My Miscarriage
This blog was written by one of our community members, Ruth Cobbin, in 2019. It remains just as important as it did two years ago. If you would like to read the blog on it’s original website, please click the button below. Otherwise, you can read the full blog below with no changes.
It’s taken me almost a year to find words. This is not a big or important story, but I want to share my experience because of the help and comfort I’ve found through reading about other people’s journeys through baby loss.
Sitting in my classroom after a tough day, a good teacher pal and I impulsively decide to book an all inclusive holiday to Majorca in six days time. It has been a long tough year for both of us, managing a bunch of mutinous Primary 6 and 7 rascals. As we sit, perusing the Jet2 website, I feel it’s only fair to let her know up front that I won’t be able to partake in the ‘full’ benefits of the all-inclusive deal due to the fact that I have just found out I’m ever so slightly pregnant. 5 weeks to be exact. She squeals with excitement and gives me a huge squeeze at the exact moment that one of our colleagues walks into the classroom to drop off some jotters. “Did I miss something?” she asks suspiciously. Teacher pal gives me an uncertain look… “We’re just so excited to be booking a holiday!” I chime in hastily. It’s too soon to share. I already know too well the risks.
This was my second pregnancy… It still feels strange to think that – I’ve been pregnant twice. The most significant experience of any woman’s life, and I’ve done it twice. Twice, I’ve peed on a stick and seen two terrifying little lines. Twice, I’ve shared the news with my husband. The first time was on Christmas Eve, I wrapped the (thoroughly washed) pee stick in festive wrapping paper. The second time I waited a week to tell him because I was so scared. Twice, I’ve found sneaky ways around not drinking at parties, seeing friends’ eyebrows raise – I’ve got to be up early, I’m driving tonight, I drank too much last night, this cocktail tastes funny, I’m saving money, I’m not feeling well, I’m pregnant (on NYE I just gave up the pretense). Twice, I’ve had morning sickness and sore boobs and all the horrifically wonderful signs that your body is doing a miracle.
My first pregnancy ended after 8 weeks, a Sunday night trip to A&E and a week of excruciating agony. No one ever talks about how much having a miscarriage bloody hurts! No-one ever talks about having a miscarriage full stop. We were gutted, deeply shaken and a little numb. We waited six months to start trying again.
8 months after that, standing in the beige-tiled bathroom of our villa in Majorca, I felt a tiny twinge. Not even as strong as a cramp. There was no bleeding this time, but I knew instinctively that something was different. Something was wrong. In the silent panic attack that followed, I cried out to God in a mixture of desperation and hope. I don’t remember everything I prayed but I remember this: Even if the worst happens Lord, I won’t give up on You.
A week after we got back, the Early Pregnancy Unit (aka the corridor of tears) confirmed a second miscarriage at 8 weeks. The doctors and midwives were far more brief and brusque this time. I was all business, I knew the drill. The white wraparound, the stirrups, the long metal probe… The first time was worse as they actually did the classic jelly on the stomach thing. Scenes from Friends kept flashing through my mind: Phoebe and the triplets, Ross in the stirrups (classic). I had a strong sense of morbid irony. They let me keep a picture of the ultrasound.
What I wasn’t prepared for, after either pregnancy, was the level of actual real grief I would feel… How can you miss a person who never existed? How can you feel so completely crushed by the loss of a baby you never met – nothing more than an idea, a promise, a glimpse of hope. We fell pregnant very quickly on both occasions (what a strange expression, as if ‘falling’ pregnant is like slipping on a banana peel). The second the result showed ‘pregnant’, it was like time slowed down, every day felt like a major event. My baby is the size of a lentil! A blueberry! A bean!…
But since the initial week after the loss, which was a physical and emotional torture unlike any other, grief has come in rolls and waves. In the first couple of months it was a weekly tsunami that hit without warning, taking my feet out from under me. All I could do was cry. I felt ridiculous for having such an over-reaction to something women have been experiencing for centuries and just getting on with – but it really didn’t feel like a choice. Granted, I am a pretty emotional person at the best of times and hormones are a never ending rollercoaster of adventure for me, but this was different. I was angry with my body, I was angry with God, but most of all I was furious with myself for hoping so hard and letting myself be so crushed. Twice.
As a student, I remember a couple from my church finding out they were pregnant and letting everyone know right away. They didn’t wait the recommended twelve weeks: We don’t want to be focussed on fear, they said. She ignored the commonly held advice about avoiding soft cheese and shellfish: I know I’m protected, she would say. I thought she was crazy. But now, I’m not so sure…*
Have you ever thought about the actual impact of the ‘dont tell anyone for 12 weeks’ rule? Not a rule as such, more of a widely held old wives tale – I saw it as a good luck charm – if I don’t tell anyone then nothing can go wrong… Everyone I know who has told me they were pregnant has had a happy ending… Except me. Am I the only person who has experienced this loss? Why is every other woman I know able to conceive and maintain a pregnancy as easily as if it were the most natural thing in the world? These questions still swim through my mind, filling me with feelings of failure and unworthiness. I’d heard rumours, whispers of other women who were like me… broken, sad people. It was a hushed and embarrassing topic, like looking at someone’s dirty underwear.
All I could think after my first miscarriage was, ‘I’m so glad I didn’t tell anyone about this, how humiliated would I be.’ A few weeks after that all I could think was, ‘I feel so alone’. The ‘twelve week rule’ relieves people of the awkwardness of what to say when a pregnancy ends, but leaves so many women feeling isolated and pathetic. I know this not just because I am one of them, but because I have trawled the darkness of every online forum for baby loss and read the shame between the lines. It makes a legitimate grief feel like an insignificant blip, unrelatable and not for public consumption. It puts pressure on partners to provide support without training. I recently read that 70% of relationships break down after baby loss.** Thankfully I have had an incredibly supportive, gracious and kind husband who has stood beside me through everything, but there is no roadmap for how to survive these things. You just have to hold on tightly to each other.
Now, almost a year after my first miscarriage and three months after my second, I’m starting to feel human again.
I have taken so much comfort from the gentle kindness of my friends, who pushed me to feel more, who have let me cry and laugh, who have distracted and delved deep, who brought chocolate and chocolate and more chocolate. It took me a while to tell my family – I think because I knew it would mean something to them, and I selfishly couldn’t share my sadness for a while. Plus there’s always the hideous question: “When do you think you’ll start trying again?” Please don’t ever ask that. I mean, I know you won’t because you’re not an idiot, but just please don’t.
I want to say a special thank you to my wonderful friend Emma, who lost her daughter Hope at 22 weeks after major pregnancy complications, who walked this path before me when there was no one to show her how. Thank you for teaching me how to honour my grief.
Life after loss is messy, and my faith was pretty shaken through all of it. I still have so many BIG questions… But in that bathroom moment in Majorca, when I felt like I was about to fall off a cliff, I found that I still had a rock to cling to. A quiet promise: strength for today and hope for tomorrow. That’s still there.
I’m writing this for anyone who has been through something similar to me, who has questioned everything they once believed and wants to come through the other side still seeing hope and goodness in the world. I’m working on that.
I hope that if you are experiencing baby loss, or any kind of grief, that you feel like you have permission to share it. You’re not alone. And I hope that if you haven’t been through it then this helps you to give compassion to someone who needs it.
Thank you for reading, Ruth
*For the record, I still think it’s properly crazy to ignore doctor’s advice about what foods to avoid, it’s not that hard to go nine months without pate!
**In case you don’t know, ‘baby loss’ is a term used to describe miscarriage, eptopic and molar pregnancy, still birth and infant loss. THe 70% statistic came from the Mariposa Trust website.