Talking about baby loss

I wrote this blog back in May and wasn’t quite sure when I’d get ‘round’ (*pluck up the courage) to publish it – I thought at the time that maybe Baby Loss Awareness Week would be a good time but then thought it was ages away – and yet here I am, about to hit publish, still anxious about publically acknowledging my loss….

We recently celebrated my son’s 2nd birthday (albeit in lockdown) and shortly after what would have been the 3rdbirthday of a child that barely made it past 24 hours of a positive pregnancy test. I can’t really say it was a celebration; I don’t talk to anyone about it and even my husband flinches when I tell him what day it would have been. I’m 4 years on and I’ve started this blog more times that I can remember but I struggle so much to find the words to talk about it. I am one of the ‘lucky ones’ - I am blessed with the most beautiful little boy that I could ever have wished for and I am so thankful to have him yet I still yearn for the babies who didn’t arrive (I had 3 pregnancy losses, all at 5 weeks and 1 day).

So how do we talk about loss? As a therapist (who’s in therapy herself trying to work all this out) I’m confused by how much secrecy pregnancy loss is shrouded in. Writing this blog I feel a sense of shame, I shouldn’t be writing it – my losses were too early, they were just cells, I’d not seen their heart beat or had chance to start to bond with them and I certainly didn’t feel pregnant on any occasion. And yet when I think about those moments after the first result, the walk I took with a head full of fantasies of what would be, of signing up on the pregnancy apps, the text my husband sent me telling me I was ‘going to be a mummy’, I’m left breathless with a searing pain I find hard to describe. I still cry when I think about the day I met my first nephew (he arrived on the day of my second loss) and the heartbreak I felt and the terrifying fear that I would never get to hold a baby of my own.

My losses stole my innocence; I hear loved ones (& even distant ones) share their news of pregnancy and straight away I hear a voice pleading in my head with some unknown power not to take this woman’s baby away; it’s a terror that strikes through to the core of me. I struggle to feel happy at any announcement; instead caught up in a weird cocktail of fear, jealousy and shame. My own experience of pregnancy was one full of fear; one that left me convinced at every turn I would lose my baby - I lived in a constant state of anxiety, even when I was in labour, convinced that he would be taken away. It still happens sometimes now if I am honest, an intrusive thought hitting me like a train of all the horrific ways he can be taken from us. I’m not sure if this is because of my losses or if I’d be like this anyway – I don’t have a litmus to compare it to but it’s no fun having these thoughts ruin my moments with my boy. 

I wanted to write this to encourage us to talk about it – 1 in 4 pregnancies that we know about end in loss so we are all affected by this. Some women don’t want to talk and some women may prefer to wait until 12 weeks to share their news and that is absolutely their right and I respect them for that. For some of us though, the belief we should wait until we have had a healthy scan just alienates us in the loneliest grief of all; how can my baby matter to the world if I wasn’t even supposed to share her existence? What’s wrong with me that I still cry now 4 years (& 1 beautiful healthy boy) later for all that we lost? I had only just found out so why should I feel the need to grieve? These are all the unhelpful questions I battle with in my most dark moments – I continue each day to fight to bring them in to the light so I can see how much full of nonsense they really are; I was a Mummy as soon as I got that result, I just had to wait a really long time until I could hold one of my babies in my arms. Please, if you know someone who has suffered a loss, acknowledge it, yes it may be painful and uncomfortable but there is no pain more excruciating that thinking your baby (cluster of cells as others may well perceive this to be) didn’t matter to the world. My babies mattered to me, I fell in love with a fantasy of them the moment I saw those lines appear and I will carry them in my heart always. 

Leaving Neverland

This week saw the airing of the much talked about Leaving Neverland documentary, a hugely powerful and insightful look in to the experience of two young men who were groomed and sexually abused as children. The perpetrator was one, if not the most famous pop star in the world and although its not the first time we have heard claims that Michael Jackson was a paedophile, it was a deeply honest and detailed account of how abuse can take place in plain sight.

I’ve worked with survivors of childhood sexual abuse for well over 10 years, but I too had questions, as a mother, why you’d ever let your child sleep with an adult man, but the documentary provided an enlightening view of how clever and patient paedophiles can be in the grooming process. At the height of his fame, Jackson took these families in, using his influence to befriend them, to lull them in to a false sense of security and to use his own childhood to perpetuate the myth that he was a real-life Peter Pan. The documentary illustrated how calculated perpetrators can be and although I would still like to believe that I would never put my own child at risk, I do have more of an understanding as to how you can be taken in by the magic of the Michael Jackson world.

Wade Robson and James Safechuck told a chilling and all too familiar narrative of the ‘love’ a survivor feels for their perpetrator; the relationship is never as simple as ‘you hurt me, you stole my childhood and have left with me many scars and therefore I hate you’ but rather much more complex. I have supported a number of individuals to understand and come to terms with the constant push and pull impact the perpetrator has on their lives. The shame and confusion a survivor feels at still feeling some sort ‘connection’ with their own monster is often palpable. Many survivors often don’t recognise their experiences as abuse and believe that they were part of a ‘consenting’ relationship. From my experience, I don’t for one second question the truth Robson and Safechuck told on the basis that they both denied claims in the past; it’s understandable they wanted to protect and save Michael Jackson; that’s how powerful the control is that he had over them.

I feel hugely angry at those still questioning the ‘truth’; using the argument that Jackson isn’t here to defend himself or that those two incredibly brave men are ‘in it for the money’. I’d implore people to ask how they would feel if it was their brother, son, father, husband or best friend; what would then be considered as ‘hard evidence’ that it happened. We live in a world today where we estimate 1 in 3 women and 1 in 6 men will experience some form of sexual abuse in their lifetimes; it is our duty to create an environment that people can speak up, can talk about abuse and can report abuse without fear of further abuse. I applaud Dan Reed for giving survivors a platform to speak about their experiences; hopefully this will be the conduit for change and will encourage more people to speak out; abuse happens in isolation; recovery is in connection.