I didn’t know whether to write this post, but decided that I would, as writing helps me process my thoughts and feelings. It’s also because miscarriage is so rarely talked about, yet it is really very common. Maybe sharing my experience will help someone else….
Last week I suffered a miscarriage, at likely 6-7weeks pregnant. It was not nice, quite distressing actually. I have never felt abdominal pain like it. I have never been so sick. I was exhausted! That was just the physical stuff. I had only found out I was pregnant 3days before. It was after a trip to the local out of hours at A&E because of the excruciating pain. I did the pregnancy test there, and was told by random doctor ‘you’re pregnant, congratulations’ If I was ever going to be pregnant, this was not the way we’d planned to find out. I walked home in a bit of a numb daze. I couldn’t quite believe it. Turns out it was too good to be true. In reality I think I had already/was at the time miscarrying.
We had already decided that we will most likely not go down the adoption route again. Not because we’ve had a negative experience. Actually we’ve an overwhelmingly positive experience, and we feel very blessed, happy and settled with our little girl. We don’t think we can risk upsetting this bringing in another adopted child. We just feel that managing two different adoption stories, with different contact arrangements and all that adoption brings would be too much for all of us. The only way we might consider adoption again would be if Birth Mum had another baby who would need adopting. We do understand that having a birth child will throw up another set of ‘issues’ to navigate, and it’s not the ‘easy’ option. We know that birth children after adoption is not that common, and discouraged by some. However, we feel that if it happened in our family, it could work. Our daughter loves little ones, and would make the best big sister. We feel she could cope with a sibling, and we would do everything we could to make sure having a new baby is managed as best it can be for her.
As far as we know I’d never been pregnant before, it didn’t happen in those months of trying before adoption, and we were not expecting for it happen so quickly (if at all) after deciding ‘we’ll not particularly try, but see what happens’ at the beginning of this year. It was a big surprise, one which we were delighted about. Like any newly pregnant couples we excitedly calculated the due date (mid December, we’d have a Christmas baby, aww). We pictured how our family would look as a four. We imagined how our little girl would take to being a big sister. We started thinking about how we would manage adoption and a new birth sibling. I didn’t sleep much those first couple of nights, so much to think about.
The few people who’ve known about the miscarriage have asked me ‘how do you feel?” Honestly, in those few days I didn’t really know how I felt. I didn’t feel devastated or really emotional, and I kind of felt bad for not being more upset. I wondered if something was wrong with how I felt? with me? I think I just still felt really numb to any emotion. I was only just getting my head around being pregnant when the miscarriage was confirmed. In some ways I think because the reality of being pregnant hadn’t sunk in yet, I was almost protected from the sadness and disappointment of not being. I do wonder if I was subconsciously trying to protect myself by not letting emotions in, maybe they would come later?
It is now a few days later, and I do think that I am now starting to reflect on what’s happened, and I think those emotions and feelings are slowly coming. However much I try to tell myself ‘I’m fine’, I need to allow myself to grieve, to be sad, to be angry. I sometimes thought, ah, only 6weeks, not really a ‘baby’ yet. But then I remember what a 6week only ‘foetus’ is, they are very much alive and living. That’s what I’ve found the hardest. There was life. and now it’s gone. That life was going to be a baby, my baby that I made.
I have wondered a bit about adoption and pregnancy. I have thought about my little girl’s Birth Mum and how she felt when she found out she was pregnant. How she felt whilst she carried the baby, and what it must have felt like to give birth knowing the baby was going to be taken into care straight away. I have thought about the very different routes to becoming a mum. It made me love and appreciate my little girl so much more because I think I grasped a little bit more of what a miracle babies actually are.
I am so very grateful to our local medical services who have shown urgency and compassion when we’ve needed it. Particularly to the midwifes and nurses at the early pregnancy unit. I was very impressed with their thorough assessments and comforted by their reassuring words.
So, what an experience, what a week. Life goes on, but I don’t think I’ll ever forget that little being who even though they’ve gone, they’ve left an everlasting impression on me.