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.