Miscarriage

One Woman’s Experience

Trigger warning: Miscarriage described in detail.

The first time I lost a pregnancy, I was so unprepared I left my body. My soul rose up, looking down on the scene, and me, separating from the experience so it did not have to be real. A part of me has been there, in that small, airless, grey room ever since.

Missed miscarriage. Blighted ovum. Empty sack. Though it had been 12 weeks since conception, the baby itself had never made it past 6.

I had never known anyone who had had a miscarriage. I’m sure the word was not totally foreign to me but it was not something I had even considered. My family is a bunch of procreators. I am one of eight. My sisters all easily fell pregnant. 6 nieces and nephews in, no baby failure. Now, I had failed. I later learned that my mother did have miscarriages. It wasn’t something she thought to talk about. I understand that. No one wants to hear about miscarriage when they are full of the excitement and fragility of a new pregnancy. I have no problem talking about miscarriage now, but others prefer not to, feeling sad or ashamed or simply wanting it to remain private. Either way, it’s not something that comes up in conversation, or into your consciousness, until it’s actually happening to you. That day in the ultrasound room I two realisations.

1. My body was against me
2. Having a baby was not in my control

For something that I now know is so common, it changed everything. It was the beginning of a long and arduous trail of sorrows, though not without moments of joy. Definitely lots of suffering, definitely lots of growth. My husband and I look back on that day as the day we lost our innocence.

Another four weeks of waiting and I still had not bled. The nurse did not want me to wait any longer and pushed the idea of a D&C (the lining of the womb is surgically removed). Instead, I booked an acupuncture appointment and within 24 hours, it began. Sad, painful, surprisingly lumpy. But I was at home, young (ish), with no reason to lose hope. Many, many women went through this. I was just one more.

The second miscarriage happened while I was on tour in Canada. The morning sickness had been hard going but 11 weeks in, I was starting to feel better. I could stomach vegetables again and I saw this as a good sign. Looking back I realise this was due to dropping hormone levels as the pregnancy ended and my body prepared to release it.

The cramping started when I was on stage. I had to smile and play my way through the 90 minutes and by the last number, I knew something was wrong. I ran to the bathroom rather than take my bow. Blood. Bright. Damning.

This time I was angry. Not again! I kicked the door and screamed and raged. No fair. But at least I knew what it was and what to do. Dejected, I asked for a ride back to the hotel and I settled in for a long night.

The bleeding was more intense this time round and I kept waking to find yet another towel soaked in red. By 4am, I was so faint I fell to the bathroom floor and couldn’t get up. My sister was also on the tour and had stayed with me. ‘I think I need to go to the hospital’ I told her.

A&E as a foreigner is no fun. collapsed on a waiting room floor, the receptionist did not budge. I would not be seen until the paperwork was signed and a credit card given. Over the next 24 hours I was moved from corridor, to ward, to a different ward as they tried to decide what to do with me in this overcrowded and indifferent inner-city hospital. No beds and no doctors til you were dying. Eventually my blood count dropped significantly enough that they had to take action and a sweet faced doctor finally appeared. By this point I was in a dream like state, swollen with fluids and too far gone to even think of the baby. I would need a blood transfusion and an emergency D&C right now. Did I consent? ‘Sure, whatever you say’. I was raised to mistrust the medical establishment and despite the haze, I was afraid of their tools inside my body. I reached out my hand to the surgeon before they put me under and I said ‘Please be careful’.

I awoke on an abandoned ward, some time later, feeling great. Morphine is fabulous. A nice nurse brought me an extremely welcome cup of tea and biscuits and within 15 minutes I was eager to get out of there. After that, I decided unconsciously that nothing much had happened. The next show was in New York and so we drove there and I got right back on stage the very next day to 20,000 people at Madison Square Gardens. I can’t believe it now, but that’s how it went. I was offered time off, but I didn’t want it. I didn’t want to accept it or to let it slow me down. I didn’t grieve. I don’t know why.

Two miscarriages is still ‘normal’. It isn’t until you have three that anyone will investigate. Later, when I took matters into my own hands and learned a more holistic view of health and pregnancy, I realised how important safety and serenity is to a pregnant woman. Anxiety is not helpful. When I was pregnant with Indy, my third try, we were full of it. Scans every week to reassure us he was still here. Hearts juddering every time. Always expecting bad news. Every few weeks I would start bleeding and we would rush to the hospital so find that it was alright. Bleeding can also be normal. When we heard the heart beat at 12 weeks, we relaxed a little. Miscarriage happens before 12 weeks, we thought, not after. Now we are safe. The bleeding didn’t stop but we got used to it and we had longer periods of calm between hospital visits. My belly swelled, my breasts grew enormous, I felt very pregnant and the horrendous morning sickness accompanied me the entire time.

Things started to turn at our five month scan. There was a strange whitish area in his liver. Could be nothing, could be something. Hello anxiety. We were immediately shipped off to a specialist who prescribed me daily progesterone pessaries. Crisis averted.

We told our families we were expecting a boy. We celebrated. I ordered a crib, a special woollen mattress, a small set of blue drawers, a night blind with a pattern of stars. The morning sickness started to abate, finally, I could feel a little hope and happiness. I began to speak to the baby and sing him my favourite songs. It would actually happen for us this time.

Twenty-three weeks and four days in, I woke up to a soaked bed sheet. I quickly woke Sam and we flew to A&E. The pain was intense and the bleeding did not stop. They found me a room in the labour ward and I quickly filled up their cardboard bedpans. I was hysterical. They wanted to check if I was dilated, with their hands. I refused many times but I would not be seen by the doctor until they knew if I was actually in labour or not. And so they did it, through my fear and pain, only to tell me they could not gauge my cervix because of the intense bleeding. Go figure.

The next day or two is a bit of a blur. The more you lose blood, the more your mind leaves this world. They found me a private room. They told me my baby was still alive. They told me he was too little to be born, but that he might live if I was transferred to Oxford, a bigger and more equipped hospital. I couldn’t be transferred until I was stable. I was not. But, perhaps the midwives and I could convince the doctor to try it anyway. They prepared the ambulance. They injected me with steroids. One final scan, to check on my son.

The sonographer sat in silence and then went off to find a colleague. In my dazed state I did not know what this meant. Sam knew. He gripped my hand. Two women sat down behind the screen. More silence. He was gone.

I needed to give birth quickly so that the haemorrhaging would stop. I have to give birth? Yes, even a dead baby must be born. They induced me and gave me blood transfusions. They set me up with a self-administering morphine machine which gives you a pitiful dose I can tell you. I had no baby’s liver now to protect, it was not nearly enough. The pain was excruciating. Full body cramping and shaking. I know all women go through the tortures of childbirth but in my weakened state, and the knowledge there would be no payday, it felt cruel. They told me it would take at least an hour but within 30 minutes I was begging for the midwife. He was coming, now.

Teresa was her name, the midwife, and as he was born she said ‘beautiful, what a beautiful baby’. I will never forget that kindness. I could only think of the baby to come with horror. Un-living. Too small. It was a surprise to me that she would say something so loving. Beautiful? Is it possible? Sam cut the cord and looked on but I could not. I told them I did not want to see him and they took him away.

Some time later, Sam said ‘I’ve been to see him’. Again, I was surprised. You held him? You wanted to be with him? He told me that I might want to as well.

They brought him in with a little white cap on his head, swaddled in a matching white blanket, knitted especially for such angels they said. They put him in my arms. Yes, he was beautiful. He was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Tiny, with long limbs and two deep dimples in his cheeks. In that moment, I was able to love him as my child the way I imagine other mothers do to their new-born babies. It breaks my heart that in times before, mothers were not given this opportunity to connect. It was the most important moment of my life. I memorised his little face and then I gave him back, still ashamed to want more time with him, not thinking it was decent. The midwives doted on us and let us stay in our own room, listening to etherial music, existing in another plane, somewhere between life and death.

Leaving the hospital in a wheelchair, without our son, was one of the most difficult moments. No baby in my belly nor one in my arms. When we reached the front door of our home, I let out a howl, finally able to tell the world of my sorrow.

In some ways, this loss was easier to bear than the others. It was significant enough that I was cared for, I was sent flowers and cards and given space. I allowed myself more time (more, but not nearly enough) and for the first time in my life I felt able to set boundaries. No, I can’t come out tonight, my baby is dead. No-one expected anything of me and I found this an immense relief.

Too soon, however, I picked myself up and went back to my old life. At work, I felt like an alien. These people don’t know who I am now. I am a completely different person. That was the reason I decided to post a picture of me and my son – we named him Indy – on instagram. It felt too surreal to not let people know what I now was. Most kept their silence, not knowing what to say, but some reached out, moved and in solidarity with me. I was received with love. Most of the shame I felt came from within. I hesitated to show photos of Indy in colour, fearing that they would make people feel queasy because of the redness of his skin. I hated the word miscarriage (the technical term until 24 weeks), preferring still-born, so others would know he was a ‘real’ baby. I felt that the loss was my own fault. I hadn’t eaten the right foods. I had worked too much. I had resented my precious pregnancy when the morning sickness moored me to my bed. I really was a mother, despite my failings, wasn’t I?

We took time before we dared try again. We had all the tests due us now that we were part of the 1% of people who have had three or more miscarriages. We talked to doctors who were outraged at the lack of care we had received thus far. These same doctors performed a myriad of tests then stopped calling when they could not find a reason. They drew my blood til I fainted and inserted more plastic tools into my most private places. We saw multiple private specialists who proclaimed it the cause of my strange shaped uterus or my hormonal fluctuations, even though there was no way to prove it, or fix it. I understand their desire to have concrete answers. I certainly wanted them myself. But each time their reasoning turned to dust, I lost more and more faith in their equations. I came to the conclusion that they did not know. I would have preferred it if they had admitted that to me at any point.

A year on I thought I was ready though I now know how much repressed grief I had stored in my body. The 4th and 5th pregnancies happened back to back, neither progressing past 8 weeks. In the doctor’s office after we had just witnessed the too-slow heart beat of our final, dying baby, I ran out and found a dark stairwell to cry in. ‘I can’t do this anymore’, I told Sam. ‘It’s ok, You don’t have to’ he replied, and I was so grateful. I breathed a sigh of relief.

There are women I have heard of who go through 8, 9, 10 miscarriages before they finally, triumphantly, bear a child. There are those untroubled by a miscarriage or two – the bodies way perhaps, of preparing its nest – and others devastated, haunted forever by the child they never got to meet. There are those that try other avenues; adoption, surrogacy, IVF, and those like me, who are ravaged by the experience and left too tired to move on. There are as many ways of experiencing miscarriage as there are souls on the planet. It is as individual as we are. But as someone who has experienced much of the variety, I send my love to anyone going through it right now. It can be the loneliest place on earth. I know something of it. I know grief. I am with you.

And isn’t that one of the glimmers of suffering? That we may understand it in others and be able to see them and hold them. My own journey through miscarriage and the illness (Chronic Fatigue) that followed it, urged me to take stock of my own life, to significantly change it and to become more honest. I suffer greatly, but I am also awake to more of life than I ever knew possible. I do not regret anything. I especially don’t regret my son Indy. My love for him is unending and though I still shed many tears, I think of him fondly and look forward to embracing him in whatever there is beyond. He is my greatest teacher.

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Here are some things I wish I knew when I was going through it:

1. Grow your own relationship with your body. It is the most important one you will ever have. Learn to listen to it and trust it. There is deeper wisdom in there than we can comprehend.
2. Feeling safe and calm is the best thing you can do for your pregnancy, whatever that means for you. Work less, meditate, stay present.
3. Don’t let doctors bully you. They are well-meaning but they don’t know everything. You know your body and your baby better than anyone else ever will.
4. Speak to other women. Don’t close up, reach out.
5. If you can, take time to grieve. It is precious.
6. Men go through miscarriage too. And they often have much less support than their parters. They need help, a shoulder, a hug, an outlet.
7. I researched the heck out of miscarriage only to find out: “no one knows why we miscarry and you will also most likely never know. Very occasionally there is a straightforward answer. Usually not. You will have to accept this as one of the mysteries of life”