My first pregnancy
/I would have been 12 weeks pregnant today. My first pregnancy… and my first miscarriage.
I suffered a miscarriage last week at 11 weeks. While I now know that miscarriage is a very common outcome of this journey, I also feel that it’s something we don’t talk openly enough about.
My husband and I spent almost 11 weeks dreaming about a future with our baby. We went to baby stores and looked at prams and car seats. Talked about names for hours, writing lists of name possibilities and laughing at the prospects of inappropriate nicknames. We put aside baby clothes, held my non-existent belly and smiled together. We became closer as a couple as we embarked on this new journey - it was beautiful.
The miscarriage itself was emotionally brutal. From what I was told, my symptoms were “normal” in pregnancy, so to be honest I didn’t really consider that we might lose our baby. We both kept in high spirits and were so hopeful that this was just a normal part of the journey. When I was told that my baby had no heartbeat and didn’t seem to be growing I felt as if the life had been yanked out from inside of me. My husband came into the room and he knew instantly that it was bad news. He later told me that my face was just “pure sadness” and that it’s a face that he will never forget.
Like most expectant mothers, it was something I didn’t expect. While you know in the back of your mind that it’s always a risk, especially at my age - you just feel hopeful. In my case we saw a heartbeat early on so were convinced our little Small Baby was strong from the start. So to end in miscarriage was completely jarring, and the devastation hit like a tsunami.
It’s now been 6 days since I had Small Baby surgically removed. It’s barely been a week but for me it seems so long ago. Most of the time I feel like I’ve completely moved on with my life. Back to work, and just getting on with it. I almost feel a little guilty that I’m not “sadder” or “grieving more”.
To be honest I don’t know how to feel. I find myself distracted a lot, it’s hard to concentrate and I’m mindlessly wasting time.
I know this is all part of my recovery journey but I just thought it would be different. I thought I would be bed ridden for weeks, not eating, not sleeping - like so many of the stories I’ve read online and in the support groups I’m part of. But not me, I took the weekend off and returned to work as normal. Am I just ruthless?
I have been through a significant amount of trauma - particularly health related. I guess the upside of surviving a brain injury is that I have developed an elite set of coping strategies and have a powerful grasp on resilience . But the more I think about it the more I worry that I’m not honouring my grief. I don’t feel that I’m pushing it away, but I feel as if I’m looking for it, waiting for it to pop up. Some friends mentioned that it may be hormonal and that the emotional blow out will come around in a few months - after my body rids itself of the pregnancy hormones completely.
I think it’s important for people to talk about these traumas, especially professional women. This time last week I was thinking about how my career trajectory was going to change and how I could still fulfil my ambitions while being a good mother, like I’d seen so many amazing women do before me. But now, those dreams are gone, and while my career ambitions remain unchanged, I can’t help but feel a little disjointed.
Like all things, I know that this too shall pass. And while I’m not drowning in sadness I guess I am lost in a place of unknown. I don’t know where I’m heading, or what I’m doing. I feel lost and to some extent numb - which I’m sure is totally normal too.
What I do hope is that topics like this are spoken more about. These are life changing events, which are seemingly swept under the rug after you’ve grieved for what’s deemed an appropriate amount of time. As always, I advocate to reduce the stigma surrounding trauma and mental illness - and I can only do this by normalising hard conversations and encouraging survivors of trauma to continue to talk about it.