For the Nairn couple, who have been married for three years, have lived a rollercoaster of emotions, losing three babies through miscarriage.

And this week, Elaine and Dan - who are now expecting another child in July - have opened their hearts to speak about the tragedies that rocked their world.

"It's funny," said Elaine, watching Tilly toddling around. "We have been together for six years and we spent the best part of that avoiding getting pregnant. It never really entered our heads that when we did try to have a baby it would be so hard."

Dan, the operations manager at Inverness Airport, added: "We are both good people, have good jobs, considered ourselves successful and share the same values - we thought we could also be successful parents."

The couple, who live in Beech Avenue, explained they tried for a year to get pregnant and when they finally did in 2005, it was a dream come true.

"We were just over the moon," said Elaine. "The excitement was all consuming. It never in a million years occurred to us there would be complications. We were in a bubble and couldn't stop telling people, even people we didn't know."

Elaine, who works as a hairdresser, added: "I had even bought maternity clothes. I just wanted all those pregnancy feelings there and then."

However, at 11 weeks, Elaine started bleeding.

"I thought we were home and dry," she explained. "I knew my dates were right putting me at about 11 weeks - one week short of the so-called safe stage - but then the scan read the foetus was about five-and-a-half weeks.

"However, the hospital wanted to leave me for a week to see if the foetus developed. It was stupid because deep down we knew things weren't right but we were trying to convince ourselves that everything would be okay."

However, at another scan, a week later, Dan and Elaine's worst fears were confirmed and she miscarried.

Elaine said: "It was found the baby had no heartbeat. I felt cheated as it had stopped growing at five-and-a-half weeks and I had gone almost another five-and-a-half weeks not knowing there was something wrong. It was just devastating and awful. There was a feeling of nothing."

Elaine said that whilst she didn't know how she felt - one thing that hurt most of all was having to tell people.

"I was embarrassed. I didn't want people to know things had gone wrong," she said.

"We felt guilty we had told family and friends as we had got them so excited," added Dan. "It was like we had promised them this fantastic present and then whipped it away from them."

The couple gave themselves time to grieve and eventually Elaine fell pregnant again in 2006.

"We thought it wouldn't happen to us again," said Elaine. "Lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place. Again we told everyone because we truly believed it would not happen again."

However, it was not to be and at the same stage as the first miscarriage, they lost this baby too.

"This time it was horrendous and was definitely the most traumatic," explained Elaine. "However, because we were now on our second loss we were put in touch with Jeannete Crichton at the Early Pregnancy Clinic (EPC) at Raigmore Hospital. From here, everything went full speed ahead. We were put through a series of tests to try and find out why I was miscarrying.

"Jeanette was amazing. She is wonderful at her job and she really made us feel as though everything would be okay."

Dan added: "In one way you hope they find nothing in the tests as then there is the potential to go on and have a healthy pregnancy, but you almost hoped they would come up with a reason, so the problem could be fixed.

"As it turned out there was no reason found - we were just unlucky."

But the fall-out from this was that Elaine started to blame herself.

She explained: "I thought it was me and it was my body doing this. I even told Dan he should leave me and find someone who could give him a baby. I was beating myself down."

Dan and Elaine Mason with their daughter Tilly. Iona Spence

In 2007, Elaine fell pregnant for a third time. She added: "It had to be third time lucky. There was no way we would lose this baby. People kept telling us we deserved it. We were having a tough time of it as my sister Diane had died of cancer. People kept saying that it was a gift from her."

As soon as the couple had that positive pregnancy test, they were in touch with the EPC.

"It felt safer being involved with the clinic," explained Elaine. "We had back up, this time we were not on our own."

But again, the couple faced another blow. A scan at six weeks found the foetus had no heartbeat.

Elaine said: "This time we resigned ourselves to the fact that it was not meant to be. We told ourselves it was not going to happen for us and we needed to start living our lives again.

"It was not easy though - everywhere you went there were babies. I remember being in a supermarket and wishing I had blinkers on so I did not have to see all the baby items.

"The doctors kept telling us it could happen but we were both just feeling so crushed."

She added: "We even looked at other options such as fostering and adoption and I fleetingly even thought about surrogacy. It was such an emotional time.

"If I heard about children being abused or abandoned I would get really angry as it felt so unfair. We are good people and we deserved a child."

Bizarrely, after shifting their focus from baby-making to trying to get on with life, Elaine fell pregnant again and this time it resulted in Tilly.

"Dan maintains he knew I was pregnant before I did," laughs Elaine.

"I felt really overwhelmingly protective of her," explained Dan. "It's not really the sort of thing I believe in but that's how I felt. It was a bit of a caveman instinct I had to protect what was mine.

"I didn't say anything to her as I was scared it would jinx the whole thing. But when she told me, I admitted I already knew."

As soon as Elaine had done the test, they again contacted the EPC.

"Straight away we got a scan. I was six weeks pregnant and for the first time there was a heartbeat. That had never happened before. It was already a massive milestone for us," said Elaine.

"From then until I was 12 weeks pregnant, we got scanned every two weeks, that was really reassuring."

Despite their pregnancy progressing well, Elaine admits she never enjoyed one minute of the nine months.

"Even now I still cannot believe Tilly is here," she said. "It was such hard work for us to have her that if there was a twinge when I was pregnant with her I would think the worst. Even in labour I was worried that we would lose her."

However, at 16 weeks pregnant with their next baby, Elaine says things are much easier this time round: "I am still nervous but I am more confident now too. We did think that Tilly might have been a fluke."

And she advises anyone who is going through the same to allow themselves time to grieve.

"All the miscarriages were real to us. It wasn't a bunch of cells or even a foetus, it was a baby," she said. "You have to grieve, you are grieving the loss of what was an idea.

"In your head the minute you know you are pregnant you start thinking of names, who it might look like, what it might become one day. They were all part of us. Whilst medically they were a bunch of cells, to us they were our dream."

c.doughty@highland-news.co.uk

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