Megan’s story
Megan had a missed miscarriage, a healthy pregnancy and then another miscarriage. In her account here, she shares her complex feelings around her losses and hopes for the future.
If I'm lucky enough to see a positive sign through the plastic window, the worry starts again. How long? What if? The celebrated two lines, not glossy like the adverts. But a signal to belt up, prepare, steel yourself. It might not happen. Just one hurdle crossed.
Awake again at 3am. It’s been a few weeks but it feels so fresh and insurmountable in the early hours. A few tears and then the feeling that I should be over this. I should crack on. I am. But it’s still there. Not dealt with properly? Dwelled on too much? Who knows, but it’s still there.
The mornings are still hardest. There’s relief in the evenings, less expectation. The day coming to an end and the comfort that the need to keep going stops. If only for a few hours sleep. I haven’t cried as much this time, just stuck in a sludge of trying to keep going but not really wanting to. Sitting in the low evening light, no expectations like the day. Darkness on the way it feels ok to just sit, to not engage, to feel still. To not do.
The day’s not like that. It’s too much. Too much pretending everything’s ok, then feeling bad when it feels like it is. Too much trying not to think about it. After weeks of sitting with the loss, a new thought’s come now, what if one child is all I have? Then I’ll have been lucky, I know. But the sadness of that reality bites.
I know trying again has to start. But with it the waiting, the taking temperatures, the estimating windows, the testing strips. Behind it all the fear that even if that all aligns it’ll all be flushed away again. The first time this happened I burned with shock. Stunned. This time there’s weary, familiar sadness. It’s a path I’ve been on, so less surprising. But at times the sadness doubles, sad for now and reminded of the sadness from before. All the time part of me willing myself just to get on with it, make less fuss, deal with it. But there’s not much joy in that, is there? The thing that’s sold to you as a bubble of loveliness becomes just something that has to get done, and not get undone for nine months.
I’m bruised by that too. If I’m lucky enough to see a positive sign through the plastic window, the worry starts again. How long? What if? The celebrated two lines, not glossy like the adverts. But a signal to belt up, prepare, steel yourself. It might not happen. Just one hurdle crossed, 9 months worth ahead. All set out waiting to bash against my bones. Or maybe I’ll navigate them and get to the end. The unknown as exhausting as the race. Reduced to a process of endurance which must be survived.
There’s anger too. Why something sold as so easy seems at times so difficult. Why I can’t just enjoy my lot and get on. Focus on what I have – and I have plenty – and not on what I’ve lost. Can I even say I’ve lost? So many others who’ve suffered more. But mainly there’s weariness. The trudge. The heaviness. And guilt. The guilt of it happening again. The guilt of letting myself feel like this when I already have so much. Like this sadness is a luxury I shouldn’t really allow.
But now it’s nearly light, the threat of a fresh day crashing in. A face to be painted on, blessings to be counted, things to get done.