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Over before it began

1
I didn’t know I was pregnant when I lost my baby. When the bleeding started, I thought it was just my period coming, once more, as a painful reminder that yet again my body had failed me. It wasn’t until an hour or so later, as my husband and I planted seeds at a special event at the local community garden with our two-year-old daughter, that I realised something was definitely not right.

It felt like being kicked repeatedly in the stomach while my pitifully inadequate liner became drenched. A dash to the compost toilets – that’s right, the compost

SelfishMother.com
2
toilets – saved me from trouser-staining mortification but left me in no doubt that I was having a miscarriage.

I would like to say the next few hours were a blur. Unfortunately I remember it all with painstaking clarity. The call to my doctor friend who advised me to take a pregnancy test (it was positive), the call to out of hours for an appointment who helpfully called me an ambulance…. We were triaged in a corridor and I had to recount the whole sorry tale in full earshot of everyone else who was waiting to be seen in A & E on a busy

SelfishMother.com
3
Saturday. Despite being given a canula and a bed, I was sent home and told to return the following Monday with them unable to confirm that I was actually miscarrying.

When you go to the ultrasound clinic, you wait alongside happy expectant couples. It’s really shit. I knew, really, that there was no hope. But, you know, just maybe….

Ultrasounds in very early pregnancy aren’t terribly reliable so they prefer to go in the best route to get a really good picture – that’s right, through the vagina. It took our sonographer no time at all to break

SelfishMother.com
4
the news to us. There was a sac. There was no heartbeat. The sac was about the size of a five week baby, but that didn’t fit my dates – my last two periods had been long, light and abnormal. Most likely, I had been pregnant a little while longer and the baby died/stopped growing at about five weeks.

Early miscarriages are a breeze, right? Just like a heavy period. Lots of first pregnancies end in miscarriage and it’s so early that the expectant mother never even knows. That was not my experience. I continued bleeding and passing large clots for the

SelfishMother.com
5
best part of a fortnight. I constantly felt raw, tender and under physical assault. It was not like any period I had ever had.

I hadn’t got to know the baby, made a space for them in my lives, bonded with the tiny embryo growing inside me. I hadn’t made plans, told people, celebrated. Instead I found out I was pregnant and that I was no longer pregnant at the same moment. I was not losing something that had already become part of my current and future life. It had ended before it began. My loss was nothing compared with those who had got to know

SelfishMother.com
6
their babies, felt them kick, discussed names, then held their tiny, perfect but perfectly still bodies in their arms. But it was still a loss.

Life went on. I had some counselling. I cried. A lot. I held my daughter longer and harder than usual. I ate a lot of chocolate. I obviously didn’t really deal with it adequately because within a few months I was diagnosed with depression and prescribed anti-depressants. I was signed off sick from work and managed to find a new, less stressful job.

A few weeks into that job, I fell pregnant again. It stuck

SelfishMother.com
7
this time. But I didn’t believe it. I couldn’t celebrate and rejoice. I told no-one until my 12 week scan, but even then it didn’t seem real. Not until I held my second daughter in my arms could I truly accept it.

If that first tiny, tiny, not quite a baby had survived, I wouldn’t have had my passionate, tempestuous second daughter. I am one of the lucky ones. I have twice been blessed with two perfect, healthy girls. That doesn’t mean I don’t think about what could have been. About the baby whose life ended before it began. That loss changed me

SelfishMother.com
8
forever. It left a permanent mark. It still gives me a sharp ache if I touch it.

About 18 months after my loss, I returned to the community garden. I brought a candle to light in memory. It was bonfire night and the winds were high. I struggled to light the match and whatever I did, the wind snatched the flame before it had a chance to take light. It was over before it began.

SelfishMother.com

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- 15 Oct 17

I didn’t know I was pregnant when I lost my baby. When the bleeding started, I thought it was just my period coming, once more, as a painful reminder that yet again my body had failed me. It wasn’t until an hour or so later, as my husband and I planted seeds at a special event at the local community garden with our two-year-old daughter, that I realised something was definitely not right.

It felt like being kicked repeatedly in the stomach while my pitifully inadequate liner became drenched. A dash to the compost toilets – that’s right, the compost toilets – saved me from trouser-staining mortification but left me in no doubt that I was having a miscarriage.

I would like to say the next few hours were a blur. Unfortunately I remember it all with painstaking clarity. The call to my doctor friend who advised me to take a pregnancy test (it was positive), the call to out of hours for an appointment who helpfully called me an ambulance…. We were triaged in a corridor and I had to recount the whole sorry tale in full earshot of everyone else who was waiting to be seen in A & E on a busy Saturday. Despite being given a canula and a bed, I was sent home and told to return the following Monday with them unable to confirm that I was actually miscarrying.

When you go to the ultrasound clinic, you wait alongside happy expectant couples. It’s really shit. I knew, really, that there was no hope. But, you know, just maybe….

Ultrasounds in very early pregnancy aren’t terribly reliable so they prefer to go in the best route to get a really good picture – that’s right, through the vagina. It took our sonographer no time at all to break the news to us. There was a sac. There was no heartbeat. The sac was about the size of a five week baby, but that didn’t fit my dates – my last two periods had been long, light and abnormal. Most likely, I had been pregnant a little while longer and the baby died/stopped growing at about five weeks.

Early miscarriages are a breeze, right? Just like a heavy period. Lots of first pregnancies end in miscarriage and it’s so early that the expectant mother never even knows. That was not my experience. I continued bleeding and passing large clots for the best part of a fortnight. I constantly felt raw, tender and under physical assault. It was not like any period I had ever had.

I hadn’t got to know the baby, made a space for them in my lives, bonded with the tiny embryo growing inside me. I hadn’t made plans, told people, celebrated. Instead I found out I was pregnant and that I was no longer pregnant at the same moment. I was not losing something that had already become part of my current and future life. It had ended before it began. My loss was nothing compared with those who had got to know their babies, felt them kick, discussed names, then held their tiny, perfect but perfectly still bodies in their arms. But it was still a loss.

Life went on. I had some counselling. I cried. A lot. I held my daughter longer and harder than usual. I ate a lot of chocolate. I obviously didn’t really deal with it adequately because within a few months I was diagnosed with depression and prescribed anti-depressants. I was signed off sick from work and managed to find a new, less stressful job.

A few weeks into that job, I fell pregnant again. It stuck this time. But I didn’t believe it. I couldn’t celebrate and rejoice. I told no-one until my 12 week scan, but even then it didn’t seem real. Not until I held my second daughter in my arms could I truly accept it.

If that first tiny, tiny, not quite a baby had survived, I wouldn’t have had my passionate, tempestuous second daughter. I am one of the lucky ones. I have twice been blessed with two perfect, healthy girls. That doesn’t mean I don’t think about what could have been. About the baby whose life ended before it began. That loss changed me forever. It left a permanent mark. It still gives me a sharp ache if I touch it.

About 18 months after my loss, I returned to the community garden. I brought a candle to light in memory. It was bonfire night and the winds were high. I struggled to light the match and whatever I did, the wind snatched the flame before it had a chance to take light. It was over before it began.

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Mother to two wonderful girls. Writer, dancer, grammar pedant. Lover of cake, biscuits, tea, my family and friends.

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