Life, Loss, and Marching Ever Onwards
Peaks and troughs, baby. Peaks and long, muddy, bastard troughs.
Fair warning
I will discuss my miscarriage, though not in any gory detail. I worry that I may be about to overshare, but I have found it tremendously helpful to hear about other people’s relevant experiences, and it may be that this ends up being useful for somebody else. Also, it’s Substack, if I can’t inflict my misery onto you here, where can I? Having said that, I do end on a positive note. Grief is awful in all its forms, but it is the price we pay for life and love. Perhaps I should make that into a woodcarving and sell it to mentally fragile Instagram moms with an InstantPot and a yoga addiction? #LIVELAUGHLOVE #MOMMABEAR #SEEMYETSY #NOTANMLMIPROMISE
Life and death
It is a very strange feeling to carry a little death around in your body. Almost as strange as it is to carry another little life with you. When pregnant and optimistic, the little life is a wondrous thing. It represents so many of your hopes for the future and so many of your concerns for the present. I would say “all” instead of “so many”, but that does depend on whether you already have a child or children. That has been one of the strangest aspects of my third pregnancy: my attention has already been so taken up with my toddler son that I could go whole hours forgetting I was pregnant. Upon remembering, I’d have a quick flush of guilt mingled with pleasure, and I’d stupidly allow myself a quick daydream about what things would look like in six or so months’ time.
I say stupid, but really that is quite an unfair and cruel way to describe it. There is nothing stupid about hoping for the best, or even assuming it. Unfortunately, each pregnancy has a basic 20% chance of ending in miscarriage. This 20% figure changes depending on various other factors; in my most recent pregnancy it apparently would have been 5% as it came on the back of a healthy pregnancy that resulted in a live birth. Still, somebody has to fall into that 5%, and why shouldn’t it be me?
“I’m sorry” dé jà vu
My husband and I were devastated when we went for the dating scan at 12 weeks only to hear that awful extended silence followed by the sympathetic, “I’m sorry.” The sonographer told us the line we had already heard in our first pregnancy, the one before our son, namely that the baby had only got to 8 weeks, no further. It was particularly hard, given that I had had a scan just a few days before the baby died, and all seemed well then. Despite the obvious repeat motifs, what has been odd for me has been the realisation of just how different this miscarriage has been compared to the first, and what this difference has shown me.
When we received the awful news during the first pregnancy, it felt as though my entire world had been ripped away, leaving nothing but a foggy limbo. This time, we both seemed less shocked, having already had our awful dress rehearsal a couple of years prior. It probably also helped that the sonographer was much more pleasant and sensitive this time, and didn’t keep asking me, “Haven’t you had any bleeding? Are you sure? I can’t find the baby. Are you sure you didn’t bleed? Oh, there it is. No, sorry, there’s definitely no heartbeat. Hm.”
I opted for natural management again, which means going home, crying, drinking wine, and occasionally turning to your husband and asking him to just pick you up and shake you to see if it helps things along. Shockingly, mine refused to either shake me or punch me in the gut to move things along. Where’s the chivalry, I ask you?
Despite his unwillingness to treat me like bottle that refuses to relinquish its ketchup, I am deeply glad that he is the man I chose to both celebrate and to mourn with, until death us do part. Misery loves company, but it also loves someone who is willing to take a blood-soaked towel and bury it along with its contents in the garden at night in -6 degrees Celsius.
So, what changed?
Physically, it has been just as exhausting, but less intensely painful than the first – mostly because I was better prepared. The bleeding began after just less than a week of waiting, and the bulk of the loss took place over three nights. Those nights spent in the bathroom losing copious quantities of blood were made easier by proper planning. My mother, my husband, and I had all been adding to what I called “the misery box”: a box full of old towels, drinks, snacks, and painkillers – all kept well out of reach of toddler hands. Having the proper provisions in place meant no fainting this time, nor any out-of-body experience during which I forgot my name and even, briefly, what species I was (“What am I? Forest. I live in forest. Dog? Deer? No, wait. Human! Live in house! Oh, good.”)
The main difference, however, has been mental and emotional. I feel an odd sense of guilt in admitting this, but it really has been less painful than the first miscarriage. That is not to say we haven’t both grieved, or that I haven’t burst into tears because Facebook’s helpful algorithm still likes to show me adverts for prams and cots. Nothing else has cut me quite as low as the suspiciously perky looking woman happily showing off her three-seater pram. And I really do mean, “showing off”. Three healthy babies? Really, rub my nose in it, why don’t you?
Despite this, and despite my continued hovering on the perimeter of depression, I simply haven’t achieved the level of emotional wreckage that I collapsed into the first time round, and I know that it is almost entirely down to my good more recent fortune, namely my son.
The one that worked
Losing this pregnancy has served to bring home just how incredibly lucky I am to have my boy, and just how immensely powerful my love for him is. I struggle to comprehend the strength that a child can provide his parents, just by existing, or the incredible joy he can bring by doing, well, anything really.
One day, the staff at his nursery had the children making jungle creatures by painting their feet and having them stand on paper. I presume they did something else, because I still can’t quite figure out how a set of toes can translate to a monkey in a tree, but then I never was an artist. I asked him, this happy little boy a few months shy of 2 years old, “Did you do some special painting today?” in that giddy-mum-can’t-contain-her-excitement voice as we sat together on the couch.
He had a toy in his hands and had been quietly manipulating it, but at this question he raised his eyes to mine, and without any change to his expression, lifted one foot to his own head height and shouted, “PEET!” (he struggles with the letter “f” still, which given my track record for swearing within his earshot may well be a blessing). I could have cried, I felt so overwhelmed with love for him.
At this point of proceedings, I knew I had not passed all of the “products” – to use the medical euphemism. I had carried a disquieting sense that my body had “failed” to miscarry properly and that I would yet require medical assistance or risk infection. I was exhausted and deeply sad, mixed with the guilt of being barely able to care for my son, and having to rely heavily on family to help. His innocent and simple joy in his painting, along with his desire to share that with me, buoyed me up beyond belief.
As well as the love of my son, I have also benefitted from the distraction and work that he creates. While we have had to rely more than usual on grandparents and the BBC iPlayer (thank God for ‘The Gruffalo’) to help care for him while I’ve been otherwise occupied, we still remain parents. That in itself is a healing thing to remember. The majority of couples who lose a pregnancy will go on to become parents eventually, and we are in that lucky majority, for which I’m eternally grateful. Besides the emotional aspect, parenthood naturally destroys the opportunity for navel gazing. Our son is simply too fast, too strong, and too fascinated by electric sockets to allow for any length of time in which to stew and become overly morbid.
Closing thoughts
I would like to add that it is not just my son who has kept me sane throughout. My husband, family, friends, and colleagues have been kind and patient, and have been an excellent reminder of the simple power of decency. If ever you doubt your ability to make a positive impact in the world, I promise you that showing empathy and compassion to somebody who is suffering has more power than you might realise. If you are good to others, you’re already doing something wonderful.
The whole experience has been understandably miserable, but significantly less so than the first one, for all the reasons outlined above. I have been taken by surprise to find out just how much life can change in a couple of years, and how two apparently identical experiences can in fact be so different. I have come out of this particular episode with a strong desire to keep marching forward and to embrace each day, if not with vigour, then with a healthy sense of mental stamina.
We may well lose again. We may well suffer again. But we will get through it, we will find and create joy in our lives, and we will not be beaten down for long. Nature has no respect for my plans or desires, but that’s fine. It doesn’t need to. I’ll figure something out. And in the meantime, I still have a bar of chocolate in the “misery box” that my husband doesn’t know about. Bon Appetit, my friends. Bon Appetit.
Well, this brought a surprising tear to my eye.
Sorry, Georgia. But thank you for writing this piece. Life is pain but that’s not as negative as it sounds. Pain is how we know what matters and exactly what good things are worth to us.
Sending the light.
Thanks for writing that.