It's Baby Loss Awareness week. Facebook is full of pink and blue ribbons as women open up about their experiences. It's yet another example of a formerly taboo subject that is slowly being normalised. Of course it's devastating that so many women (and indeed men) have stories to tell but it's a huge step forward that they now feel able to do so. World Mental Health Day was also this week and again, it filled me with a mixture of emotions seeing so many people on social media posting about it. At least we are moving towards a time when people CAN and DO speak out about their own mental health problems or their experiences with infant loss.
Me? I tick both boxes. I have suffered problems with my mental health since my early teens and yes, I am 1 in 4 women who has suffered the loss of a baby. Oddly, I don't see myself as being in that same category as women who have endured multiple miscarriages, the unspeakable trauma of a stillbirth or the loss of an infant minutes, hours or days after they entered the world.
Having said that, it happened and all of the posting about it has got me thinking about my own experience. I'll tell my story and put it out in to the blogosphere on the off-chance that reading it will help someone else.
My first pregnancy, though very unexpected and at times emotional, was pretty textbook. The labour went well until Eva got herself stuck trying to be born sideways (insert eye roll emoji here) and I ended up having an emergency C-section. All in all, it was a fairly straightforward business: fell pregnant, carried baby to term, went in to labour, went to hospital, came home three days later with 8lbs 4.5oz of healthy baby girl.
Fast forward to early 2011 and a decision was made that perhaps it might be time to think about giving Eva a sibling. In my head, she'd never been an only child because, much as my sister drove me bananas in childhood, I can't imagine life without her. I came off the Pill, had one cycle and fell pregnant.
We were so excited to have actually planned a baby that we were itching to tell people. As I'd had one healthy pregnancy I arrogantly assumed that this time around it would be the same. Around my seventh week, Pete and I were having a pub lunch with my mam, my step-dad and his folks. Four of the new baby's six grandparents were in one place and it seemed silly not to share our lovely news in person. We told them, they were thrilled and then I nipped out to call my dad as it seemed only fair that he knew too.
The night before my twelve week scan, I was at work. Back then, I was a receptionist in a busy GP surgery. My time there had really opened my eyes to how common miscarriages are but I still didn't think it would happen to me. A wonderful, kind creature I worked with named Mary (a mother of three and a grandmother of many) asked me if I was excited about my scan. I surprised myself by answering "No". I realised in that moment that I was worried. I had no reason to believe anything was wrong. I didn't have morning sickness but I hadn't had it with Eva either so I didn't need it to reassure me that I was definitely pregnant. I'd had no bleeding or even spotting but I just felt 'off'. Mary reassured me that all would be well but that it was natural to be apprehensive. I tried to shake off the feeling but it lingered.
The following morning, a beautiful, sunny Thursday in July, we headed to Kettering General Hospital for our scan. I still felt out of sorts but I tried to push the feeling aside. Our turn came and in we went.
From the second our baby appeared on the screen I knew that it was gone. It was so small and just looked, for want of a better word, wrong. With Eva, I'd been surprised by how much she looked like a baby at the twelve week stage and even uttered, Del Boy style, "It's a little baby!" The sonographer was calm and professional but when she said "I'm just struggling to find a heartbeat." I wanted to cry out "Because there isn't one!" Another staff member came in to confirm that yes, we had suffered what is known as a silent or missed miscarriage. Our baby had simply stopped living at 9 weeks and 1 day.
The next few days were a bit of a blur. The person we needed to discuss our options with wasn't at the hospital on that particular Thursday so we were asked to come back the following day. It was my little sister, Laura who went with me on the Friday as Pete had to go in to work.
I had three options: wait for nature to take its course, use a pessary to start the process off or have an ERPC (Evacuation of Retained Products of Conception) under general anesthetic. For whatever reason, as soon as I found out that the baby was no more, I wanted it out. Rightly or wrongly, the idea of carrying it round repulsed me. I opted for the ERPC but couldn't undergo the procedure until the following Monday. All weekend long I was terrified that I'd experience a spontaneous miscarriage which I'd been told was a possibility. It didn't happen. There was never a single spot of blood or any indication that the pregnancy was over.
On the Monday morning I found myself in a bed on Maple Ward. Again, it was Laura who was by my side. Pete didn't have the most understanding boss at the time (understatement, he was an ogre) but I also think he needed to return to normal as soon as possible. A lady in the bed opposite was awaiting a hysterectomy. She overheard Laura and I talking and offered her sympathies. She told me how it had happened to her too and about how she'd planted a tree in her garden in memory of her lost little one. I made excuses about how I didn't anticipate us staying in our current home forever so I wouldn't want to do that but in truth, I didn't want to do it anyway. I didn't and still don't feel compelled to have a lasting reminder of the baby that wasn't meant to be. I know people will plant flowers and trees or release balloons on what would've been the baby's birthday... It pains and confuses me to admit that I think this way but I promised myself I'd be honest in the recounting of my story. The only thing I do have is a handmade sympathy card from a lovely lady called Alex. She'd pressed a flower and stuck the flower to a plain card. I put the card in a frame and I still have it to this day.
The procedure went well and by the afternoon, I was home again. I'll always remember my dear friend Amy leaving me an M&S 2 dine in for £10 dinner on my doorstep along with flowers and fancy M&S biscuits. It's one of many reasons I chose her to be one of Hal's godmothers.
In the days and weeks that followed, I swung wildly between being absolutely fine with what had happened, accepting that it's nature and it happens all the time... To feeling absolutely crushed. I drank a fair bit, ate like a pig and cried a lot. Having been so sure all would be well, I'd told quite a few friends that I was expecting Baby Number 2 so I then had to deal with running in to them and saying "Oh... no. Not anymore. Not meant to be." Thank God I had Eva. Thank God I had proof that my body could carry a baby to term. How women cope when it's their first pregnancy and are then brave enough to try again and again... It astounds me.
Summer and Autumn 2011 passed in a bit of a blur. I gained weight as I was eating with my emotions and trying to fill the hole I felt I had inside me. I was planning to return to Slimming World in the January to take back some control over my body and my eating.
It was December 23rd when I suspected I might be pregnant and I confirmed it on Christmas Eve. On Christmas Day I gave Pete the positive pregnancy test in an envelope. We were happy but also understandably apprehensive. This time we told no-one but it was obvious so early on that I was carrying. I had a bump by January and it wasn't all mince pies and Roses from Christmas!! My colleagues at the surgery, all mums and nans themselves, knew full well that I was pregnant again but they respected and understood my desire to wait until after the scan to announce it. For weeks at work, I was the elephant in the room!
The due date for our not-meant-to-be baby was early February 2012. I think if I hadn't been pregnant by then it would have been harder to deal with but I focused on the baby now growing inside me.
Hal Glyndwr arrived eleven days early on August 19, 2012. It was about a billion degrees that day. Cheers son! I would find out years later that the term for a baby born after a miscarriage is a rainbow baby. So Hal is my rainbow. I feel like Hal is the child I was meant to have and if I'd carried the baby I lost to term it would be impossible for me to have him. I cannot comprehend my life or our family without Hal in it so it certainly eases the pain.
I realise that I've contradicted myself somewhat, first saying I didn't feel strongly enough about what happened to commemorate it but then, in the same post, making reference to my pain. It did hurt then and it still hurts now but I have two healthy, funny children and for that, I am forever grateful.
To anyone reading this who has experienced similar or far worse, I feel your pain. Please, please, if you haven't already, speak out about it. Don't suffer alone. It happens so often but because we don't talk about it enough you can end up feeling like there's something wrong with you or that you're the only one going through it.
Start a conversation. Whether it's about mental health or anxiety or infant loss or anything else that's troubling you and making you feel isolated... Speak up. As the saying goes, it's okay not to be okay.
