A woman who recently had a miscarriage says going through the experience during the COVID-19 pandemic was "horrific and traumatic".
Siobhan Curran had her fourth miscarriage in a row around a month and a half ago.
Like many others, she and her husband were impacted by the visitor restrictions in place in Irish hospitals due to the pandemic.
Siobhan spoke to Lunchtime Live about her recent experience.
She said: "It was horrific in itself because I suppose it being the fourth one... but it was the one we had during this pandemic.
"I was scanned every week for four or five weeks, and I kept coming out thinking 'I got through another week, we're going to be OK'.
"My husband and I really were trying to be very positive about this one - we'd gotten to almost ten weeks.
"I went into the early pregnancy unit, only to be told that there was no heartbeat.
"While in a way it wasn't unexpected, in one way it was very much a shock as well."
'I was alone'
Unlike her previous miscarriages, Siobhan says that this time she wasn't allowed have her "right-hand man" with her to hold her hand and cry with her.
She told Andrea: "I was alone. The feeling of isolation, fear and overwhelming distress... it's very hard to put into words.
"I went out into the corridor, because the next lady had to go in for her scan.
"I sat in the corridor sobbing uncontrollably for half an hour before I could even catch my breath.
"All-in-all, I was left in the corridor for two hours because I had to go and see the midwife about now having surgery to remove the fetus."
A few days after receiving the news, she returned to hospital - again on her own - and was admitted to a gynaecology ward.
She recalled: "I was the only one there who had suffered a miscarriage, and was waiting to go for a D&C [dilation and curettage].
"All I could do was turn over on my side, because the other ladies were generally in good enough form. I just felt I couldn't be part of that.
"I was distressed, distraught waiting for this... heartbroken."
'I wanted somebody there'
Siobhan says she was never offered a private room, and that her husband was never asked if he wanted to come in.
She said: "[I] wanted somebody, anybody there... somebody who knew me to put their hand on my shoulder and cry with me."
Several weeks on, Siobhan says she's now "up and down", and is also trying to source her own counselling.
She explained: "We've had four of these horrific losses... I think I'm probably at the end of my tether now.
"The pandemic situation and the experience has kind of pushed me over the edge - it was so horrific and traumatic for me that I just feel now in order to move on I need to get some sort of support.
"In the last week or two, I've started to tell my story and reach out to other women and heard their stories... it's helping."
She says she believes there are situations were maternity hospitals could find a compromise to make such experiences less traumatic from women - and called on hospital officials to sit down with impacted women to discuss the issue.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin has said he will talk to the Acting Chief Medical Officer Dr Ronan Glynn about women having to attend scans and appointments alone.
Master of the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin, Professor Fergal Malone, told Lunchtime Live earlier that having to introduce restrictions "does greatly distress us".
However, he said patient safety issues and trying to limit the spread of COVID-19 were particularly important in maternity hospitals as "there has been significant under-funding of capital infrastructure" for many years.
