“I’m sorry there is no heartbeat.” Hearing these words said to me was beyond heart-breaking. Sadly, I’ve heard this said to me twice.
To fall pregnant naturally in my forties when I suffer from Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome and knowing that I had fertility intervention to conceive my 2 older children, made both pregnancies feel like a miracle. My husband and I don’t have kids together, however we both have kids from our previous marriage so we were quite excited to have a baby together even if we hadn’t planned for it…but sadly it just wasn’t meant to be.
I had a miscarriage and ended up in the hospital both times at 11 weeks. December 30, 2020 and November 23, 2018 are two dates I will never forget. While I feel blessed and grateful to have 2 daughters and 2 stepdaughters, I still feel a sense of loss for the two babies I lost and never got to cuddle.
My body went through a massive beating, physically and emotionally. I felt defective, incompetent and a failure. The grief that I felt was beyond anything I’ve ever experienced. I am quite resilient, but this broke me. I kept telling myself, you are stronger than you think, there’s nothing that you can’t handle, just keep it together because no one really knows you were pregnant and had a miscarriage.
When a woman falls pregnant, it’s standard practice to wait until after 12 weeks before you make the big announcement. I guess this way, if things don’t work out, then no one has to know. But why do we do this? In doing so, we end up suffering in silence.
So, I broke my silence, and I started telling my family and close friends what happened. The more I shared how I felt with the people who cared about me, the better I felt. And then I realized that some of my friends also went through the same experience but hadn’t really talked about it. The sad reality is that 1 in 3 women in Australia lose their baby to pregnancy loss, and yet not many women talk about it. That’s why I am sharing my story.
I want other women to know that they are not alone, and that they can and should talk about it and that it’s OK to be an emotional wreck and NO you don’t have to keep it together!
The emotional pain doesn’t end after you have the operation, and there isn’t a switch to turn it off either. You just have to go through the grieving process at your own pace and know that you are loved and supported by so many people around you but unless you tell them, then they don’t know what you are going through.
There is no need to suffer in silence.
- Nadine