On The Subject Of Miscarriage (Unfinished)
I'm not quite sure when it all set in, that the life inside me was no more. But I remember the conformation of what I had known for the past four weeks of my pregnancy was something of a relief. As I lay on the hospital bed in the scan room, clutching at my husband's hand and looking between him, my two year old, and the scan screen, I waited with baited breath for the worst.
And it came.
'I just need to get a second opinion. The baby is measuring smaller than I'd expect at this stage and I can't find a heartbeat.'
There it was.
As the sonographer left the room, I let out a breath, feeling the sting of tears in my eyes.
'I knew it,' I told my husband. 'I told you something was wrong.'
He was quiet, holding our daughter who was looking around the room in confusion, so many things for her to get her hands on to play with. She could sense something was wrong. She'd always been so in tune with the emotions around her.
I'd called the midwifery suite out of hours service four weeks previous and told them something felt… not wrong, but certainly not right. They'd gone through the checklist and assured me that I wouldn't be feeling anything yet and as long as I had morning sickness - and by God I did - everything would be ok, but if I wanted to I could call my GP and ask for a gynecology referral on Monday.
But I was only ten weeks gone when I rang them, I had no bump, no feeling of a spark growing inside me as I did with my first, and I knew deep in my belly something wasn't right. The morning sickness was too much, I wasn't getting cramps, but I wasn't having bleeding or any signs of miscarriage so I had to wait four excruciating weeks until my overdue twelve week scan.
With my first, I'd had a scan at six weeks in. I'd been ill, more than morning sickness ill, I'd been having cramps and bleeding and, as I sat in the green room of the A&E department, the doctor who saw me told me to prepare myself for the possibility of a miscarriage or ectopic pregnancy.
'Hi, I'm the senior sonographer here. I'm just going to take a look at your baby.'
I nodded my head, unable to speak, fingers curling around my husband's hand.
I kept my eyes fixed on the screen, on my beautiful, perfect little thing inside me. I could see it's bulbous head, and legs curled up under it. But it wasn't dancing like my first had, and there was no thumping heartbeat.
'You're measuring at about ten weeks. How long gone do you think you should be?' the senior asked me.
'About fourteen weeks according to the app on my phone,' I replied.
She was silent, blonde hair clipped back with a brown toothy grip. I'd never been able to pull off that style, my hair was too fine.
Stinging turned to brimming of tears as she confirmed what I had felt. The baby wasn't viable, no heartbeat and no placenta.
I can't remember the words my husband and I exchanged as we were escorted to a small side room to wait for another nurse or doctor. The room smelt like wet paint, just like my old high school did even though it hadn't been painted since twelve years previous.
The first tissues I used to dry my eyes were then used to squeeze my anger out on.
What had I done wrong? Why hadn't I pushed for an early scan? Why hadn't I argued over only being seen by my midwife every six weeks instead of four like with my first? Had I stressed myself out too much? Had I eaten something I should have? Did I take one too many paracetamol to deal with my sickness?
And then I was angry at the universe for taking away something I wanted so much.
And then the worst thought hit me. Maybe I was being punished for not wanting it enough? I'd had my doubts. The two bed flat we lived in was too small for another baby. I couldn't continue to breastfeed my two year old and a newborn. I couldn't keep going to college for my foundation degree whilst heavily pregnant. Could we afford it?
Something had listened to every doubt I'd had and had punished me for daring to think such things.
Then the nurse came in, she was sympathetic but this was her job, it wasn't personal to her. Her words were like a script and there was so much awkward silence.
Then my two year old began to play and laugh and talk to us all, and I looked at her and thought how lucky I am to have her when there are many who have been through what I was going through now and would never have what I had in my daughter.
The nurse explained I'd had what is called a missed or silent miscarriage. My stupid, lazy body didn't even realised my baby was dead. It had been making me sick and making me crave gherkins and making me feel broody for four weeks for nothing.
I was angry again, and completely lost when the nurse said I had to decide what to do next.
Couldn't the ground just swallow me up before I had to make the decision?
I could let my body pass the remains naturally, but that could take weeks. I thought of that. Me, sitting on the toilet as my body shed it's insides and with it, my baby. Then what? Flush it away like a dead goldfish?
Second option, have it medically managed. Sucked and vacuumed from me like dirt from a floor.
Third, induce the bleeding with a pessary.
All the options made me so angry. They were invasive and unapologetic to my grief. Why did I have to bleed? Why did I have to lose my agency over my own body's functions? Why did I have to have something shoved in me?
We were escorted out of a side door of the sonography wing, so I didn't have to go through the crowd of parents eagerly awaiting to see their babies for maybe the first time or the last time until they met them face to face.
I had to pee. I'd been waiting with a full bladder to help the scan, and now even that annoyed me. Discomfort for nothing.
When I came out the bathroom, my husband was slumped on the floor, back against the wall, tears welling in his eyes behind his glasses as our daughter wondered the lavender corridor a few paces ahead.
I called her to me and picked her up, wishing I didn't ever have to let her go.
I can't remember what I said to my husband, other than "I was right."
I can't process other people's emotions. I can't feign sympathy or empathy, so all I did was hug him.
Everything felt cold, robotic as we made our way back to the car. The nurse we spoke to in the room kindly remembered as an afterthought to give us a scan picture, the only glimpse we would ever have of our child.
It's hung now in a box frame, tucked in with a pressed rose and a feather. It sits between a picture of my step daughter and my first born.
My husband said we should spend the afternoon together. I was meant to be going to college with a smile as I remembered the look of my little baby inside me. But instead I sent my tutor an email saying there was no need to fill out the health and safety forms relating to my pregnancy anymore.
We went to a friend's house. She made us a cup of tea and a cup of coffee for my husband and we talked and I told her I was lost about what to do now. She'd had three miscarriages, one in between each live birth. She told me the best thing to do was get it over and done with and after listening and thinking, I agreed. I'd never felt more appreciation of my friend than at that moment.
The next morning when I got a call from the hospital I told them I wanted it medically managed. I had to go in that afternoon to sign paperwork and then, the completion of my miscarriage would have anytime from 7am the next morning.
It was a Friday. I'd had my scan on the Wednesday. In two days, my baby went from being alive and over a third of the way through my pregnancy, to being dead and about to be sucked from me.
I sat with my husband and our daughter in a tiny room in the gynaecology unit of the hospital, stripping off and getting into a pair of paper pants and two hospital gowns. At least my arse wasn't going to be hanging out for everyone to see.
The surgeon who was going to be working on me came in, she admired my little girls unicorn adorned Wellington boots and my little girl loved her.
I tried to smile and laugh whilst my husband was still there, but when I got loaded onto a bed and he had to leave, being told when to collect me like a kid from school, I felt alone and scared. I chatted with the nurses as they wheeled me up to the pre surgery unit. I shook as I was abandoned in an open wing off the side of a corridor. A kind male nurse offered me warm heated blankets and asked if I wanted a magazine. It felt insulting to be offered that like I was waiting for dentist appointment or my car to be fixed in the garage, but I appreciated his smile and soft tone.
My pulse was checked again and noted as a bit high. Of course, I was shaking like a leaf as I was wheeled into the next room. There were three people in it, all dressed in green scrubs with surgical masks draped around their necks. One was the kind blonde surgeon I'd met earlier that morning. She told me they were going to put a mask over my face and when I woke up, I might have a sore throat from the tube they were going to put down my mouth.
Great. More invasion of my body. More pain to go with the emptiness and more reminders of what was happening.
The mask was applied. I tried to breath normally.
I was scared of the anaesthetic. What if I woke up halfway through? What if I didn't wake up at all? What if I had a horrific nightmare? But I knew the later wouldn't happen. I'd spent a good hour googling the effects of anaesthetic and knew it didn't put you into the right part of your sleep cycle for you to dream, even if some people claimed it had.
There was no counting backwards like they do in medical dramas. Just the sound of beeping from the heart monitor and then me waking up in recovery, disoriented, sleepy, and empty.
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