As I am writing this, it has only been three weeks since I had a miscarriage...but in that time, it has already been a huge learning curve.
Before I miscarried, there were things I did know: I knew that it would be sad, I knew that it would change me and I knew that they were very very common. However, there were some things I didn't know, maybe naively, but many are things I wish I had known.
A hormonal rollercoaster
Your body can take up to 4 weeks to recognise that the embryo/ foetus has stopped developing. During this time, your pregnancy symptoms may well continue. I still had terrible morning (read all day) sickness which led me to think that everything was okay with the baby.
Despite what you read, morning sickness doesn’t always equate to a healthy pregnancy - just like the lack of it doesn’t mean you won’t reach full term.
Even after my D&C though, I would still feel nauseated at certain times of the day, especially if I ate sweet things. This I wasn’t prepared for at all. I was still forced to undergo the hormonal effects of a pregnancy- only with no baby.
You are still 'post-partum'
Postpartum symptoms are also a thing. Despite not in the way you'd anticipated, your pregnancy has still ended and with it your hormones are still all over the place.
You may have nights sweats, insomnia and even hair loss in the same way as you do post partum. My glowing skin and nails disappeared almost overnight, just to add insult to injury.
However, my 'bump' didn't.
If you have one at the time of the miscarriage, you will still look pregnant for a week or two even after it is complete as you wait for your uterus to return to its normal size...and get used to a diet that isn't mainly carb based once again.
This seemed especially cruel to me; I really felt like it was a continual reminder of how much my body had let me down, and how much we had lost. It was easy enough to disguise in clothes (although only one new pair of jeans still fitted) but getting undressed was tough.
At times I found my hand settling on my little bump, only to remember. Each time my heart would stop for a moment and I would feel sick all over again.
An emotional rollercoaster
You expect to feel shocked and sad but there may also be a sense of relief when it is over, no matter how wanted the pregnancy was. There was for me and I agonised over feeling that way, even though the relief was short lived.
However, it is an awful, awful process. It is entirely normal to be relieved when it is over. You are not relieved that you have lost your baby, only that the gruelling experience has finished. No matter how common this feeling is though, it unfortunately will not make you feel any less guilty for feeling it.
I also blamed myself for the miscarriage. I still do. Even if rationally I know this isn't true, it is hard to turn off the inner ‘what if’ dialogue.
Initially I also got hung up on trying to figure out exactly what I was doing when the heartbeat stopped. I was haunted by the idea that I could have been having a brilliant time, laughing even, all the while completely unaware that my baby's short life was ending inside me.
Anxiety
Anxiety levels peak. Some of this is hormonal and some of it down to the grief you will feel.
I have become super paranoid about something happening to Jude, and would check on him many times in the night at first. I was even paranoid about something happening to my husband each time he left for work. I questioned whether we were right to move so far away from family and close friends just in case something happened to them too.
The emotions are like waves. Some days I am at complete peace and quite philosophical about what has had happened (and actually that hurts too) yet at other times I feel a sense of heavy sadness; a physical ache.
Some of these waves can be all in the same day. Something happens to trigger it, like seeing a pregnancy announcement, and I feel devastated all over again. Tears still seem to be permanently close to the surface, especially as I am exhausted all the time too.
Pitter Patter of Digital Feet
While you are no longer expecting the pitter patter of tiny feet, your digital footprint will be huge. Even though you are no longer pregnant, the entire internet seems to think you are.
I was careful to immediately delete my pregnancy apps and unsubscribe from the corresponding emails. However, due to my search history and the manic pinning of nursery ideas, healthy pregnancy diets and tips on how to introduce siblings, I am still shown all sorts of baby and maternity things in adverts etc, and it is very hard to see those knowing what could have been.
Support networks
People don’t know what to say, and it makes you feel ashamed and isolated.
Unless they have experienced similar themselves- or know someone close who has been through the same - it is hard to find the right words. In fairness though, I don't think there are the right words.
Platitudes might be offered, like ‘at least you know you can get pregnant’ (great - I’ve spent 10 years without using contraception, undergone multiple fertility treatments but I know I can get pregnant on my own now - bonus!) or ‘if it’s happened this time, it can happen again,’ (theoretically yes, but also it might not - especially where there is a diagnosis of infertility, and also I wanted this baby.)
There is little comfort in these words.
I was also surprised at how awful I found the question: ‘How many weeks were you?’ While an entirely innocent question on the surface (and one I actually remember asking someone myself) it seemed to imply that it should equate to the level of grief I was entitled to feel. This question I found harder to take in women who have had babies themselves, and I found myself asking: ‘at what point in your pregnancy would it have been okay to lose your baby?’
Once you have tested positive on a pregnancy test, you start to plan and to dream, and it is the absence of those things too which is hard to bear. I might only have seen my baby on a fuzzy ultrasound but that doesn’t make it easy. Far from it.
I didn't ever get to feel or hold my baby - it was instead swept out and disposed of with all of the other medical waste. Being under general anaesthetic when it happened was a comfort at the time, but has felt like the coward's way out since.
Don't be afraid to speak out
Some people will say ‘I am here if you need me’ which of course is absolutely true, but when you are grieving and feeling vulnerable, you are not likely to go seeking out help, even if you desperately want to.
We were mourning two huge losses; any energy I had left had to go into supporting my husband and looking after my energetic toddler. Picking up the phone to call someone was beyond hard...but people won't know this unless you tell them.
Ultimately if someone is offering to be there, they want to do what's right by you, so don't be afraid to say how you want to be supported. They will be glad of the direction.
The worst thing however, is when people said nothing at all. You can't reach out into an abyss. I found people were very good when it came to the death of my mother in law, but not of our unborn baby. This is what made me feel most ashamed, like I was hiding a guilty secret.
These losses were both enormous but even some family members tried to brush it under the carpet. Some didn't even say, 'I am so sorry to hear your devastating news' and still haven't to this day.
Picking up the pieces
There is an expectation that we should just be bouncing back and getting on with our lives straight away.
And we were trying. We are still trying, bloody hard. Life can't stop when you live in a different country to your family, have a toddler to care for and jobs to go to. We've barely had time to hit the pause button.
I have also deliberately tried to get outside at every opportunity as it feels far better to be out surrounded by the beauty of Mother Nature rather than sitting at home gripped by the horror and utter cruelty of it... but none of this means I am having a ball. It's more a case of 'fake it til you make it' I suppose.
However, while some reactions will disappoint you, you will also find a raft of support, and often from surprising places. But only if you open up. Some of the best support came from relative strangers and a tiny handful of friends to whom my gratitude won't ever seem enough.
This whole experience has also made me realise that I have genuinely made a home here in Lugano - and that some of the people I have met, have not only turned from acquaintances to true friends, but have become like family too. And that is a wonderful wonderful thing to learn.
There are no real silver linings though here and there may not be a rainbow after this storm, but there is always hope, and there is always the promise of peace somewhere out there.
The '1 in 4 Club' is the shittest club I have ever been in, and I've been in a few if you listen to my Mum (until she'd forked out for the kit that is) but there are some absolute warrior women in it along with me. The sheer strength that women are capable of has never been more apparent than now.
The pathway ahead might not be like I imagined it anymore, and I will always be changed on some level, but that doesn't mean there is just darkness up ahead either. I just have to be willing to let the light come through.
Just give me a bit of time though, hey?
