Tag Archives: Catherine Yardley

What I Learned About Resilience After The Worst Year of My Life

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TW: baby loss.

We all have fears in life and if we are lucky enough we don’t experience them. Although I have experienced anxiety in my life I thought I was one of those lucky people. It was November 2019 and I lived my life in a cosy bubble. Bad things had happened in my life, and I had lost people I loved, but I felt happy and lucky.

Two months earlier my husband and I had decided to try for a third baby. I was thirty-five but I got pregnant immediately. I was over the moon and slightly smug. Geriatric pregnancy my arse. Later, I was exercising and I felt something weird happen in my body. Like a pop. I immediately stopped and put my hand to where the weird pain had happened. Then I brushed it away.  There was a weird uncomfortable pain in my entire body. It felt like a balloon was filling up. I couldn’t sit down properly. Then when I went to the bathroom there was blood. The blood was very dark and it freaked me out. I went to A&E. They didn’t even scan me and sent me home. Despite the fact I could barely walk and was in a lot of pain. I have a high pain threshold and I felt like they didn’t see that I was suffering enough.

The next day I went to the early pregnancy unit and they thought the pregnancy was an ecoptic pregnancy. I’m not going into detail about all of it in this piece because it is an entire article in it’s own. I started feeling the pain on Monday and it was Friday afternoon when I finally got my ’emergency’ surgery and one of the first things the surgeon said to me when I come to was that they caught it ‘just in time.’ My fallopian tube had ruptured and I was bleeding internally. I had been walking around bleeding internally for days while being told to ‘go home.’

There are snapshots of this time that haunt me: the registrar stroking her very pregnant belly while asking what I wanted to do with the remains of my baby, the fear when they sent me home that I would die in my sleep. Waking up and not being pregnant anymore. Notably the fact that they kept sending me home and eventually, days later, I refused to go home and made them scan me again. On the day of my surgery I almost passed out numerous times and the nurse kept bringing my back with oxygen, refusing to let me faint on her watch.

Mostly I remember the grief. There is no pain like losing a baby. I always thought people who killed themselves before that were selfish, now I know they are just in so much pain that they want to leave their bodies. I was completely and utterly broken. The only thing that brought me through were my other children. I figured if I could just put my feet onto the floor every morning and then get out of bed, I could survive. I only had to put one foot in front of the other.

In the blur of everything I took care of my children and tried to make sure they couldn’t see my pain. I didn’t want them to suffer, and I refused to let them see their mother depressed or spending days in bed. I knew that I had to structure my days. I had to get out of bed and smile at my children. Play with them, read them books. I took up Spanish and started doing yoga. It helped that we were moving house and I had to pack up and deal with all of that.

Just as the surgery scars started to heal a little I got ill. really ill. I had this continuous cough that wouldn’t go away. I spent boxing day with my mother-in-law and my husband’s aunt, uncle and their children. I had to find an emergency doctor’s appointment and fainted at the pharmacy getting antibiotics. I somehow managed to walk home although I have no idea how.

A few days later I was going to take my children to bed when I felt a sharp pain in my chest. It took my breathe away and then I couldn’t breathe. I was on the floor crying, barely able to breathe, begging my husband to help me. He called an ambulance and long story short I had double pneumonia, just as rumours of a SARS like illness started in China. I was unable to eat anything or lie down flat. I spent the next six months recovering as the world went into lockdown.

It was now July and my world started to come together again just as I noticed my period was late. I took a test and I was pregnant again. The happiness I felt was like nothing else.  But then weeks later I started bleeding. I made my way to the hospital, desperate to hold onto this baby, only to lose another one.  A few of my amazing friends told me they were pregnant and I didn’t want to tell them about my miscarriage because I didn’t want to scare them, or take away their joy. I would see pregnant women on the street and feel a bitterness that made me not recognise myself. I was full of hate and pain. I found women who were pregnant with their third child, or who had one, especially triggering. The pain of a miscarriage is hard to describe. It wasn’t as tough as the ectopic pregnancy, but the emotional pain of waiting for your baby to pass through you is sharp and brutal. The loss is acute.

I got up, homeschooled my oldest until 2pm and then focused on my toddler for a few hours. Then I forced myself to write three thousand words a day. I started another novel which I finished in six weeks.Then one day I walked out into my garden and the world seemed so beautiful. I sat down to take it in and I saw dew on the blades of grass. I thought about how cruel it was that my baby never got to experience a moment of this world, and yet I knew the world was still beautiful and that life went on. Even if the pain never really goes away.

I started to hate who I was becoming so I stopped. I decided that I didn’t want anyone else to feel this pain that I was feeling. I wanted to put positivity and love out into the world. To spread nothing but kindness. In this I finally found myself again. There is nothing uglier than bitterness or hate and my refusal to let it consume me was a turning point. I donated to charity and did everything I could to spread community and love. I kept writing and I started submitting my novel to agents and publishers. I went after every dream I had and I worked hard.

It has been two years now since my grief threatened to swallow me whole and I look back at that time and it still hurts, but I’m proud of myself. My Spanish is still mediocre and my yoga is not great, but I got a book deal and my novel Ember published in March 2022 to great acclaim. Ember has a character in it who had a miscarriage in the past and the lead character is also an obstetrician. I almost abandoned the book after my ectopic as I found editing it so painful, I put all of my pain into it. It was like therapy. I persevered and I’m proud I did. More importantly, in June 2021 I had my gorgeous and beautiful rainbow baby who I am grateful for every day. A little boy who is sunshine personified.

I didn’t let my pain break me or change who I was. The worse things got the harder I reached for the best. The negativity made me search for the positive. Faith and love helped me reach the other side and I know that life is always beautiful and precious. I promised myself I would always live my life to the full and never take it for granted. I won’t break it.

Catherine Yardley My Writing Process.

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As a little girl my nose was always in a book. I would even read a book a day when I was ill. I loved Enid Blyton and Judy Blume. I started writing song lyrics because I was in a band when I was younger and then I changed the song lyrics to poems. I sent them off and one of them ended up in an anthology when I was eleven. It was the start of something for me. I also had a very good English teacher who really encouraged me and told me I could be a writer. All a young person needs is for someone to believe in them.

I have been writing since I was in single figures but I let it slide for a few years to go off and work in the film industry. I started again when I had children and I am so glad I did. I got taken on by one of the first agents I contacted and then I got a traditional publishing deal too. All from the first batch of submissions I sent off. I got offered two different publishing contacts for Ember and I decided to go with Pegasus. They have been amazing. I cannot recommend them enough.

What you have written, past and present.

I have written non-fiction in the past, as well as a lot of articles and such. I have been a travel writer, a restaurant critic and a theatre critic. Ember is my debut novel.

Ember, Catherine Yardley, author.

What you are promoting now. 

Ember is a story about a family who’s father left them on Christmas day when they were kids. Thirty years later the younger sister is getting married and that brings their father back into their lives. The story revolves around Dr Natalie Holmes and her boyfriend Rob in the present day, and her parents Tim and Jacqueline in the past.

Natalie goes off the rails when her younger sister gets married and pregnant before her, and her father comes back into their lives. She dumps her boyfriend on the side of the road and drives off in his car. The book is about love and family. A part of the book is about whether or not we should allow family in our lives if they have been left wanting. Can a family that has been torn apart ever heal their wounds? Will Rob and Natalie get back together? Read it and find out!

Here is the blurb:

A family torn apart by their father’s infidelity are forced to confront the past thirty years later. As Natalie’s younger sister, Amanda, prepares for marriage and impending motherhood, her plea for the family to reunite uncovers pent-up tension and animosity. Can they forget the past and become a family again?

Natalie’s life begins to unravel as their father starts to creep back into their lives and family tensions resurface, affecting her relationship with her boyfriend, Rob. Will the couple find their way back to each other, and can a family that has been torn apart ever heal their wounds?

Can you ever walk away from someone you love, or do some fires never die out?

A bit about your process of writing. 

This was my first novel which I wrote simultaneously with another novel. I would wheel my son around in his pram until he fell asleep and then I would write 2000 words on my iPhone. I always try to write the first draft as quick as possible. I like to keep up the momentum and the same energy. I do 2000-3000 words a day. Editing is always tough but I am as relentless as the editing. Ha.

I have three kids so I have to write whenever I can and focus on it. Having kids has trained me to be ruthlessly efficient when I need to.

Do you plan or just write?

I just write. Total panster. You need an idea and a handle on the character. Then just let yourself fly.

What about word count?

I do 2000-3000 words a day.

How do you do your structure?

My agent, Susan, says I have a great sense of structure and it is one of the nicest things anyone has said about me. I think it is because I read so much. I am with Stephen King. To be a good writer you need to both write and read a lot. Reading teaches you to be an excellent writer.

What do you find hard about writing?

Finding the time.

What do you love about writing? 

Everything.

Advice for other writers. 

Get on with it. Don’t give up. Write and then rewrite. Submit endlessly. Don’t let the rejection get you down. You have to be able to take rejection if you want to be a professional writer. Just take the feedback on board, edit and then send away somewhere else. You can do it!

Ember is out on the 31st March and is available from WH Smith, Waterstones, Amazon and The Book Depository.

The Books That Changed Me by Catherine Yardley

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Is there anything more powerful than a book? I don’t think so. Life-changing, knowledge-giving, and entertainment. Though sometimes not all at once. They have the power to change the world and make us feel every emotion under the sun. With that in mind, here are the books that changed me and made me the women I am today.

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

This book follows Raskolnikov, an poor student wrought out by his own nihilism, and thoughts of the struggle between good and evil. He brutally murders an old woman who is a pawnbroker as he beliefs he is above the law. He justifies his actions, but later is overwhelmed with guilt and terror. Raskolnikov confesses to the crime and goes to prison. He realises that happiness and redemption is only achieved through suffering.

This is an intense psychological thriller from the most famous Russian novelist. Dostoyevsky was in a bad way when he wrote it, his wife and brother had both died and he was living in poverty. Crime and Punishment will awaken your brain and make you rethink your opinions on crime and punishment. This is the perfect book on redemption and how our actions in life matter. The very last page has some of my favourite lines in literature, including the fact that a new life is not given for nothing. I will not spoiler you by sharing anymore but it is a hard, yet fascinating read. It opens your brain right up and makes you more intelligent by the end. Do not just read books that are easy to read, that is not how you end up smarter.

Life if Pi by Yann Martel .

A ship sinks and a boy ends up on a raft with a tiger he calls Richard Parker. This is a book about survival and wisdom. It is outrageous with its plot but is never not believable. This spiritual novel changed my entire way of thinking. This book will feed your imagination like nothing on earth. It is so cleverly done I will be forever be jealous that I will never be as good a writer as Yann Martel . It was made into a film that is a good enough watch, but the book is untouchable. This book left me with a spiritualness that has stayed with me until this day. Read it with a highlighter pen and go back to it often.

Catherine Balavage with Margaret Graham at the Words For The Wounded Literary Festival

Catherine Yardley with Margaret Graham at the Words For The Wounded Literary Festival

Becoming by Michelle Obama.

Before reading this searingly honest memoir from the former First Lady of the United States I felt like a failure as I had never become who I was supposed to be. I was forever changing and no one ever told me that was a good, and normal, thing. There are so many stunning quotes in this book and it is filled with wisdom. Michelle Obama leaves no part of her life untold: she discusses miscarriages, IVF, politics, race and her marriage. Michelle is from a working class background and her father was disabled. She has triumphed through hard work and intelligence. I cannot think of anyone I find more inspirational than Michelle Obama. Well, other than the next novelist….

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou.

Maya Angelou. What a woman. What a life. What a writer. I am full of admiration and awe. I am obsessed with Maya Angelou. I read I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings when I was about thirteen. I already wanted to be a writer and I was already writing. I knew I was nowhere near as good a writer as Maya Angelou, I doubt I ever will be. What  I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings did for me was crack me open like a nut. I learned a lot about racism and I became even more political, I also learned a lot about life and wisdom. I learnt that everyone has a hard life and we should be kinder to each other. It is more than a good book, it is a book that teaches you that strength of character, and a love of reading, can overcome trauma and create a beautiful life.

The Wives By Lauren Weisberger.

This book makes me appear much more fun than my other selections, I am aware. Lol. I think Lauren Weisberger is underrated. She has such a keen eye for detail and the satire of everyday life. Yes, there is The Devil Wears Prada which was a runaway (ahem) success. Lauren holds a mirror up to sections of society and captures them with absolute perfection. Her characters are honest, flawed and real. She makes me laugh and nod, and cry all at once. The Wives is a sassy and entertaining sequel to The Devil Wears Prada. It features Emily, you know, the one who looked great in her dress because anytime she was about to faint she ‘ate a tiny bit of cheese.’ Her books are a joy to read because she makes writing them look easy. There are anything but and Lauren Weisberger is a fearless writer.

The Writer’s and Artist’s Yearbook.

Now, this book really did change my life. I have written my entire life. I wrote poems when I was in single figures and I tried to write my first novel when I was ten. It was terrible and I only got to fourteen pages. They were all written longhand. I decided to send some of my poems off but, how and where? Enter this book. It had so much advice and numerous agents and publishers to send my stuff too. I still use it to this day. The 2021 version has pride of place on my desk. This is an essential and life-changing book for all writers.

Guests of The Emperor By Janice Young-Brooks.

My parents have always had a house full of books. We had so many bookcases and books our home was more like a library. One of the books on my parents shelf was Guests of The Emperor By Janice Young-Brooks. It is a World War II novel about a group of women who are ‘guests’ in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. The characters were so vivid and the story so well told it has always stayed with me. It is a good history lesson too.

What books changed you? Send us your selection to frostmagaziine@gmail.com.

My debut novel, Ember, is available here and here.