‘Well, as you can see on the screen – there’s nothing there.’
The gravity of losing a baby hit me there and then. The 3rd of January 2023 will forever be a date tainted by loss and grief for me and my husband.
Disclaimer – This post contains information on miscarriage and pregnancy loss. Please only read if you feel comfortable doing so.
I’ve thought about this blog post for a while. Approaching the topic of miscarriage when it’s still somewhat fresh and I’m pregnant again, feels almost like I’m tempting fate. I wondered what the best platform would be to ‘announce’ my miscarriage. A Facebook post felt too cold, an Instagram post felt too informal and a Tiktok video just felt like an opportunity for viral success. I decided to slip it into my Instagram post announcing my second pregnancy as it felt wrong to avoid addressing it.
The outpouring of love and appreciation I got from sharing that I had a miscarriage was impactful. It made certain that this blog post was very much-needed. After all, my blog is a platform that has provided me with a lot of comfort and food for thought over the past nine years I’ve been running it. It’s guided me through a lot in my 20s and it’s a constant that I feel will always be there for me. An online diary that I can run my digital fingers through to look back on and reminisce.
Whether I choose to take my thoughts and experience further onto other platforms is another matter but for now, I feel the best place to share this with family, friends, and strangers on the internet is on my blog.
The build up – Learning the news I was pregnant
I don’t know about other women but the thought of having children in my early twenties felt like a very alien concept. I always got grossed out by the idea of a baby growing inside of my body. The scene of that alien bursting out of the woman’s stomach in Alien is what springs to mind. Grotesque. I even wondered whether motherhood was something that was meant for me.
However, that changed for me when I hit the age of 25. Suddenly I had a hormonal surge of broodiness and seeing babies made my ovaries weep. It’s something that I now wanted. To get pregnant. But I still felt young at heart. I still had things I wanted to do. I wanted to do a bit more travelling, enjoy a child-free life and establish my career as a writer and content creator.
Fast forward to the pandemic and that time suddenly added gravitas to our lives. We appreciated the small things, and celebrated every day with a renewed thirst for life itself. We lost many but it changed society and the world as we knew it. At this point, we were knee-deep in wedding planning and upon news of another lockdown, we made the tough decision of moving the wedding to the following year. After a decade together, nearly four years of engagement and finally, we found ourselves meeting at the aisle on a sunny August day. Surrounded by loved ones, it was quite possibly the best day ever.
Little did we know that the world was going to throw some serious shit our way in those next few months of newly married life.
First, it was the car crash. A driver travelling at around double the speed limit, hit us side-on while we were turning onto a road towards our home. Just over a year of owning a new car together, we found ourselves snatched of this wonderful freedom we had with our beloved Nissan Micra.
Only a month later, were we hit with another blow – our dog Ronnie swallows a stone. Nearly two years old, I carried his limp body to our local vets where he was put on oxygen and then transported to a veterinary hospital. Myself and Sam left that day, broken at the prospect of losing our dog. Thankfully he made a full recovery and is back to causing chaos. By this point, I think both me and Sam had our fair share of trauma for a while.
As a result of Ronnie’s surgery, we had to cancel our minimoon and my 30th birthday. We didn’t care – well yeah actually we cared a lot. However, having Ronnie was all that mattered.
So throwing caution to the wind we said fuck it – let’s get pregnant.
And we did. First cycle that we tracked, we tried twice and within a week I was displaying pregnancy symptoms. Let me tell you, it is WILD how much I knew I was pregnant despite having never gotten pregnant before.
My excitement for pregnancy was overflowing. I couldn’t wait to tell Sam and I couldn’t wait to see the little baby on the sonographer’s screen at our six-week private scan. Turns out I was so eager that I’d got my dates wrong and I was actually 5 weeks and 2 days.
The break down – Experiencing my first miscarriage
I could probably pinpoint the day I miscarried, the 23rd December 2022. By this point, we’d told two of our best friends, a handful of work colleagues knew and Sam’s parents who’d picked us up to go home for Christmas, also found out. I’d had a transvaginal probe up my vagina due to being so early. We’d seen the baby and what looked like a flicker of a heartbeat. Excitement built in me, although I could tell Sam at that point was still rightly cautious. We’re in that period of pregnancy where there are risks and until we were at 12 weeks, I don’t think he would have relaxed.
However, I was blissfully naive, basking in the new pregnancy glow despite feeling nauseous all the time and having dizzy spells.
It was a mere twenty-four hours after having the probe. Upon many of the trips I was frequently taking now to the toilet, I wiped, looked down, and saw a very light tinge of brown.
Oh – that must just be the old blood the sonographer mentioned in my scan.
I sent a picture to my pregnant friend at the time who urged me to get in touch with my midwife. At this point, I’d only just had my initial consultant call regarding the interest in home birth and now I was sending pictures of my discharge to her on WhatsApp. Talk about being thrown into the deep end and by that I mean me.
My midwife wasn’t initially worried and told me to keep an eye on it. The next morning I wiped and there was more but this time it looked fresh. My midwife told me to go to A&E and this was during the strikes so we were a little worried that we’d be stuck there for hours. Surprisingly it was very quiet. I got my initial consultation, a cup to pee in and cautiously sat down on the toilet to pee. Rose-coloured pee came out and when I wiped – fresh, red blood. That was probably the first sinking feeling I had that something was wrong.
With naivety, I pushed it to the back of my mind once the doctor came in with the results of my pregnancy test – pregnant and the results came up quickly. All a good sign. He checked my tummy, pushing and prodding down for any areas of potential pain – but nothing. We came home to reveal the good news and upon my sister-in-law’s arrival and niece, we told them I was pregnant.
Later that afternoon, I started getting cramps. By this point, I wanted to let my mum know what was happening despite my promising her that if I were to get pregnant, I needed to wait to tell her in person. This just felt like too much of a secret to hold onto and honestly, I needed her. She was shocked but chuffed and later on, my dad was equally surprised and chuffed. However, while waiting for Dad to answer, I had some incredibly painful cramping. By this point, I was also going to toilet, peeing blood and heavily bleeding. I was also bleeding clots.
I’d just told my dad on the phone I was pregnant. Suddenly a growing wave of intense cramping began and as I rushed to the toilet, a plop of blood landed in the toilet bowl. Weirdly, I knew it was coming and so looked in between my legs to watch it come out. I looked down at the bloody murky waters with a deep sense of dread. I think at that moment, deep down, I knew I’d miscarried. I read online that there’s an overwhelming urge to scoop out a miscarriage to look at the fetus/baby more closely. While that feeling was there, I convinced myself it was just a bit of vaginal tissue and flushed it down the toilet.
Looking back, I’m sad I didn’t act on my instinct.
But what did I have to compare it to? I hadn’t even been pregnant before so I had no life experience to know what was a miscarriage or not.
The miscarriage itself – for those intrigued – is an experience that I would relate to as a more intense period. I read online that it often feels like labour because your cervix is contracting. Of course, in reality, a labour and a miscarriage are on two very different pain scales but equally traumatic. I even told my best friends that it felt like what I imagined contractions to feel like over our Whatsapp chat. One of these friends had just given birth and so in hindsight, a little insensitive on my part.
My miscarriage felt like this. A constant ebbing of cramping down below with more intense cramping over a couple of minutes. This intense cramping would come in waves every two to five minutes with perhaps the same interlude of calm before it happened again. From around 4.30pm until 3.30am, I was in bed struggling to sleep and this intense cramping happened all throughout that time. That night, I even avoided taking painkillers out of fear that I’d risk losing the baby as a result. Despite at one point tears rolling down my face due to the physical agony and mental pain, I willed myself to be positive.
To make it even worse this was all happening over the most joyous time of the year. I’m thankful though that I was surrounded by family, all hopeful that despite my news of worry about the bleeding, this baby would be ok. Despite the incredible amount of cramping, heavy bleeding, and clots that I passed during those few days at the tail end of 2022 – I too convinced myself that it might not be a miscarriage.
In the reality of my mind though, I spent the majority of Christmas anxiety-ridden. Reading endless chat forums, articles, and personal blogs on the internet contradicted one another when it came to symptoms of miscarriage. It was an obsessive habit that consumed me throughout that festive period, day and night. It made me feel guilty that for a whole day, I spent time in bed instead of spending it with my husband’s family. I just couldn’t move or get up without this heavy feeling down below.
We continued to tell our close family and family friends that I was pregnant, mainly because it was Christmas, and trying to get away with ‘oh I’m not drinking’ was basically telling people I was pregnant. I mean, my loved ones know I love a Prosecco.
I continued to bleed until a few days before New Year’s. We stayed with our best friends and celebrated with a three-course meal, bringing in the New Year with me falling asleep on the sofa. I had pregnancy symptoms. I was peeing frequently, I was tired and I even saw more changes in my body when it came to my boobs.
Facing reality – Getting the news
In between the first and final appointment, I had another sonographer check-up just before Christmas. This was at the point where I had started bleeding quite a bit and they said it was 50/50 that I’d miscarried. So another appointment was made for when we got back home to London. We headed over to the hospital with hope but a realistic attitude that I could have lost the baby.
With my bum perched on the end of the sonographer’s bed and my legs propped up for the third time in the space of a month, in went the probe. I remember walking into the room this time around, eyeing up the probe with a look of disgust.
This probe had become the enemy of my vagina and cervix. Trust me, a transvaginal examination when you’re bleeding heavily is no fun, not the mention the mental trauma it causes. During my second one, the sonographer casually mentioned ‘oh you’re bleeding quite a bit’ – no shit babes.
Anyway, here we are at the third and final appointment. My husband took my hand, I took a deep breath and for the first time in my life, I prayed to some higher being that our baby was still there.
And it wasn’t.
I felt like my body had betrayed me. What kind of woman am I that my uterus couldn’t grow the baby properly for the first time?
I felt sorry for myself. Sorry for every person I shared this wonderful news with so recently to then snatch it away within days of telling them. It felt like I’d played some kind of cruel prank. We’re not given much information on miscarriages, nor is it spoken about so openly. I get why though – it’s painful to relive it. We were so excited that we told close friends and family about it. Now we had to let those same people know that I’d miscarried. I couldn’t help but say sorry because a part of me thought I’d done something wrong. Like I’d let them down.
We walked out of that appointment and I broke down. It felt like an out-of-body experience. Like I was watching a character on screen. We got sent to another part of the hospital for the checkout process as I’d refer to it. A nurse talked me through the results and then a doctor doing the exact same thing five minutes later. Both said I’d had a complete miscarriage, with the doctor recommending I wait a period before starting again. That was it. That’s all the aftercare there was. No mention of support groups, or option of therapy – nothing.
This traumatic experience at that moment felt unimportant. It didn’t matter. But it did. I lost a baby.
Six weeks, nineteen weeks -we’re all in the same boat. A boat none of us asked or wanted to be in. And this boat feels like it’s in the middle of the ocean with no paddle and no sign of help to rescue us.
Building back up – Life after the loss
1 in 4 women will have a miscarriage during the first three months of pregnancy. I had no clue it was that high, nor did I think I’d become that one in four. Having a miscarriage at any point is devastating. I’ve been told that I’ve been so strong and so brave but internally I was broken. A piece of me died on the 3rd of January and now I’m fighting off this mentality that the next pregnancy will result in a miscarriage.
Why did it have to be my first pregnancy? Why me? What have I done to deserve this?
According to health professionals, my ovaries are unremarkable – otherwise normal. My uterus is healthy. My miscarriage is a medical anomaly caused by a fetus that didn’t develop properly. Somehow, that makes it an even harder pill to swallow. There was nothing wrong with me.
Despite the doctor recommending I wait a period, I had a complete miscarriage. Everything in my uterus, that was the fetus, has gone. On the sonographer’s screen, it just looked like those white trails, planes leave in the sky – but in my uterus.
The most painful part of it all is the what if?
What would that fetus have grown into it if it had survived? That’s the hardest part about a miscarriage. You’re grieving for a child that you could have had. Not only that but the natural jealousy you then feel, watching others reveal their pregnancies on social media and their successful progression to full term and birth is hard to push aside. Miscarriage is awful. It’s a loss that as a 30-year-old woman is quite possibly the worst experience I’ve ever had.
What could have been
Life is full of lessons and despite this hardship I’ve now faced, I’m grateful for how open I’ve been with it all. In fact, I’m very proud of myself. It’s an experience that I will continue to be open about when I come to share this. While I wanted to share my experience with others who may have gone through a miscarriage silently, I didn’t want to jinx my next attempt at pregnancy. Sounds stupid, right?
But I think therein lies the issue. We’re told that it’s not wise to share your pregnancy until you’ve hit that twelve-week mark. So we nervously avoid telling people because we’re frightened of losing it. When we do lose it, there’s already that fear and potential shame that many wouldn’t want to face if they openly told people they were pregnant before twelve weeks.
Miscarriage has a stigma of not being talked about and I think that’s wrong. We need to talk about miscarriages, despite how painful they can be to those who experience them because it impacts more than just the mother-to-be. It affects their spouses, partners, family, and friends. It’s an emotional turmoil that no person should have to deal with silently and alone. While it’s traumatic and painful to talk about, talking about it so openly helped me to grieve and move past it.
I found myself looking at our wedding photos recently, staring at the woman who would have to face so much anguish in the next six months. But past Natalie would see a stronger, more mature woman staring back at her. Despite the trauma, it’s given me resilience and hope.
To my little bean that only got to grow just shy of seven weeks. I’m sorry you didn’t develop the way you should of. I’m sorry that my body couldn’t hold onto you. But I’m mostly sorry because you would have been so loved. So, so loved.
Don’t stay silent – talk about it
The purpose of this blog post is to shed light on a topic of women’s health that isn’t taught about in schools enough. We were taught how not to get pregnant when instead we should have been taught about everything to do with pregnancy – including pregnancy loss. I hope this blog post helps those who’ve been through pregnancy loss and have perhaps not had the opportunity to really unpack and share their trauma. I hope it helps those looking to get pregnant for the first time and ultimately tells you, my readers, that miscarriage is important to talk about and be aware of.
Don’t keep the trauma of miscarriage a silent one. Talk about it. For those who are given this information, support your loved ones. For the women in your life, be open about women’s health and create a safe space so that this subject can be talked about more openly.
Resources for miscarriage
https://www.miscarriageassociation.org.uk/
https://www.tommys.org/baby-loss-support
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/miscarriage/afterwards/ (I wish I was given this information by the doctor after my miscarriage)
