Miscarriage - tragic imagery I can’t escape
Jan 25
TRIGGER WARNING - miscarriage and a recount of miscarrying at home.
I had a miscarriage; and I am having difficulty talking about it.
It was something I tried to prepare myself for. Two women close to me had experienced the same loss in the couple of months leading up to my pregnancy. How could I think that I was immune?
Everyone I know knows someone who has been through this, if they haven’t themselves. This is somewhat comforting – I am normal, I did nothing wrong, it happens and we should talk about it. But at the same time, the normalisation of this huge thing happening has also made me feel like its significance is lessened. I am not saying I haven’t received support, I’ve experienced nothing but. I could talk to any one of my friends or family if I felt like I could take the leap. But I can’t. At least not yet. Not while I am still bleeding, still replaying every awful moment in my head.
I was shocked to find out I was pregnant. Shocked, overwhelmed, and not all that happy. I felt so guilty, for not feeling happier, for not being perfect leading up to the pregnancy. I’d planned on being so much healthier – fitter, leaner, on drinking less coffee, less alcohol. None of it was what I thought. Plus I’d just suffered a burst ovarian cyst, an intensely painful experience, and I was not feeling positive about my reproductive system.
After a positive home pregnancy test, the following week I found very isolating. I felt I couldn’t talk to anyone about it. I didn’t want to overwhelm my husband, and it was so early we didn’t want to tell people until we’d confirmed with a blood test. Not talking to people was so hard, and my husband and I barely saw each other because of work.
Still, we started to tell some select people – family of course, and close friends who especially would notice in a heartbeat if I wasn’t drinking at Christmas parties. Every person I told gave me some kind of strength. My family and friends were so happy for me, so excited. This made me so happy, so excited. I started to come around to the idea of this baby, and it all felt right. I had a dating scan at 6 weeks and 2 days showing a normal heartbeat, and I got to see my baby for the first time, that little alien looking bean with a tail. The ultrasound photo shows barely anything at 6 weeks. Wildly uninteresting, except for the fact that it was mine, and that made it the most interesting thing in the world. I fell into this pregnancy but I wanted it. Through the next couple of weeks I was happy, and I felt tired but nothing else. We dared to tell a few more people. My three-year-old niece nicknamed the baby “Toppy”.
We spent Christmas with family in a happy blur, me thinking the whole time that this was the last Christmas before my life would change completely. But flickers of doubt crossed my mind sometimes. I had not been sick at all, this made me worried. I felt like I deserved to feel sick at some point, like it was some pregnancy rite of passage. Despite lots of online shopping of maternity clothes, and other things for our house, even baby books, I hadn’t pulled the trigger on any of them. I felt like I had to wait until the next appointment to make sure everything was okay.
On Thursday 30th December, we were supposed to see the obstetrician for the first time at just over 9 weeks. Except I woke up bleeding. I Googled “bleeding 9 weeks pregnant” and the internet told me that some spotting was normal. I wasn’t in any pain. Except there was more blood than just spotting. I immediately started crying, getting back into bed with my husband and just wailed “I think Toppy is gone”.
As we made our way into the pregnancy assessment centre, the cramps started to come and I was confident it was over. This was confirmed the minute the obstetrician brought my ultrasound up onto the screen. She took the measurements. My baby measured only 6 weeks and 3 days. I should have been 9 weeks. It was a quick visit. She talked through my options – allow the baby to pass naturally, take a medication to induce it to come, or arrange surgery and remove it. We opted for the conservative option, because I had already started bleeding and cramping.
So we went home knowing it was over. I felt such grief, such pain. I was terrified to start all over again, terrified of how long it might take to fall pregnant again, of what might happen if I did. But I did have this distant knowledge that I would be okay eventually. I’ve experienced real trauma before in my life. I’ve lost people close to me, suffered from significant anxiety and depression. I guess the only benefit of going through something terrible before, is knowing that I have the capacity to get past it eventually.
At home, I started to obsess over the fact that this baby had been gone for three weeks – this was why I had no symptoms, had felt almost nothing. Why couldn’t it have been picked up earlier, like on the dating scan? Before we told people? When I was still uncertain about this pregnancy, before I got attached, before I started to think I was out of the woods. That night in bed I was up for hours with cramps that came in waves, and my exhausted brain eventually realised they were contractions, and that the worst was yet to come.
I woke early Friday morning, and felt myself bleeding like no period I’d ever experienced. It wasn’t just blood, whole pieces of tissue were falling out of me. I was on the toilet every few minutes. And then one time I was walking to the toilet and I felt something larger drop. I sat down and it fell into my underwear. I knew what it was but I took what felt like forever to get the courage to pick it up. In my hand was my little alien, intact, in the shape I had seen on that ultrasound. A bloody mess larger than a golf ball with a tail-like end poking out. Nothing could have prepared me for that. Nothing has been able to distract me from this memory. I could handle blood and I could handle pain but I felt like I would never recover from having to pick up this little thing that I had grown. And what to do with it? I was howling and dumb with my grief. It went into the toilet and I stumbled towards my bedroom where my husband met me. Even hours later as I showered, the upright position meant that more and more blood and tissue was pouring out of me, and every time I looked down I couldn’t stop myself from wailing.
I understood completely why anyone would choose the surgical option, in order to avoid going through this. I started to think I could have handled it had I not had to endure passing the foetus. More than ever I couldn’t stop wishing I had found out it wasn’t viable earlier, so I could have attended to it, so I didn’t have to go through this. I’d heard about this sort of thing happening, but I wasn’t prepared for it. I thought at 6 weeks, it would be smaller. I didn’t think I would be have to pass it, and I certainly did not think I would be able to recognise it for what it was.
We have told our family and closest friends about this miscarriage. I have told some how difficult it was to endure, how traumatised I am. I have not been able to tell anyone what happened in its entirety. I feel I can’t, not just because I would not be able to vocalise it without breaking down, but because I feel I cannot let others endure what I have.
That it is too terrible a thing to share. I am stuck both wanting to and not wanting to talk about it. I am stuck feeling I can’t express my pain and therefore those closest to me will never understand it. Unless of course they experience it themselves.
My family and our friends have been great, they have been checking in on us. My husband has been wonderful. We have spent three days in a blur of eating, wine, movies, sleeping, and just holding each other. But 10 minutes haven’t passed without me thinking of holding Toppy in my hand, of remembering what it looked like, of the shame of tossing it away. So many reminders still surround me, I still find myself putting my hand to my belly, going to the bathroom and seeing traces of blood every time, and putting away the welcome pack I received from the mother’s hospital almost broke me. Trying to decide on a film to watch because I don’t feel like watching anything with emotion is impossible.
This is the information I feel like I can’t convey, even to my husband. My logical brain tells me I will recover, I can get through this, and I can get pregnant again and we will be happy. But my emotional brain is battling so hard with this tragic imagery that I can’t escape.
Sophie x
Support:
Pink Elephants - https://www.pinkelephants.org.au/
SANDS - https://www.sands.org.au/
Pregnancy Loss Australia - https://www.pregnancylossaustralia.org.au/
Red Nose - https://rednose.org.au/page/grief-and-loss-support-services