Life after Miscarriage-‘Round 2’

The pain can be crippling but you need to give it time

Loss is a heartbreaking thing whether it is a friend, family, a colleague and in this case a pregnancy. Having experienced the treacherous pain of attending my 13 weeks scan to be told that our little one had no heartbeat was devastating and my whole world and faith in life had diminished. I can only speak of my own experiences but the pain and devastation emotionally i felt during that moment was monumental and i froze in disbelief that all our plans, discussions and hopes had been destroyed in that second. what followed was horrific pain physically and emotionally, seeing my partners face when he saw his love deteriorating and in agony and all he could do is comfort me and feed my pain killers. In that moment i realised what true love was and knew that i had found my soul mate. Someone i could trust to love me in the worse moment in my life. Having this passion inside to be a mother and to give my partner a family destroyed my soul each day as i wanted to give him everything that we planned and talked about and could not understand how life could be so cruel.

The one thing that did help during this time was to allow each other to express our emotions, allow each other to cry, to shout, to be angry, whatever it took as bottling up our feelings was not going to help us deal with what had happened. Struggling with my depression and self worth i was at an all time low. I hatred myself, my inability to have a child. The self loathing, the hatred for myself and disgust i gave to myself, grew daily and pained me everyday. I was close to self harming again when i STOPPED!!! I knew my triggers of loss played a vital part in my downhill spiral and i refused to let this grief take me to a place i have found difficult to escape, so i wrote, i talked and i was open and honest about how i felt. I knew that this pain was real but hiding it would do me no favours and how was i going to support my partner if i don’t practice what i preach?

Some people think that loss so early on isn’t that difficult and a still born is more painful because you got to meet your little bundle. I have not experienced that sorrow so i can not comment but what i can say is when you become pregnant you have hopes, longing and plans for your new family and when life snatches it away, no matter how far on you are the pain is unbearable, the what if’s, the whys grow stronger and you feel hopelessness and sorrow.

After the storm had passed

My story continues as 6 weeks later i fell pregnant again and even thou filled with worry i gave birth to a wonderful and amazing little boy. He gives me hope that life has a way of teaching us what is important. After speaking to other women, i was shocked how common miscarriage is. 1 in 4 pregnancies will end in miscarriage and i could not believe it. people hiding their stories and i can understand why. i felt shame and pain and didn’t want to relive that time. Other women will have their own reasons but i want to say that you should not feel shame as it was beyond your control and life took this path for you.

I am lucky as my little boy has now turned 1 years old and he is grabbing life by the balls and living it to the full. Being an only child i wanted my son to have a sibling and as any parent knows, when the right time is to start trying can be a tricky thing. We started trying and after a couple of months we fell pregnant and we were ecstatic. Knowing people who struggled to get pregnant a second time we were shocked and delighted that we could get pregnant so quickly and rejoiced in expanding our family. As the first time we didn’t tell anyone and just waited till a bit further along before contacting the midwife. at 7 weeks i thought i would put my referral in and start the ball rolling. I was proud of myself to take the step in ‘authenticating’ my pregnancy and we could start to enjoy this new journey. Low and behold ‘BANG’ cramps, bleeding and i knew from that moment that this was the end. My partner played it down but i just knew that my life was about to fall apart again. my heart ached and i tried to tell myself that the odds were in our favour and that sometimes you can bleed but my skeptical side was preparing me to fall back into my dark place and realise that i had let my partner down again. The next day i woke up to more blood, i googled reasons for bleeding in a search for hope, i found loads on positive outcomes of bleeding from implantation bleed to carrying twins and i held onto that with dear life as i walked into the doctors. Unfortunately that was not the case. After scans and blood tests i had miscarried and it was not meant to be. My heart had been ripped out for a second time and i could not understand why we were so unlucky.

Having spoken to friends and family and hearing of people having 7 miscarriages and going on to have further healthy babies has given me hope. One friend reminded me of the torment she had gone though having 2 consecutive miscarriages to have a bright, strong and remarkable little girl. She reminded us that if she had not gone through all that torment and pain then her little girl who brings suck light into her life would be here. Sometimes we have to tread through all the shit to actually get the best reward we could possibly imagine.

Where am i now?

Well… as i am only a week into my miscarriage the pain is raw, i am heart broken and struggling but still managing to stay positive. My little boy gives me a reason to wake up (as if i left him he would destroy my house) i have down moments when i want to curl up and cry my pain away but i have hope that things happen for a reason and one day i will meet Teddy’s brother or sister and make more memories and can heal a little more. Some people say i may not be able to carry girls, others say that it just wasn’t meant to be. Psychologically know i am more fragile but i am not going to let the depression take over who i am. I am stronger than that and i will prove it. My self esteem has taken a heavy knock and i understand now that ‘IT IS OK TO NOT BE OK!’ we have this notion that we have to put on a brave face and go on about our day but i say ‘NO!’ i’m not ok and i feel like shit!, i hate pregnant people and people who have found it easy to get pregnant, i hate the fact that people go through pregnancy not worrying every second about something going wrong and i hate it when people breeze through life without trauma or loss. I hate turning up to the early pregnancy unit to see if your body has destroyed your little bean to see an 8 month pregnant women smoking her way through a pack of 20 fags. All of that makes my blood boil at the moment but that is how i feel. I am allowed to feel that way because that is how i deal with it. I am not aggressive or rude i just cant deal with these things right now. My brain needs time to heal and put the world back in neutral for me where i can make rational decisions but at the moment i’m hurting but i am dealing with it in my way.

Final words

The main thing i would say is allow yourself to hurt. Do not bottle up your feelings as they will encompass you and take you to a very dark place. Our minds are strong and control everything about us and we need to look after it as much as we look after our physical health (i will start that on Monday!!!) We have emotions for a reason and we need to express them in a constructive way. If you can not cope with seeing your pregnant friend on Facebook posting every 30 seconds about how amazing it is to feel you little baby kicking inside of you, then block them, distance yourself from things that are bringing you down…. not forever just for a while till you can cope better. If you struggle with pity then just stay in a safe place where you are in control and feel at your happiest. No one can tell you how to feel because our previous experiences determine our current emotions and reactions. Just let yourself ride it out in a way that will help you build yourself up to be that amazing person you really are.