“There is a unique pain that comes from preparing a place in your heart for a baby that never comes” - David Platt
The moment you get those two lines on the test is a day you never forget and the day your life completely changes. You instantly picture your future life, you make plans around the baby that won’t be here for another 9 months, you sign up to everything you possibly can and receive updates on what’s happening that week inside you.
Your life changes completely changes within a day. Little did I know that 9 weeks later that would all come crumbling down and that I would become part of a statistic. I am now the 1 of 4 people that go through the heart break of losing a baby they never got to meet.
You hear all the time now about people miscarrying. If its not a celebrity on the news, its a post on social media. I knew the statistics, I knew it was 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage, but like everything else you always presume you won’t be that 1 in 4. I'm a semi healthy 26 year old- it wouldn’t be me. It was me.
The day I went for my first scan at 7 weeks, I was so unbelievably nervous, but me and my husband went in there trying to be positive. The sonographer started the scan and reassured us that everything looked okay. Everything was in the right place and we were simply a little earlier than 7 weeks. It was suggested we come back in another 2 weeks for a follow up scan just because of how small I was. We booked it for 2 weeks later on a Thursday.
It was on instagram that I first saw an advert for free scans for doctors learning how to do ultrasounds. I signed up after reading all the positive reviews of people that got to see they baby extra times free of cost. It just so happened that they had an appointment the Monday before my follow up scan. Having already had a scan the week and a half before, and having one booked for Thursday with my husband present, I agreed to go alone. I turned up, and I remember the lady teaching scanning me and saying “ohh you’re just a little bit to small to scan- its not a problem at all, its just because you’re small and baby is too”. It was from this moment I just knew this baby wasn’t going to make it.
I went to work Tuesday with a feeling in my stomach that my world was going to come crumbling down. They say mothers just have an instinct for things- that instinct started that Tuesday morning. I sat down for my lunch at work and that’s when I felt it. I didn’t need to go to the toilet to know I was bleeding. I got up and told work I had to leave and just came home and cried- all afternoon, and all night. I went to the doctors the following morning and the Doctor was very optimistic that I could be just one of these people that bleeds during pregnancy. I knew that wasn’t it.
She sent me for a scan and bloods straight away. As we sat in the ultrasound and looked up at the screen we both knew. We were looking at the same picture we had seen only 2 weeks before. It was bigger, but not as big as it should be. The sonographer just looked at us and said “don’t worry about paying for today, its the least I can do for you”.
My doctor called in the afternoon and explained that my hormones were still rising which was a really good sign, and the scan had progressed just not as much as they like. Our baby was growing, It was just really small. Due to the fact that my hormones were rising and the baby was growing the Obgyn was unable to say if I was indeed miscarrying or not. I was told I would have to wait another week to have another scan and find out.
It was the Monday after the previous Tuesday when I had first started bleeding. I went to the toilet for the 100th time that day. After 6 days off heavy bleeding it happened. No one had warned me that I might see it. No one had told me id have to flush it down the toilet. No one had explained the physically and mental torture I might go through between those 2 scans. But as I sat on the toilet I felt it pass. I looked down and there it was. My baby. In its sac. In my toilet. I don’t know how long I was on the toilet for, but I know I spent a long time flashing between blacking out and trying to flush it.
Eventually I made it out of the bathroom and onto the sofa where I passed out. I remember my husband coming through and finding me and I could hear the fear in his voice. I was so desperately trying to tell him I was okay, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t open my eyes, I could barely find the energy to breath. He had no choice but to call for help. It was in the hospital that the doctor told me my hormones had dropped by over 90% in less that 5 days and that the reason I blacked out was almost certainly from blood lose and shock.
As he left I remember him saying “every time I’m called down to emergency my heart sinks because it only ever means one thing- and every time its utterly crap. I’m so sorry”. He was right- it is crap, its absolute bullshit. But I've realised it’s okay to be angry. At 9 weeks I flushed our future down the toilet.
There’s no way of explaining the pain that comes from losing a baby, but I sent this to my husband a week after because I just didn’t know how to tell him how I felt and there’s only so many hours you can stare at the same blank wall not being able to talk. I’m now realising its okay to feel all these things, its okay to be upset, its okay to be angry, its okay to feel like you have the worse life ever at the moment. It will get easier.
“I have never felt so alone in my life, I see you sitting there but I can’t talk, I message people but no one understands. Any time I talk to people I feel like my pain isn’t justified. Our baby wasn’t real to the world, or to our friends and family, and I don’t know if it was real to you. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I’ve spent the past 6 weeks feeling like crap knowing that it was worth it because I’d get to hold our baby at the end of it all.
From the moment those two lines came up on that stick I was a mum. A mum to a baby we'll never get to meet. I spent hours imagining our future life together. I literally feel like its all been ripped away from us as quickly as the fire took everything from us but yet the pain is 100 times worse. I feel like its my fault and I failed at the one job I had. Every time I go to the toilet and see the clots coming out I know I’m literally flushing our baby down the toilet. I can’t do anything right. I feel bad that I can’t look after you when I know you’re in pain too. I’m scared that this will break us up and ill end up a bitter old lady like so many other women I know that the same thing happened too.
People keep saying at least I know I can fall pregnant now- yes I do know that- but I don’t know if I can maintain a pregnancy. I’m scared that if we try again it will all happen again. I know it will get easier, but I now understand why there are so many charities trying to raise awareness on early miscarriage. Its because it really fucking hurts, like a deeper pain than anything ever imaginable. I’m sorry I’m snappy, or just sit there in silence, but I just want you to understand I love you sooo bloody much and the last thing I want to do right now is push you away- but please understand this isn’t going to get better in just a couple of weeks.”
Why am I sharing this? Because if even one person going through the same thing reads it and is helped even a tiny bit, then its worth it. Stories helped me, and people need to know that this is what women go through. You are not alone.
- Rebecca
