A SILENT MISCARRIAGE
January 2021
A week ago today they told me my baby had died. Three intolerable words ‘there’s no heartbeat’, repeated twice. An empty, emotionless observation from a woman I had just met. The following ‘I’m so sorry your baby must have died’ at least carried clarity and a nod in the direction of the devastation I was hurtling towards. Moments of incredulous disbelief, a desperate clutching at the possibility this stranger was mistaken, closely followed by a horrendous wave of understanding that she wasn’t. The urge to wage a war rose and fell with the knowledge that it would be futile and fated.
Some time later I parked the car, let myself into our home and howled with a grief and anguish that may have reached next door and definitely upset the cat. Our local cat, the adored pet of a neighbour, is more perturbed then I’ve ever seen him, pacing and prowling, curled around my legs in a protective act of warmth that I choose to call kindness. A heart-breaking phone call with my husband, groggy and unrecognisable in the post-operative haze of well medicated organ donation. And a devastating call to my mother setting in motion a wave of love and support that will carry me through.
Hours pass in a way that I can’t make sense of now. The impossibility and necessity of processing the announcement ‘your baby has died’. It’s such a horror, an abomination of news snatching at a life you thought was living, stealing a future already in motion. Our wonderful, longed for future, gone in a puff of smoke. The contentedly kicking in utero replaced by a still and curled up silence. No one wants to see that scan photo. And I didn’t stick around long enough to ask, so it never was but always will be indelibly inked on my mind. A little spiral of a being that has gone quiet. An apostrophe of life we thought was destined to be our first child.
~
A no man’s land of time. Punctuated by the first pill I must take to herald in the miscarriage my body should have engineered. My husband, still groggy in a doped-up haze, doesn’t know what is happening. He knows our baby has died but details including the news that I will be joining him in hospital are yet to be shared. A single night of bewildered grief and I become focused on staying held together. An earlier call with the hospital has made it clear I will have to go back. It’s the last place I want to be. Having to go feels like punishment for something I have failed to do.
The midwife, Helen, is kind and I will forever feel strangely bonded by a night we intermittently shared. She was, however, not the best at taking blood. Overzealous with a tourniquet and shaky with a needle; an unfortunate combination. She did her best but unfortunately made rather a hash of it and I let the side down by nearly fainting. Who knows if it’s the stress of this but as the room veered back into view I became aware I felt completely horrendous.
Pain is subjective in a way that is impossible to measure or truly remember but I would say the next half hour or so was the worst I’ve ever felt. A mix of hot and clammy followed by cold shivering with no energy to keep up with each alternating state. Accompanied by near constant toe curling, gut wrenching agony as cramp after cramp descend. I dimly remember breathing in little puffs of air desperately trying to ease and monitor the pain. At some point I know I went into making odd low murmuring sounds that again seemed designed to distract and sooth. Tea and toast were replaced by nirvana inducing codeine. Before Helen went to get those precious little pills, I remember her gazing down at me dispassionately assessing the storm. There’s no price you can pay for the ability of a skilled and experienced professional to do that. To take away that pain. Hallelujah.
Once the pain receded, I felt like a new woman. Euphoric energy and gratitude flooded my system. I was elated with the relief of a person unburdened by pain. To stand tall and not curled in a ball was a joyous revelation. I tidied my hastily discarded clothes into a neat and orderly pile, made the bed and set up a station of my kindle, phones and charger so everything was near to hand should another bout of hellishness hit. Finally, I ate the most incredible cold white sliced toast and warm butter that I have ever had the privilege to come across. Bloodletting forgotten. Helen, the bearer of the toast, was clearly an angel.
A few hours on and I finally fall into a hazy intermittent sleep. Helen arrives with ‘a chaperone’ to insert the next pill. I’m groggy but remembering earlier I try again to give autonomy a go. I don’t know why this muscle is hard for me to flex, in these moments, I want to flow into making everything seamless. No disruption or snag will come from me. A fluid slide with little effort shall be allowed to pass and I will not cause a ripple.
I give myself permission to ask if I can go to the toilet before they go ahead. Helen, being a human and not a monster, says of course. In that moment, as my bladder and cervix relax, I can tell that something has happened. Helen comes in and protectively suggests I may want to go back to bed but something in me knows I need to stay. I am half asleep and this must feel real. I need to know what has happened. I ask if I can watch and she checks to be sure I am up for this. I nod and lean against the bath as we both look closely to see what’s there.
I am so grateful that from the beginning the word baby was used. It made my loss feel valid and legitimate and I know that for me, a reference to a fetus would have felt cruel and cold. But in that moment as I looked down at our little one, I knew that they were not yet a baby. They would have been but for now they were just a little being, not quite here, not quite there, who I could have held in the palm of my hand. I could see all their limbs and form with a head they hadn’t grown into. The placenta blossoming large alongside; a parachute not quite opened in time. I was and am so glad I looked. For me, it helped.
~
It’s a bright, cold, and beautiful January day as I walk towards my mother ready to be taken home. I feel exhausted and groggy but flooded with relief. What had to be done is done. I know that I have had the best version of an experience that could have been so much worse and lasted for so much longer. A strange sort of blessing but a blessing nonetheless. I look forward to being taken care of. To allow myself to be a child for a while. To be mothered now for my loss of a chance to be a mother myself.
How to explain the layers of unpeeling, processing and reflection that happen next? Perhaps all I can say is that my mother’s capacity and willingness to listen and take care of me was boundless. I felt gently steered off the rocks and held in calmer shallows until I began to be ready to go to sea again. The mothership truly, carrying the hurt and loss of her own grief but still somehow managing to be there for me and mine. I learnt to cry in an unguarded, raw, and stumbling way that felt hard to have witnessed but cleansed and helped every single time. Each day something new to ponder and trawl through but a gradual easing as time, rest and peace offered their gifts to my mind, body, and heart.
Three weeks on and the tension in my jaw that still kicks in when I tell this story has eased. The yoke of intense pressure across my shoulders and neck has also softened. And the bleeding has, touch wood, finally stopped. I felt ready to go for my first run yesterday. A laborious but much needed slow-paced movement through the hills and snow. I last ran the morning of that fateful scan, another world ago. Another beautiful, bright, and cold January day. Our little one with me but this time gone. I miss them so much. For the future they would have brought but right now, for the companionship they gave me when they were here. They, and this whole experience, have changed me in ways that I know will continue to unfold and be positive despite the sadness. I am so grateful for that and feel blessed to have been, even just briefly, alongside.
Photo credit: Susi Petherick
