When you ask how the baby is and I tell you it was stillborn, you say you're so sorry, you don't know what to say. I wish you'd say: did you have a son or a daughter? What was his name? I bet he was beautiful. But I understand you being lost for words. Until six months ago, I would have thought stillbirth something so horrifying and archaic that it was impossible for a healthy, sensible woman in the 21st century. But since then I've joined an invisible club that gains, on average, 17 new members a day in the UK – the highest stillbirth rate for any country in Europe; a fact that remains astonishingly absent from the headlines.

People ask if I feel let down. I do, but not by the extraordinary doctors and midwives who did their very best for us, finding a room where my partner and I could hold our baby for 12 precious hours. Instead, I feel anger at my own body; humiliated by the dental nurse who refuses to recognise I am postnatal and entitled to free care; let down by the lack of funding for research into stillbirth that has left rates unaltered for years.

I feel sadness, even despair at times, but my son has given me unexpected gifts. I am no longer afraid of giving birth, or of death; he has created an unbreakable bond for my partner and me, and he has shown us the all-consuming love a parent feels for a child. How could we fail to be proud of such achievements?

Kind people say I'll be a mother one day. They don't realise I already am.

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