{"id":664,"date":"2016-10-14T12:30:05","date_gmt":"2016-10-14T12:30:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/imperialighi.wordpress.com\/?p=664"},"modified":"2019-03-29T10:50:31","modified_gmt":"2019-03-29T10:50:31","slug":"life-after-miscarriage-one-year-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/ighi\/2016\/10\/14\/life-after-miscarriage-one-year-on\/","title":{"rendered":"Life after miscarriage – one year on"},"content":{"rendered":"

By guest blogger, Alex, from That Butterfly Effect<\/a>\u00a0to mark Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day<\/a> on Saturday 15th October\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"The 6th October marked a rather sad day for me and for my little family. On this day in 2015, I was admitted to hospital for a procedure called ERPC which stands for Evacuation of Retained Products of Conception and means a surgical removal of the remains of a pregnancy. It was a day that I had never thought I would ever have to experience and yet it happened to us. Just as it happens to more than one in five pregnancies in the UK every year \u2013 around a quarter of a million each year\u2026<\/p>\n

This second pregnancy started off wonderfully well, just as the first one. A bit of nausea, very sore breasts and some fatigue experienced during the day but overall, I felt really great. This carried on for a few weeks and then, suddenly, all the symptoms stopped, around week six or seven. I found the sudden disappearance of the soreness of breasts particularly worrying \u2013 I just had this feeling in my gut that this was way too early for them to stop hurting. And so what I did next was what we\u2019re always told not to do \u2013 I googled the symptoms. There were quite a few forums with similar topic threads and the women discussed that dreaded M-word. Miscarriage.<\/p>\n

Missed miscarriage (when the baby stops growing inside you but isn\u2019t expelled from your body) was mentioned there and some things just clicked in my head. \u201cThis is exactly what has happened to me.\u201d So I confided in my husband. He was concerned about me worrying and looked into miscarriage, but from a more pragmatic point of view, looking into \u2018scientific\u2019 evidence behind a sudden loss of pregnancy symptoms. There was nothing there to suggest a miscarriage could be easily \u2018diagnosed\u2019 simply by the loss of symptoms \u2013 there are just too many factors caused by hormonal changes happening in all stages of pregnancy. In my heart though, I just knew something was not \u2018right\u2019. The rational and optimistic part of me wanted to listen to my husband and the midwife who at the booking appointment told me not to worry as \u201ceverything will be fine\u201d. Luckily, our dating scan was booked at 10 weeks rather than at 12 weeks so I couldn\u2019t wait to have my mind put at rest. Going to friends\u2019 wedding two days before the scan was not a pleasant experience \u2013 worrying about the worst case scenario whilst trying to put on a happy face and avoiding friends\u2019 offers for a drink was so hard. They just knew I was pregnant and everyone started congratulating us. What do you say to that other than \u2018thank you\u2019? I felt emotionally drained from the past few weeks\u2019 rollercoaster of thoughts and emotions \u2013 stuck between two sides of me, one telling me \u201cyou\u2019re over-analysing it, just calm the f* down\u201d and the other one crying hysterically \u201cwhy do bad things always happen to good people?\u201d before actually being told the worst. The days leading up to the scan couldn\u2019t have dragged on for longer.<\/p>\n

And then the day came. Those who have gone through the same experience will relate to the silence in the room when the sonographer is completely quiet looking at the screen, clicking on the computer, poking you in the stomach and digging lower and deeper, searching for that little life. And then that question: \u201cAre you sure you got your dates right?\u201d and the statement: \u201cI\u2019m not seeing what I should be seeing at this stage of pregnancy.\u201d Never in my life have I remembered someone\u2019s words so clearly and distinctly. I felt numb then \u2013 my heart started racing and I got scared but I thought immediately \u2013 \u201cI was right after all, it was a missed miscarriage, just as I thought.\u201d<\/p>\n

And then we were moved to an Early Pregnancy Unit, having to wait in what must be the most depressing place in the world \u2013 the EPU waiting area. Here you can witness a spectrum of emotions \u2013 those coming in to check that the random early pregnancy bleeding they experienced is nothing to worry about and leaving the hospital overjoyed with good news to those, like me, sitting and crying about the baby they have lost, not quite understanding what has just happened and what will happen next. I remember looking at the other women, their partners and them looking at me\/ us. You sort of try to guess what someone else\u2019s story is. Have they been here before, once or twice? Is it their first baby, have they got another one at home to come back to? The real tears came flooding in that room more than in the sonographer\u2019s room as I looked around and saw the pain in another lady\u2019s eyes \u2013 it was then that I actually comprehended the situation and felt the pain of my loss.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

We were then told to wait for another scan in a week\u2019s time, in order for them to confirm the situation. And so we were sent home, with no form of emotional support having been offered for the whole seven days! Seven days of waiting? Who are these people without hearts who think anyone can go back home and exist normally, having just been told a baby had possibly died inside them? I took a week off work as I couldn\u2019t pretend to be the cheerful person I had been before and equally, I didn\u2019t want to tell people the truth \u2013 it hurt me too much and I didn\u2019t know how to deal with it myself.<\/p>\n

When we went back to hospital a week later, there was nothing that couldn\u2019t have been predicted. It was bad news but my husband and I had prepared ourselves for it \u2013 you know, during that week when we were left all alone by the medical staff to deal with the news. There simply needs to be more support for families going through these awful waiting times \u2013 NHS is under-resourced, I know, but this lack of support is simply unacceptable.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

When I was woken up after the surgery a week later, I remember very vividly this cry I let out \u2013 it was a sorrowful wail that overtook my entire body and I couldn\u2019t control it. I cried all the way to my ward as they wheeled me through half of the hospital between units \u2013 going past the ante-natal and labour unit where pregnant women were either waiting for their scans or going into labour was particularly painful. Not the most appropriate route, one might say\u2026<\/p>\n

The year that followed was a year of challenges, pain and anxiety. We wanted to get pregnant again and luckily for us, it did happen and we continued to pass all the key milestones. This baby was my little fighter, it seemed, growing stronger and stronger each day, yet I was an emotional wreck. Anxiety is such a powerful emotion but I\u2019ve learnt to cope with it. And here I am today, holding my beautiful baby son safe and sound in my arms. We\u2019ve made it to the other side, both of us!!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

One year on, I still remember everything. Of course I do. I will always remember \u2013 the day I found out I was pregnant and the day I said goodbye to the person I loved so much but would never ever meet\u2026. And today, no doubt, I shall shed a tear for her or him \u2013 I hope that wherever you are in the universe, you shine down on me and your Daddy, and your two little brothers, and watch over us. You will always be in our hearts and you will always be our second baby who brought us joy, if only for a short while. You have taught me many things about myself which have made me a stronger woman, a better mother and hopefully, a better human being. I am continually learning about this new \u2018post-miscarriage me\u2019, and using the grief and loss to better myself and my life \u2013 I may have lost you but I have gained new wisdom on life. Your life mattered and was destined to change lives. RIP my sweetest angel baby.<\/p>\n

Me with my family today<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This article was first published on Alex’s website here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By guest blogger, Alex, from That Butterfly Effect\u00a0to mark Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day on Saturday 15th October\u00a0 The 6th October marked a rather sad day for me and for my little family. On this day in 2015, I was admitted to hospital for a procedure called ERPC which stands for Evacuation of Retained […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1060,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[301172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-maternal-and-child-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/ighi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/ighi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/ighi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/ighi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1060"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/ighi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=664"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/ighi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1571,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/ighi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664\/revisions\/1571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/ighi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/ighi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/ighi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}