and paid for a private early scan between seven and eight weeks. At this scan, doctors told Kelly the baby’s heartbeat was slow and, after a referral to another hospital, she was told the baby was “unlikely to progress”. About a week later, in the summer of 2023, she had another scan and it was revealed the heartbeat had stopped at 10 weeks. " I don’t like being right about these things,” she said. “You want to be wrong, you want all your fears to be proven wrong, but it was very difficult.” About nine months later in 2024, Kelly fell pregnant again, but this time she was referred straight to the early pregnancy unit at the Royal Surrey County Hospital in Guildford. The Royal Surrey has a team of bereavement midwives, called The Alice Team, who provide families with emotional, practical and clinical support. Kelly said she had a scan at seven weeks which showed a heartbeat, but the following week the heartbeat had stopped – and she said this was “traumatic”. “It shook us both, but I think it really shook Pete because that was his second loss,” Kelly said. " People would say things like, ‘Oh, your time will come’, or, ‘At least you know you can get pregnant’. For me, the goal is never to get pregnant, the goal is to bring a baby home.” Since this was Kelly’s third consecutive miscarriage, she said she was eligible for further testing, including genetic testing called karyotyping, which looks at chromosomes and checks for abnormalities. When the couple received their results at the end of 2024, Kelly was pregnant again – and while Pete’s results came back as normal, Kelly was given the news that she has a very rare chromosomal condition. She explained that she has two cell lines, making her “genetically mosaic”, and each cell line has a different chromosome translocation, which is a type of chromosomal abnormality. She said experts estimate she might be a one-in-100,000 case and, given the rarity, she is described as “case report rare” – meaning there is very little data. Then, at 10 weeks, she had another missed miscarriage. “At this point, I was almost numb and, because of the genetic news, I almost expected it,” she said. “My default was to go inside my hard shell and just curl up and wait for the bombs to hit. It was literally just, it’s going to go wrong because how will it go right?” Kelly said she fell pregnant three months after this and she and Pete “weren’t expecting it”. She experienced some “cramping and spotting” after 16 weeks, which was monitored, and then a check-up at 22 weeks revealed Kelly’s cervix had started dilating. The following morning she said she had a cervical stitch put in to prevent further dilation, but the next day she was told she had an infection, despite having no “external signs”. She was told her blood markers were “borderline septic” and she needed to be induced that evening, and she gave birth to their daughter Ava at 22 weeks the following day, in September 2025. “At that gestation, they really are just a perfect tiny human,” she said. “They have fingernails, they have toenails, they have eyelashes, everything is just perfect but tiny compared to a full-sized baby. You still have this overwhelming feeling of love, and she was given to us to hold, and she lived for just over an hour.” Kelly said the Royal Surrey and its staff were “amazing” and the hospital has a specialist Forget-Me-Not suite, where parents can stay with their babies and spend time together. The couple were given the opportunity to have professional photos taken and make imprints of her hands and feet. Kelly said: “She doesn’t have a middle name, it’s just Ava Chaplin, and it’s bittersweet because we’ll never get to shout that up the stairs, or put her name on a jacket or a pencil case.” Because of Kelly’s genetics, she said she is eligible for three rounds of IVF on the NHS – yet two rounds found “zero genetically normal embryos” and it is “not looking likely” the other round will be successful. They are now fundraising via GoFundMe to have further IVF rounds with genetic testing abroad, and Kelly is also selling pin badges, tote bags and bookmarks that she has designed. A description on the couple’s fundraising page reads: “We’re not ready to give up on our dream of becoming parents… We are still fighting, but the financial cost is impossible for us to carry alone.” Kelly feels that there is still a lack of understanding, compassion and education around pregnancy and IVF, and she said it has been “isolating” at times, particularly when other loved ones are having babies. She said it would “mean the absolute world” to raise the funds and have more chances to become parents. “I know that we’d be good parents, we are desperate,” she said. “We have so much love to give, and Pete would be the best dad in the world. Every kid would deserve a dad like him. We would just love that chance.” Karen Plews, professional director of midwifery and paediatrics at Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust, said: “We know that the journey to becoming a parent isn’t always straightforward and that losing a baby at any stage of pregnancy is heart-breaking. “We work incredibly hard to provide compassionate and personalised care for our families suffering bereavement, providing counselling and support and giving them the opportunity to remember their babies and to acknowledge the precious time that they spent together.” To find out more or to donate, visit Kelly and Pete’s fundraising page at www.gofundme.com/f/our-ivf-hope-needs-a-hand. Or to find out more about Kelly’s pin badges, tote bags and bookmarks, visit: rare-things-collection.sumupstore.com.