THERE are obviously pitfalls when you write a column about your own life, particularly when things go wrong.

But it’s often those columns which detail the nightmarish episodes which end up having the most impact, making you glad you did decide to let it all out on the page.

Last week’s column, which touched on the recent death of our second baby due to my Hughes Syndrome, was one such piece.

It’s a peril of the job / vocation that when something happens to you, you want to write about it, and I have always done this throughout my life. As a young woman, I was dedicated to keeping my journals, into which I poured my heart on a regular basis.

When I made the decision to write last week’s column, I knew it would surprise some friends, who did wonder at my having put everything into print in the week that it happened.

In addition, because of the nature of social media these days, I took ownership of the work on my Facebook page, linking it to my parents and my husband on the site, and thus sharing it with hundreds of people.

Elements of what happened next made me once again believe in the positive power of communication in its modern context.

One of my father’s friends read the column in Libya, and then sent a round robin email to the members of the organization through which he knows dad.

As a result, three of dad’s friends actually called at our home to see him, and many more emailed or telephoned to express their condolences.

The death of this baby, whose middle name is my father’s, has broken my dad’s heart – it has been so, so hard to hear him cry – but these visits and calls have really helped him to grieve.

In addition, I was contacted by a representative of the Hughes Syndrome Foundation, who wanted to include the column on the organisation’s Facebook page.

She later got in touch to tell me that it had reached ten thousand people. Below the posting, lots of women from all over the world expressed their sympathy and felt able to share their own harrowing stories of their own struggles with the condition.

The internet has certainly enabled easy contact between people who have been affected by medical conditions. One of the first things we did when I was diagnosed was go online to read a bit more about Hughes and to discover what other people had been through.

As William Nicholson wisely observed, we read to know we’re not alone.

I have also been greatly helped by the countless messages of support I have received from friends, many of whom I have not seen in decades.

Some of them have felt able to share what they’ve been going through – there’s still a terrible silence around the darker aspects of conception, pregnancy and childbirth.

In this instance, I’m certainly more grateful for the internet and the smaller world it has made available to us at this sad time.