Buying a present

A friend of mine had a baby a few weeks ago. A good friend, one of the ones who knew I was pregnant.

I am so happy for her, and the pics on Facebook suggest he is a gorgeous little boy. He's over four weeks old now, I am so happy for her but I just couldn't face seeing a newborn baby just yet.

Making plans to meet tomorrow  though. I think I'll be up for it - I may get a little tearful, but she'll understand.

So with those plans underway, I decided I needed to get her a present. I already had a book bought for her older child not to feel left out, so just a baby gift needed.

I took E shopping with me which was a great distraction - trying to stop her shoplifting is a full-time job all by itself! It was hard, though. Beautiful baby outfits in teeny tiny sizes.

In the end I bought a winter suit in 6-12 month size, it'll probably fit him before winter is out - my friend makes big babies.

The teeny tiny ones were just too much to bear, a little too heartbreaking to look at. I love my friend, but I can't help wishing I was buying something for my own baba.

What a miscarriage feels like

I knew about miscarriages before. I knew about them vaguely, like the way I know about the electoral college system that elects the president in the US, and seventies music. Even though my mother had a late one, at around 5 months, and I can remember being 5 years old and waiting for the ambulance to come and take her to hospital. And yet I still didn't know. I didn't really know.

When I got the news that my baby had no heartbeat and had never developed past about 6 weeks, I was sent home to see if my body would naturally miscarry. I was told I could come in to hospital when it started happening, and to ring them if the bleeding got heavier than a period, and if it didn't happen in that week they would recommend a D&C. At the time I was too busy being heartbroken to really think about the details.

For a few days I was ok, the bleeding continued in the light, on-and-off fashion that it had for over a week at that stage. Then I was in town and I felt an overwhelming urge to go home. This was the Wednesday afternoon. On Thursday I got cramps. Bad cramps. Much worse than period pains, and for many years I had the sort of period pains that meant I had to gobble Nurofen plus and lie in bed cuddling a hot water bottle for two days every month or so.

My labour with E was induced, and went from early to serious very fast due to the syntocin drip, and I got pethidine and an epidural and that's another story, but the early cramps, the early labour contractions - that's what this felt like.

I am not comparing a 12 week miscarriage to having to give birth to a stillborn infant. And yet I did feel, as I sat hunched over the toilet, then E's potty so I could keep an eye on how much blood I lost, that I was having contractions. They came hard and fast for a while, and I rang the hospital and told them I wanted to stay at home, and they said that was ok, which is good at least. I didn't want to take painkillers. I didn't want to dull the pain; I needed to feel it. To have a physical manifestation of the desperate ache I felt inside.

I don't know when I lost the little sac with what was left of my baby inside it. I did lose lots of clots. And lots of blood. I felt wrecked, physically and emotionally. After about three or four hours the pains subsided. I drank tea and I cried, and I tried to sleep though I didn't manage to do much of that.

The next day I had some more bleeding and some more clots. Then there was a nice day in between, the Saturday, a break. Before two more days in which there were several hours of cramps that were more like contractions, and bleeding and big clots. The pains, the cramps that were more like contractions, like labour pains went away when I law down. The best way to keep it going was to stand up, to walk around, to stand at the counter and peel potatoes for dinner. To pick up my beautiful girl and hug her.

On the Monday I had another appointment, another scan. Officially to confirm the miscarriage, to check there was no growth. But I knew at that stage, I knew the week before, that all hope was lost. The scan showed that there was still a thick endometrial lining, and they recommended a D&C, but I argued and asked to be let finish miscarrying myself, naturally. I had come this far, after all. They agreed and asked me to come back in two weeks.

That afternoon was the last day of serious pains and clots, as my husband and I planted a cherry blossom tree in the garden. It should flower in late April or early May next year, around the time the baby was due. It sounds weird maybe, but though I didn't have the sac I did save some of the clots, and buried them beneath the tree. I figure they may have been pieces of placental tissue, as they looked like the post-partum clots I passed after having E. And if they were, then maybe they'd have had the baby's blood in them. A little bit of her to live on and nourish the tree and feed its flowers through the winter and next spring.

So that's what it felt like, for me, to have a miscarriage. More like labour than a period, which I had never considered before. I hope I never have to experience anything like that again. But I am glad it was able to happen naturally, rather than go in for surgery and go to sleep and wake up a little later with my uterus scraped and cleaned. I know for a lot of women it's easier that way so I am not making any judgements or criticising. I'm just saying that for me, I had to let my body finish it the way it had started it. The pains, the blood loss, they helped me deal with what I was feeling. I had to do it that way to say goodbye. I felt like a cavewoman, I didn't want to leave the house for a few days and even when I did, when the pains returned I craved my couch. I needed to be in my own space.

Inside me (poem)

Inside me


Inside me
A little baby
Died

Lived
For a little
While

Hope
Dreams
Of a future

Not to be
Not this time
Not
This baby

Because
Inside me
My little baby
Died.

As I lost her
I cried.
I carried her
Inside
Loved her dearly
Thought of her sweetly
But
She died.

Grieving as an atheist

I am an atheist.

I don't believe in a god or gods. I don't believe in an afterlife. Or should I say, I don't see any evidence, any reason, why I should believe in those things. I'm not a big fan of faith. I don't believe because I can't.

When I was at the hospital today, I was handed a collection of leaflets. Some were information about an inter-denominational service in memory of the lost babies. Some were poems, none had names attached.

They made me cry, because my emotions were raw. They also slightly annoyed me, however.

The poems, the remembrance service all assumed belief in a comforting Jesus or other godly figure, holding these little angel babies close and singing them lullabies. A god who took my baby back because he could not bear to be without my little one. I'm supposed to bear the loss in his stead?

In one of the poems a line was repeated several times - "Do not question God".

I do not believe that my lost little one had a soul that is now with god, or anywhere. I don't believe in the soul. I don't want to be told that my baby died because it was "God's plan" or "God's way" and ours is not to question why.

I'm sure there was a good reason for the miscarriage. A chromosomal abnormality of some sort. The baby maybe never developed past 6 weeks because s/he couldn't. Maybe there was never a heartbeat because there was never a heart? I don't know, I never will. I can only speculate.

For some, the speculation might lead them to a belief in a divine being that gently cares for the little one until a time of reuniting. For me, no. I don't even find much comfort in the idea. It gives me a bad feeling, far from comfort. More like anger, bile rising to the back of my throat.

In sadness we rage, against the universe and ourselves. Against the chaos and the cruelty. Of course we should question why, and wonder what might have been. That doesn't mean we'll ever find an answer, but to wonder and ask and explore is human nature.

The rational, reasonable atheist side of me is irritated that this type of literature is given out as standard to women who are grieving and vulnerable, without asking the simple question first "Are you religious?".

The grieving mother atheist part of me is sad, and angry that these poems and religious literature talk of a time when I will see my baby again, when I know that isn't so. It made me sad all over again, in a whole other way.

This in turn adds to the irritation on the side of the rational side of me. And I am sure this is something that I will face again in the future when faced with loss, as the only inevitable part of life is that people die.

Some may say to their lost little ones, "Au revoir - till we meet again". I may only say "Goodbye."

This day two years ago...

... I was in a cinema, watching the film Due Date. The 5th of November, 2010 was my due date for E, so it was an appropriately titled, if not particularly funny, film for the day, which was why we went to see it. In the end E arrived a few days later.

This year, it's a little different. I'm sitting on my couch writing sad poetry and blog posts, after a final hospital appointment which confirmed my miscarriage was over, or complete, my uterus is now empty. And so is my heart.

Ok, that's melodramatic. My heart isn't empty. I have many things that make me happy and that make me feel fulfilled. However, I will never get to meet this baby, this child that shall never be, and that is truly heartbreaking. I will never stop wondering what might have been. I will always wish that I hadn't had to experience any of this pain.

Dealing with Miscarriage

Lots has happened since I last posted.

I discovered I was pregnant.

I was too tired to post on the blog; tiredness seems to be what pregnancy does to me. No sickness, just exhaustion.

So I rested when I could, I ate well, I walked in the fresh air and I looked forward. I bought some cute cloth nappies on ebay. I imagined wrapping them around his or her little legs and waist. I wondered at the tinyness of them. I opened the books of baby names and searched for strong names with meaningful meanings.

I continued to feel tired, I continued to rest. At ten and a half weeks, I got a fright - I went to the toilet and wiped a little streak of brown blood. I told myself not to panic. So many people get bleeds and everything is fine. This was a Saturday at lunchtime. I went to the doctor on the Monday morning, but it was a week before the Gynae could see me. The bleeding stopped and started. Every time I went to pee if there was blood I felt deep terror; if there wasn't I felt a return to calm, and hope at least. I tried not to wonder about my lack of a growing belly; I convinced myself it was because I am much fitter now than when I was pregnant with E.

I got on with my life that week. I picked up my grandmother - E's great grandmother - from the airport. I went to Aldi and filled a trolley with shopping, I read the employment lists, I sent texts to friends, including a couple to whom I told the full story.

I went to my appointment, I read a book in the waiting area and virtually ignored my husband, not daring to talk or think about anything but a positive possibility.

The scan showed no heartbeat. The nurse suggested an internal scan, and of course I agreed, but at that stage, I knew. I KNEW. I knew what a nearly 12 week old foetus should look like. It should have looked like a little baby. Instead, it looked like a little blob. And there was no sound, on either scan. No Thump! Thump! Thurmp! of a little beating heart.

I was told the baby stopped developing at around 6 weeks, so I had carried her (I decided she was a she...for no apparent reason other than that's what it felt like I was carrying) for more than six weeks since she died. A missed miscarriage, is what that's called. Not a great name really, but not sure there are words that could really describe it, so I suppose maybe it's as good a name as any.

I felt very supported by my family, including my in-laws, some close friends, both IRL (In Real Life) and Online - women I have never met, though I hope to someday, who comforted me with texts and phone calls and supportive messages and emails and real, live hugs.

My next posts will continue to cover my experience of losing my baby. Thank you for reading, if you do, and I hope you never have to experience this. If you have, you have my sympathy. It is a dark, twisting pain. I will be ok, but I will never forget the baby that never was.

I am a woman, I am a feminist. Feminist means I think that women should have equal rights and opportunities as men.

I have a daughter. I want her to know that she is every bit as good and able as a boy to do whatever the hell she wants in life. So many girls' t-shirts, dresses, toys say things like "princess". Princess isn't much of a job. It basically means sitting there waving at people while wearing a pretty dress. Meanwhile, boys' clothes say stuff like "pirate" or "pilot". I tell my little girl she can be an engineer, a ninja, a psychologist, a doctor, a zookeeper, an artist, an international jewel-thief, an astronaut....whatever she wants really. 

Even if she wants to be a princess, fair enough. But she's not going to have it thrust upon her. She's clever, she's beautiful, she can be anything she wants to be.