My Miscarriages Were Not Statistics

Lauren Derrett - 14 Oct 16

• Among women who know they are pregnant, 1 in 6 pregnancies ends in miscarriage.
• 1 in 90 pregnancies in the UK are ectopic.
• The overall risk of miscarriage under 12 weeks in known pregnancies is 1 in 5. In women with a BMI over 30, the risk is 1 in 4.
• Up to 75% of miscarriages happen in the first trimester.
• About 1 in 100 women in the UK experience recurrent miscarriages.
• A UK-based study of 1,700 women reported that obese (BMI of 30-39.9)  women had a significantly higher incidence of early and recurrent early miscarriages compared with age-matched women of normal normal weight in a control group. The researchers concluded that obesity is associated with increased risk of first-trimester and recurrent miscarriage.
• 1 in 5 women in the UK who experience miscarriage have anxiety levels similar to people attending psychiatric outpatient services.
• A third of women in the UK attending specialist clinics as a result of miscarriage are clinically depressed.

Source – Tommy’s.org

When you look at numbers like this on a page it makes miscarriage seem as though it’s just one of those things, it’s pretty common, it’s almost to be expected. The numbers are so high that when laid out like this you could look around a room of women and be fairly sure 1,2, 3 of them have experienced a loss. But yet we don’t hear much conversation on this topic, we look around our friends and family and can’t be sure who has had to endure this common experience.

I wanted to bring it out of the dark and onto a page, so I’m sharing my story of miscarriage with you all here.

I was 22, madly in love and starting our family. Excited and scared all at the same time. When I told my partner I was pregnant we were both over the moon. It didn’t occur to either of us that the pink line on the stick would not guarantee us our baby?!

The weeks went by in a blur of sharing our news, planning our new lives, throwing around names and guessing whether we were having a son or a daughter.

By week 13 we were finally off to see our baby. We headed to the hospital a big ball of expectation and excitement. I got on the couch, she whacked a glob of slime on my expanding baby bump and we all stared at the screen, smiling, blissfully ignorant at what came next.

“I’m afraid there’s no heartbeat, the fetus is around 9 weeks”

“But I’m still feeling sick? My bump is still growing, I’m not bleeding? How could I not have known? How could my body be so cruel as to not alert me but allow me to carry on like normal?”

“I can’t tell you how or why but I can tell you that 1 in 3 women miscarry” 

I was in shock, it was like I had been hit by a truck, I couldn’t make any sense of it and all I could hear in full volume was “1 in 3 women….”. At that moment, with that news, I couldn’t have given less fucks about any other woman, it didn’t make me feel any better to know that I was a statistic, it didn’t bring me any comfort to know that this, to them, was just a numbers game.

I had to be admitted, I was on a geriatric ward as there were no beds in the more appropriate wards, with my baby dead inside me. I had a  Surgical management of miscarriage (SMM) and was sent home.

That night between huge, all encompassing sobs I apologised to my partner, I felt solely responsible for not being able to give him his baby, for not being good enough to nourish his baby, for my body ultimately killing his baby. We had a need to name our unborn otherwise it would be like they never existed at all, and they had, they were our baby. Although we didn’t know the sex, I had a strong feeling and we named our daughter Sydney.

Dark dark times.

Then came the follow up appointment with the GP. I was still fragile, still confused, still angry, and then I saw him scrawl on my notes;missed abortion! I felt my heart fall and my vomit rise. To me, the word abortion offers choice. I would not have chosen this! I pulled the insensitive prick up on his poor choice of words and he simply said “that’s just what we call it” – Not good enough my friend, not good enough!

Fast forward 3 kids and 8 years. I’m expecting my 4th, I’m in a new relationship, again, naive to the statics that had been shared with me all those years ago and having had 3 children it didn’t occur to me that I may ever miscarry again. And then I started to bleed.

We went in for a scan already knowing the answer. Again, there was no heartbeat. This time, I wasn’t offered a SMM, I was told to go home, allow the natural process and come back in a week to make sure “it was all gone” WTAF way is that to describe the follow up scan? Was I just being oversensitive or does that seem a bit fucking harsh?

I went home and I waited, and then it started. It was painful and relentless, it was tragic and sad, it was my body working it’s hardest to quicken the process (I wondered if it had heard me last time when I asked how my body could have been so cruel as to not have alerted me?) I stayed in bed and bled, the whole time my head trying to catch up with what was happening, crying, crying, crying, I think I cried solidly for 3 days.

And then the 3rd day. I had promised my daughter (8) that we would go to London to the Royal Wedding (we love the Cambridges) of course she had no clue of what I was secretly going through. I had to summon the strength put it aside for a day and take her to see the princess.

We got the tube, me stopping to find toilets every half hour to change my blood soaked pad and to dose up on co-codamol, the whole time smiling and joining in on the celebrations wishing it would all just be over already. Union Jacks waving, every body having a wonderful day and me, wishing my baby could have stayed. 

My miscarriages are part of our family (even if just in my mind, we didn’t share this with our kids), 2 of my babies who didn’t make it to the outside, 2 life experiences that were up there with my most painful, not only physically but the mental pain that stays with me to this day, bringing tears back to my eyes whilst I sit here typing this, thinking about my babies.

When we think of miscarriage we shouldn’t naturally assume that statistics make it easier or more understandable. I don’t want to consider that 2 of my biggest and toughest life experiences were minimised because it happens far too often.

If you or anyone you know go through miscarriage, know that you’re not just a statistic, you are a mum who never got to hold their baby.

Fly high gorgeous babies <3

“Miscarriage can be a very unhappy and frightening and lonely experience.
If you have been affected by miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy or molar pregnancy, we hope you will find here the information and support that you need to help you through.” – Miscarriage Association 

Lauren Derrett

I'm Lauren, Founder of Wear 'em Out, reusable period pads for the empowered eco-curious. Mother of 4, Step-Mother of 2, I've been parenting for 24 years so have seen and learned a lot of stuff

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