Laura’s story
Laura shares her experience of miscarriage, and the importance of support and understanding.
Please know we are grateful for your worry, your sadness, your kind words, your hugs and your love.
You know that feeling when you are going to be late somewhere and you somehow convince yourself that, even though you have 10 minutes to make a 20 minute journey, it will still be okay and time will slow down for you and you will make it there on time even though you know FULL well there is no way at all you will be?
(Funnily enough shouting at the driver in front of you, who is actually driving a perfectly acceptable speed, will not make any change to the outcome and believe it or not ….. you are late!)
Weirdly, this is a very diluted description of how I felt when I knew I was having a miscarriage. Once I had the scan after a small bleed, I feel like I knew then that this wasn’t this baby’s time. In that moment, even though there was reason to still have hope, I just knew.
The same voice that tells me I can drive 20 minutes in 10 was, however, slightly more positive. I mean, well, she was right – it wasn’t bad news just yet, I just had to wait another week to see if the baby had grown and then I would know if everything was ok.
The following week was filled with dread, worry, anxiety, sadness, frustration, not to mention I was a hormonal mess! There was another emotion riding atop all of those other ones, which was hope. Well, I think I should say hope’s evil twin, false hope. The pretence that everything still might be okay ate away at us both. With every day came more bleeding, more reasons for us to believe we were losing our baby. Knowing there was nothing we could do to stop what was happening, nothing we could do to hold onto him/her and say “please don’t leave us, you will be so so loved here”. Unfortunately, no one was listening.
About half way through this week came the moment where it was difficult to deny what was happening, the gut wrenching moment I knew our baby had left me, had left us. The hug I received from my love was the most raw and loving moment I have ever experienced. More than any other hug I have ever needed. This touched my soul. He held me on the bathroom floor while I cried, and cried, and howled in utter pain and shock at what was happening. I have never felt so safe, loved and lucky. Yes, lucky in this horrible moment. But I was, I am, to have someone who would forgo their own pain and sorrow to comfort me. To have those same feelings as me and just worry about mine.
The next few days were a continued blur. Hoping for some kind of miracle that our baby had survived what had happened and that in a few days we would see him/her on a scan. Logic told us both this was far from what was going to happen. We tried to help each other come to terms with what we knew the outcome would be. Gone were the discussions of names, prams, bedroom colours and how much family this lucky little baby would have. Gone, was the image of watching my love hold our baby, of being woken up in the middle of the night to comfort our baby. The whole image we had made together was gone.
Finally the day was here after what felt like an eternity. We were as prepared as we could be to be told what we thought was most likely, that our little baby was no longer inside me. I felt foolish still having the tiniest bit of hope that maybe this was not the case.
But as we had imagined, after an agonising wait we were told I was no longer pregnant. We just held hands, no tears, no words, just that look of “we have got this” and the touch reminding each other there is love which will get us through this.
We made our way into a white box room with two sofas and a box of tissues. I thought of all the people who had been sat in here before us as I looked at the picture of a butterfly, perhaps a reminder that life must go on, you will break through this and learn to fly, to deal with the hurt and loss.
We took the advice and nodded that we understood what had happened and that it was not our fault. Satisfied that we were not going to breakdown in tears in this small room, the nurse sent us on our way with a pregnancy test to take in a week. Just in case this wasn’t enough, we had to have another reminder, another nail in the coffin that he/she was in fact gone. This was the case.
Thinking about how many people go through this, I was shocked that it is something that is not talked about. Shocked at the percentage of women who, with or without support, go through this life-changing thing. Everybody deals with the aftermath differently and deserves nothing but respect however they chose to do this.
Please don’t feel like you can’t ask us how we are.
Please don’t think that by choosing to tell you what has happened, that we want you to feel awkward.
Please don’t make us feel awkward and change the subject.
Please give us a hug if that is what you feel like doing.
Please just say sorry if you don’t know what else to say.
Please don’t feel guilty for bringing it up to see how we are both doing.
Please don’t say “you weren’t that far along anyway”. This was still our baby.
Please know we are grateful for your worry, your sadness, your kind words, your hugs and your love.
This is our life, this is what has happened and we choose to talk about it. We both hurt, not just me. We both lost our baby, not just me. We both need support, not just me.
Laura
13 November 2019