Mum’s the word on pregnancy loss
I can catch a glance of myself in the mirror and I look very drained at the moment. It is amazing how you can try to hide things but to be honest, I tend to wear everything I feel on my face anyway. I am trying to hide something, because we are not really meant to talk about it.
Mum’s the word on pregnancy loss after all. How fitting!
We shy away from telling anyone we are expecting until the twelve-week mark, that is the unwritten rule. It makes a lot of sense. Things may not go to plan, things can get complicated and if you tell the whole world your happy news and then something goes wrong, you then have the heartache of having to let everyone know.
But then there is heartache anyway and where is the support?
In my late twenties I fell pregnant twice, in each instance I had uncomplicated pregnancies with fairly easy births and two healthy babies. That was all I knew of pregnancy and I took it totally for granted. In the Autumn of last year, Mr. T and I had our first positive but sadly it was short lived and I miscarried very early. I was devastated. It was an early pregnancy loss and I appreciated that others face far greater challenges with harder journeys and later losses. I already had two children with my ex-husband; I felt greedy and also unable to grieve what was hardly mine in the first place. But inside, my heartache was very real.
I had told a few close family members and friends that I was expecting and they supported us with the loss. It all happened around the time my daughter was having an operation and so I put it down to ‘bad timing’ and moved on. As women, we are meant to soldier on during these particularly tough times; you have to pick yourself back up, put on a brave face and pretend to everyone that nothing has happened. Why? Why are we so focussed on everyone else’s feelings of discomfort at bad news that we fail to address our own feelings on such things? I hid it all, just so not to upset others but I upset myself as a result. Bottling up grief, of any kind and in any circumstance, does not help the process: that was something that I learnt only too well from previous life experiences. Only a couple of months later and I took a test which showed the word that I had longed to see again. After my early miscarriage, I can’t deny that I was a nervous wreck but a few weeks passed and all seemed well. Again, the same few close family members and friends knew, all offering supportive words of encouragement that things would be different this time. This was a new pregnancy and a fresh start.
I too began to feel more positive.
Everything did feel very different but then suddenly it wasn’t. One evening, after collapsing at home I was admitted to hospital and underwent surgery to remove one fallopian tube and a little bean that had got its directions very wrong. Everything happened so fast. One minute you are pregnant and just beginning to plan this new life in your head and the next you are in post op recovery, beaten, bruised, confused and back to square one. To try and sum up my feelings, I would say I felt robbed and heartbroken while feeling mentally and physically (literally) torn to bits. They don’t mess around with ectopic pregnancies and neither should they but the invasiveness of it all, at a time when you are emotionally broken from the news that a pregnancy is not viable, is traumatic to say the least.
Once again in my life, I sought the words of other women on online forums - so many women all feeling the same trauma as I felt and also feeling the same sense of isolation. We all had a gasping need to find a place to talk because, we simply do not feel we can discuss pregnancy loss out loud.
At home, I hid from the world but I did decide to tell friends this time. I had undergone an operation and I would be less mobile for a bit, parents at school might notice my absence and I was not about to lie. This has happened to me and what was the point of hiding from it? If I had had any other type of operation people would know and friends would rally, why should this be any different?
And do you know what? It is okay to talk about pregnancy loss, IF you WANT or NEED to. I understand that it is a difficult topic to broach but perhaps if we talk a little more about it, then less women will suffer in silence or feel embarrassed. I felt embarrassment and that is totally and utterly wrong. People can be scared to mention the terrifying topic of miscarriage and then as a result we end up ignoring it completely.
When you share a story, you will find that others share theirs. This blog has taught me that. I was amazed how many friends had been through something themselves or known a family member or a friend who had also experienced a loss. Talking, helps others to talk. And more often than not, people are relieved to lift the burden and finally offload the secret they have been carrying with them too.
Long after the scars heal on the outside, we can still feel the ones that we are left with on the inside. They are simply invisible to the world. If it helps to talk, then talk and if it doesn’t then mum’s the word.
For those suffering with pregnancy loss I have listed some websites and groups:
https://www.ectopic.org.uk
https://www.miscarriageassociation.org.uk
https://www.facebook.com/groups/275366965831264/
http://www.sad.scot.nhs.uk/bereavement/pregnancy-loss-stillbirth-and-neonatal-death/
