Miscarriages.

WARNING: Possibly triggering content to do with miscarriages.







I had my first miscarriage a couple of years ago, and I hadn't even realized that I was pregnant. My periods have always been very light and kinda sporadic, especially when I'm on the pill. So for me missing a period completely or only having light bleeding for one day of the month is pretty common. I only realized that I had been pregnant when I got some weird bleeding even for me, like a really heavy, painful period that lasted a week, then stopped for a handful of days, then started again, then stopped and started again. I slowly put two and two together about what had happened, and then talked to a friend who has a sister who's a midwife, who confirmed that that's what had happened. The pregnancy must have been very early, probably no more than a couple of weeks...but emotionally I was very shaken. I blamed myself because I'd been drinking and smoking and taking painkillers...and I hadn't even noticed I was pregnant in the first place, if I'd known about it, I thought I could have changed things. It was hard. but I'd never had a chance to get attached to the pregnancy.

Then sometime last November I got pregnant again, I had been pretty careless with my pill, which, I know, was stupid. But, again, at first I didn't realize that I was pregnant at first, I got some light spotting, which was a bit light even by my standards of light periods, but I shrugged it off...it was only when it got round to the beginning of January and I still hadn't had a proper period and now my breasts were starting to get sore, and I was getting sick over the oddest things...then I twigged. and was very scared and worried, me and Coyote had just come through a pretty rough patch, things were still sensitive between us, and we're both broke and living in bedsit and there was a chance that the baby could be my ex's...and in general having a baby would be very difficult. I thought Coyote would leave me if I was. I prayed really hard for my period to start. but it didn't. So I finally confessed and Coyote got a pregnancy test, he really thought I was over reacting, and worrying over nothing, that I couldn't be pregnant. I was so nervous, that I screwed up the first test and had to do it again. It wasn't really a surprise for me when it was positive, but it was for Coyote. I burst into tears.
We went to the doctor and they did another test that confirmed I was pregnant, and asked if I wanted to see the doctor (which means I didn't wasn't happy about the pregnancy) or the midwife (which meant I was). I asked to see the midwife...it had been a massive shock getting pregnant, but we both rapidly came round to the idea, we were already planning on getting married, we loved each other, it would be difficult, but we would cope. As soon as I realized I was pregnant I stopped doing any of the things your not allowed to do in pregnancy and started to get excited about it. We both had conversations with baby, we told friends and family, everyone was really happy for us. We got booked into having the dating scan. I remember telling baby the night before the scan, to please just stay there, just please be OK, please not leave us. I'd had no physical signs anything was wrong. I was still getting very sick every day. but something in my head must have been warning me...it was in the dating scan that they realized that the baby had died. It's called a silent miscarriage. I should have been at 12 weeks pregnancy, but the baby had died at about 9. She was far too small, and there was no heartbeat. My heart just broke when they told me, and showed me on the monitor. I hoped so hard that they were wrong...but the nurse got a second opinion...and nothing. I kept apologizing to Coyote, for loosing our baby, for somehow screwing up...they were very kind. But I had to make a choice, I could miscarry naturally at home, or they could give me a pill and a pessary and have a stay in hospital for a day when the baby would miscarry, or I could have her surgically removed under general anesthetic...I couldn't make up my mind, I didn't want to do anything, I just wanted it not to be real. We went home to think about it, and we both spent the week drunk and sobbing. I couldn't make up my mind, I didn't know what I wanted. I wanted to be at home where I was safe and comfortable...but I realized that that would probably mean that I wouldn't have anything that I could bury... I was still trying to make the horrific decision, when the bleeding started and I thought, that was that, decision made for us. It started on a Friday night, and it was just like it said in all the literature I read, just like a heavy period. So I just tried to get on with my life, it was painful, but with painkillers, it was cope-able with. But by Sunday night I was in agony, literally, I was curled into a ball crying with how much pain I was in, I was taking paracetamol and ibuprofen and aspirin at the same time, and it wasn't even taking the edge off how much it hurt. The bleeding had also become...scary, very scary. I was gushing blood, massive clots were falling out of me...I couldn't stop crying. I'd been trying to use a tampon (it's what I've used for all of my periods since I was 12, and wasn't exactly thinking clearly enough to realize it might be a bad idea) but that became impossible, I had to send Coyote out twice, once to get me more painkillers, then to get me sanitary towels...the horrible thing was that I started to feel that he was getting annoyed with me, which didn't help my emotional state. I eventually called the NHS direct and explained through sobs what was happening, I had to explain to two different people what was happening, and both times I was crying so hard I could barely talk. They put me through to an on call GP, and I had to explain the whole thing again...at which point he said something that...felt horribly cruel. I told him I'd taken Ibuprofen, and he kept telling me that I shouldn't take that because it would hurt the baby...I just wanted to yell at him "how can you get more hurt than dead?". He told me to go to A+E...
at A+E the nurses and doctor's were incredibly kind and gentle with me, to begin with I had to wait in a waiting room with people with small children and babies...it hurt so much...after I'd been seen by the triage nurse, I asked if I could wait away from the babies...I was finding it so hard to control my tears. She immediately took me to a private room. Which was a kindness that meant so much to me. a doctor took blood and did tests...it was a long wait, but Coyote stayed with me, and then I was transferred by ambulance to a nearby hospital that had a gynecology department. Where I could finally change out of my blood stained clothes and into a nightgown and get into bed. A consultant came to examine me, which was painful and unpleasant, the consultant was brisk and cold, and at one point asked me that if she 'found anything' did I want her to 'take it out'...I didn't know what she meant by that, I just wanted her to go away, so I just said yes (I'd since found that some of the pain I was experiencing can be caused by parts of the fetus getting trapped in the cervix opening) but she found nothing but more clots. Finally it was over and they let Coyote back in, and a wonderful nurse brought me cups of tea and strong painkillers. Coyote slept in his clothes on the floor next to the bed, and held my hand till I fell asleep.
In the morning they told me that they didn't think that I'd actually lost the baby, so I'd have to come back in in a couple of days and gave me a pill to take and some codeine to take home.
The next day was Valentines day...and we went to the park and just tried to not be shattered to pieces by everything that was happening. The day after we went back to the hospital as they'd told us, the bleeding had slowed down a lot at that point. They put in a pessary (which was still invasive, but they were kind about it), and waited for the bleeding to start again...we pretty much spent all day waiting, but nothing happened. They had been wrong, I had lost the baby at some point on the Sunday and could go home... I just didn't see it happen, because all I could see was blood and clots...at the hospital, the people were so very kind. it meant so much to me.

After that, I pretty much just fell to pieces for a while, I couldn't stop blaming myself. I couldn't forgive myself for letting my baby die, and I couldn't forgive myself for just loosing my baby down the toilet. I couldn't accept that it wasn't my fault, because if it wasn't, then that meant that horrible, horrible things just happened sometimes, and then I would be vulnerable to it happening again...I broke for a while, drinking to escape from reality, self injuring...I felt horrible because Coyote was suffering too, and I couldn't help him, he was being so strong for me while I just fell to pieces...the whole thing...it hurt more than anything had ever done in my life. But in the end it made us stronger and more loving and trusting as a couple, and we knew that we didn't want to wait to start trying to have a baby, even if it would be hard.

I called that baby Roseanne, and she will forever be in my heart.