Baby Loss Awareness Month - my story

October is Baby Loss Awareness Month and there is one week in that time where there are a load of activities that take place. Unfortunately I wasn't ready to tell my story in full detail, but I feel like now is the right time to share my experience so that you know you are not alone and I can use it to come to terms with what I have been through. I guess you could all this personal written therapy to accompany the counselling I am currently receiving, but if this helps someone else then that can only be a good thing too.

2019 was another world

L.P. Hartley said: "the past is a foreign country, they do things differently there"

This is so true. When I think back to 2019 it was a totally different world. In early 2019 my husband and I sat down and decided that this was going to be the year that we got everything out of our systems so that we could start trying for a baby at the end of the year or in the new year. We followed our own advice and went to concerts, live tennis and football, a ton of wrestling shows and finally Christmas came around.

Weirdly my husband got sick in late November/early December. Anyone that knows him will know that he never gets sick. I have now known him for nearly 17 years and can count on one hand the number of times he has been poorly and there is only one occasion where he felt too ill to go into work. 

This time though he was struggling to breathe, had a cough that just wouldn't shift anything off of his lungs and he was struggling to perform basic physical tasks without having to stop and try to get his breath back. Around two weeks after he first became sick, so did I with the same symptoms. On top of these I was burning up, had headaches all the time and had a weird rash that sort of came and went throughout the time I was sick. It wasn't like the flu at all (I had that over Christmas 2014) and it wasn't like any cold I have ever had, but we put it down to exhaustion and some bug that was doing the rounds. 

By the time the new year rolled around I was better except for a lingering cough and went back to work. Then I found out that colleagues of mine had also been ill over the Christmas and New Year period and they had similar symptoms to me and my husband. Clearly this was a nasty bug doing the rounds at work, but we didn't think any more about it.

2020 was going to be our year

Yes, we started hearing about this new virus that had China gripped, but we didn't think any more about it. Besides, China was all over the other side of the world and they seemed to be trying to get it under control so there couldn't be a risk over in the UK could there? We didn't think for one second that we could have already had it and not known about it. Of course, we know different now and there is a thought that thousands of people in the UK did have it over December without knowing because we didn't know what it was at the time. Without an antibody test my husband and I will never know and it will remain mere speculation, but we do have to wonder if we have already had it once before.

Still, January and February looked like they were going to be good omens for the rest of the year. The biggest concerns were actually the fires in Australia and how close Trump took the world to WWIII with Iran. On a personal level I took on a huge charity bake sale at work and was just concerned that either no one would bake or that no one would turn up and buy! 

January was great as a good friend of mine travelled to London with me to go to the O2 Arena in Greenwich to see Slipknot. There were about 20,000 people in the venue and you could just feel the energy as soon as you stepped in the venue. 

In February the bake sale went off without a hitch and I was feeling good. However, there was something odd. I felt different. I felt strange. I couldn't work out what it was, but I was feeling lightheaded and different somehow. 

Well, it turned out I was pregnant! My husband and I had been trying since January, just after I recovered from the mystery illness and it turned out that I can get pregnant pretty damn fast! A week after our joy it all turned sour when I had my first miscarriage.

What the hell happened?

One moment I am enjoying the main event of a local wrestling show and the next I am almost doubled up in sharp stabbing pain. I knew something wasn't right as this continued on and off for a few hours after I got home. The next day I found blood when I woke up. Not a lot, just a little when I went to the bathroom, but I knew what had happened...I was having a miscarriage.

For the first couple of days nothing much happened, but then it really got going. I had to leave work as I was bleeding so much and the pain was unlike anything I have ever experienced. I have quite heavy and painful periods, but this was nothing like that. On top of it all I was burning up and felt sick. I managed to grap my stuff and jump on the first bus home. That day my husband just happened to be working from home and I just fell into his arms as I cried and explained what was happening. 

The only thing I could do was take some ibuprofen (although it was a bit late and only just took a slight edge off) and go to bed where I spent several hours writhing in agony. Eventually it passed and I was able to go downstairs and take a shower (our bathroom is downstairs). I just sat there exhausted and shell shocked. I didn't expect to keep the first baby because this can be common in the first pregnancy, but I had no idea it was so painful and draining.

I took the next day off work as I continued to have the odd stabbing pains, but within 48 hours the pain was gone and I felt I could go back so I did. It was a Friday anyway and I felt that it was something I could manage.

That weekend was the wedding of a friend and ex-colleague and we were going to the reception in the evening. I decided that this was the distraction that I probably needed and we set off with another friend in the car. I told some friends at the reception what happened and they gave me a hug. Then we tried to move on and have some fun.

The next week I was feeling low, but we had no time to stop and think because all of a sudden that virus from China was starting to cause some serious problems. We had to go into prep mode at work as it became clear we were going to have to send the students home and move to online teaching. We would be working from home for the foreseeable future and had to prepare for that.

Now is not the time

With the UK in a full lockdown we decided to put trying for a baby on hold. We just had to try and deal with all sorts of things like working from home and lockdown birthdays. On top of that we didn't want to over stretch the NHS and so we put our plans on pause.

However, by the time August came around the country was opening back up and we decided we would try again. This time it only took one attempt and I found out I was pregnant by the end of August! 

As if to tell me that now really wasn't the time, I found out a week later that I was miscarrying again. 

I had been struggling with a stomach bug all week. Nothing related to the pregnancy, I think it was an under cooked pie that I ate one night and I had a stomach bug for a week after finding out I was pregnant. Feeling weird on a Saturday afternoon I went to the bathroom to find blood and that sinking feeling crept over me as I knew it was happening again. Now really wasn't the time.

History repeated itself and a few days after first seeing the blood I was laid up in bed again and feeling awful. The pain was back and nothing was working to ease it. Then, like the time before, it did ease and I was able to go downstairs and have a light meal. 

Grief

Between miscarriages I lost my nan, and my husband lost his uncle. The miscarriage brought all the grief back to the surface. I couldn't eat properly for weeks (and I still struggle at times now), couldn't sleep and felt like crying...no...wailing all the time.

I had advice thrown at me from all sides that tried to explain why I might have lost the babies, but in reality there was nothing I could do. Genetically there had been an issue and my body rejected the baby rather than put me or the baby at risk by continuing the pregnancy. This practical thinking didn't help me.

After weeks of struggling I got in touch with the employee assistance programme at work and they got me a counsellor who has been wonderful in helping me to come to terms with what I have been experiencing. I still break down, but that is allowed and I have been told that will continue to happen for months or even years. 

It's not your fault

My mantra has become 'it's not your fault' because there is nothing I could have done to prevent the miscarriages from happening. I am very unlucky to have gone through this twice in one year, but it is not my fault. 

There was something wrong and it was not something that I could have controlled. It is not my fault that the baby was not meant to be. It will happen, but the time is not right for me to bring a life into the world. It is not our time and that is not my fault.

2020 has been a truly shit year for everyone. I know people who have lost people to cancer, I have lost people to that horrible disease. I have lost a nan who was a big part of my life and an inspiration to me. I wanted to introduce my child to her once I had one and I can't help feeling guilty that I left it too late to do so. I forget, of course, that she lives on through me and will do through any children I do end up having.

It is not my fault that any of this happened and it is not my husband's fault. We couldn't have done any more than we have. I have to move on and build a future with him that is different than the one we had planned, but we will have that child we want so desperately. At least I know that conception is very easy for us. 

Miscarriage feels like something I should be able to control because it is something that is happening to me. In reality it is an automatic process that the body goes through before you even know it is happening. It is not my fault and it may have saved my life for all I know. 

Remember, your baby loss is not your fault either. Keep telling yourself that because it is true.