Last week Tommy’s launched their #TogetherforChange Campaign. Sadly 1 in 4 will lose a baby, yet there is still so much silence around baby loss, which only further contributes to an already heartbreaking situation.
Thank you so much to Helen Workman for turning this brave list around really quickly;
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On 24th December 2017 I miscarried my second pregnancy at 10 weeks. Almost 7 months on, I am only just beginning to deal with what happened to me and my family.
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I just knew: I’d been pregnant before and I have a daughter so I had some idea of what to expect and how I would most likely feel during pregnancy. And for a few weeks I did feel tired, nauseous and generally crap. Exactly as before.
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Then all of a sudden, one morning, I felt a sharp stabbing pain in my abdomen area. I convinced myself this was just part of implantation or something. And then the first trimester symptoms started to disappear. But I convinced myself this was just a different pregnancy so my symptoms were bound to be different. Maybe I was having a boy?
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It was two weeks before Christmas. I couldn’t bear to think the worst. So I kept quiet and stayed positive. But deep down I just knew.
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Having that scan surrounded by other, pregnant women is like being punched repeatedly in the face: I’m not sure how else it can be done. And don’t get me wrong, I have nothing but praise for the care I got from the wonderful NHS staff. But it feels like women that are suspected of miscarrying should be taken somewhere separate for appointments.
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It’s no one’s fault, but being surrounded by baby bumps at that point felt like torture.
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Just because your baby wasn’t physically ‘there’ it doesn’t make your loss any less valid: I think a big issue with miscarriage is the lack of anything physical or tangible to grieve for. When we lose someone who has spent time earth-side we experience the physical loss of their presence. We have events, photos, mementos to remember them by.
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When you lose a baby in pregnancy there may be little or no physical evidence of that life. What you do have from day one of a pregnancy are feelings. Of hope and love for a new life. Of happiness, dreams and aspirations for your family. Having those taken away is no less painful.
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There is no right way to grieve: everyone experiences grief differently.
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It has taken me 6 months to really start to acknowledge what has happened, to talk properly about our loss, to open up to my husband, close family and friends.
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For other people it may hit them immediately.
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For some it may take years. How you handle it is not wrong.
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Don’t judge yourself or compare yourself to others when it comes to grief.
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Exercise helps: it is probably the only thing that has kept me sane since December. Sometimes I burst into tears whilst I’m running. Sometimes I feel an amazing sense of euphoria after a HIIT workout.
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Sometimes, when I don’t have any energy or motivation and I do it anyway, it makes me proud of my body. And that’s a good thing to feel after a miscarriage
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You can run but you can’t hide: although running (in the physical sense) has definitely helped, running from my feelings over the last 7 months has not. I carried on like nothing had happened over Christmas, then I buried myself in work in the New Year. It’s one way of coping BUT it has had consequences.
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It has affected my relationships and my mental health. It has impacted my daughter, my husband and my friendships. You can try to bury feelings but they leak out in all sorts of places. So in order not to lose your shit at the bloke in Waitrose car park who steals your space (or worse) it’s better to face it all head on sooner rather than later
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Food can help. And hinder: I have buried my emotions in food for much of the past 7 months. My body seems to crave food that will give me a rush of energy and a mood boost. Mainly sugar. But in actual fact this has had the opposite effect.
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I’ve been riding a blood sugar roller coaster of emotions. Wholesome, nourishing, nutrient-rich, colourful food helps. I’m no nutritionist but I’ve noticed the impact of eating better on how I feel emotionally.
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Talking helps: I have been lucky enough to work with an amazing local organisation called Reflect who offer free counselling and support for pregnancy and miscarriage. It has forced me to deal with what happened.
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Talking to someone who isn’t involved or emotionally caught up in it and who is there just to listen to me is such a bloody gift and I am so grateful for their help. They have encouraged me to open up and talk to my husband and my parents about how I feel. And the load is starting to lighten. Talking about what happened and about my feelings is reducing the pressure and sadness of it all.
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You might feel lonely but you are not alone. The statistics speak for themselves. 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage, stillbirth or premature birth. Which means if you open up to people about what you’ve been through and how you feel it’s highly likely someone will have been through the same thing. So as per above, talking to someone who’s been through it and who ‘gets it’ really helps.
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People generally say the wrong thing, when you tell them: and that really isn’t their fault or intention. But platitudes like “at least you have one already” or “well it’s good to know you can get pregnant”, “its more common than you think”, “it obviously wasn’t meant to be this time” etc. etc. don’t help.
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In fact, they made me feel so angry because I wanted THAT baby, I wanted a brother or sister for my little girl so very badly. I wanted to carry that baby for 40 weeks. I didn’t want to be one of the ‘1 in 4’ statistic
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The anger after miscarriage is nothing to be ashamed of: but it did take me by surprise. I’ve been angry at all sorts of things like the timing of it all (I mean Christmas – give me a f*cking break), at other people and their seemingly easily-created 2+ children families, at the platitudes, at the silence from those around me.
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But mainly I’ve been angry at myself. One thing I have realised through my counselling is that anger can be motivating and constructive. You can choose to make different decisions about your future based on the strength of that emotion.
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We are not to blame. I am not to blame: it was nothing you did or didn’t do. It wasn’t anything you said or thought. I am not to blame. Repeat. This. Everyday. Say it to yourself in the shower, when you brush your teeth at night, whilst you’re waiting for the kettle to boil. Tattoo it on the inside of your eyelids so you see it when you go to sleep at night. Repeat it until you start believing it and then keep saying it.
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I’m still not sure how to properly say goodbye: I’m not sure what to do to mark the life of our ‘baby who could have been’. Do we give him/her a name? Have a church service? Let off a balloon? Plant a tree? Maybe we don’t need to do anything. Because we will know. And we will always remember.
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There’s no manual for this shitty life stuff. I guess you just have to do what feels right. Or not do anything at all.
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Tommy’s amazing #TogetherforChange campaign launched this week. I hope this blog keeps the conversation going, and helps to start breaking down the taboo surrounding miscarriage. But mostly I hope it helps just one other woman with life after miscarriage.
14 Comments
This is exactly how I felt after our missed miscarriage in Oct 2015. Counseling and working with a personal trainer got me through the darker times. But the miscarriage did force my husband and I to review our life and we’ve since had our daughter Edith (a sister for Arthur who’s 5), moved from London to Leeds, quit our jobs and set up our own business together. We’ll never forget but the grief has become easier to deal with day by day
It’s so good that this is finally being spoken about. After two miscarriages the grief is still there and I don’t feel it will pass but how do you go about telling people this when it was so early in the pregnancies. Going through the motions of being excited for those announcing pregnancies, who have plain sailing pregnancies and healthy babies but deep down you’re seething with jealousy! Especially when they’re due when I would have been. There is a great community out there who support each other and helps get me through.
Don’t forget dads go through the heartache, pain and grief as well. No doubt going through a miscarriage is more physically and emotionally challenging for mums, but the imperative to provide support can leave dads parking their own emotional response for a later date. It’s important to face it, even if not in the early days. Couldn’t agree more with the comments re. excersie – great release and opportunity to reflect and remember.
We have a 7 year gap between our 1st and 2nd child – the middle bit was me desperately trying to provide a sibling for our little girl, and always feeling like I must be doing something wrong… I remember following our 1st miscarriage being so worried about my husband worrying about me and not grieving for himself that I didn’t tell him I was miscarrying the 2nd time, until I had no choice 🙁
I still relive the losses, and think about them when we should be celebrating their birthdays, little characters that we never got to meet… The pain is less, definitely, but I don’t think I’ll ever come to terms with our loss, I’ll never not think about them, who they would have looked like, what they might have become, because even though I never met them, they are still my babies… Talk about miscarriage, talk about the mental and physical pain it causes, talk about grieving… Nobody spoke to me, people avoided the subject, avoided telling me they were pregnant, it hurt, a lot… Tommy’s recent work has helped, a lot… I know how lucky I am to have gone on to conceive and successfully carry the one we thought we’d never have, we kept believing and never gave up. I know not everyone will be as lucky, but please, keep talking, don’t punish yourself or feel guilty, and definitely don’t suffer in silence x
Such an honest post! After my miscarriage, the NEED I felt to be pregnant was all-consuming. It was all I could think about until I was pregnant! There was a girl who was pregnant the same time as I had been at my work, and every time I saw her, I cried. It wasn’t her fault, it wasn’t mine, I was still happy for her but I still couldn’t stop the tears!
“Maybe we don’t need to do anything. Because we will know. And we will always remember”
Just wow!!! My heart is sore thinking about my 2 babies but what you’ve wrote is exceptional. There is light at the end of the very dark tunnel; my 14 week old double rainbow baby is proof. Thank you.
I had a miscarriage 3 weeks ago so this is all still very raw for me. I have tried to bury myself with work to distract myself to get through it. I’ve now had to take a week off from work to process everything due to total exhaustion. I’ve spent a long time reading stories just like this the last couple of weeks and with everyone I read it’s so great to feel like I’m not alone.
Thanks for sharing your story.
This is so very much needed I feel. I suffered a missed miscarriage at 12 weeks earlier this year and another at 5 weeks just three weeks ago.
The silence from people around you is just deafening. They mean well but it just excludes you and your loss and makes you feel so lonely and alone through it all.
Your hope is gone for your family, your future, a sibling for your child, etc. I feel the conversation needs to be started but it’s such a personal issue at the same time that I struggle with it. Yours to cherish, your child, your love. No one else does seem to understand, or at least you think and until you read a post like this.
Thank you for sharing and helping to start the conversation.
2 years on and I’m still struggling to deal with the grief of my 3 losses. Distracting myself with work and other things but you can’t hide. Grief always finds you… I resonanted with so much of what you’ve said. And as Andrea says above… For me …. The loss of hope was devastating… it felt impossible to believe in the future. Blogs like this help to give us words when we don’t have. And helps others to understand when they can’t. Thank you for sharing
Thanks so much everyone for your comments. I am so glad it’s helped to read this in whatever small way. Im at the point in my grief where I can’t see hope or light at the end of the tunnel despite desperately wanting to. I think we all need time to grieve, whatever that looks like. I wish everyonelove, light and hope for the future. Xx
Thank you for sharing this- I’ve just been told my pregnancy is ectopic, so we have no choice but to miscarry. It’s totally heartbreaking. And frustrating. And as it turns out, a really long process to bring about the miscarriage. And I feel differently about it all the time. We know ultimately that talking is the best thing, so we’re just going to keep on doing this. Love to all parents going through this. It’s just really shit.
I’m due to lose my baby this week at 21+3. Accounts like this are so important as although everyone’s experience is different and personal to them, it really helps to know that, as much as you wouldn’t wish this on anyone else, you aren’t the only one going through it. I don’t know how I’m going to feel. I’m dreading the hormones and the emotion. But will obtain all the help I can to get through.
Firstly, while I know it doesn’t help, I am sorry for your loss. Secondly, I can relate to so much of what you wrote. I had a miscarriage at 16 weeks this past February, and I wrote almost the exact same thing you did when it comes to being among other baby bellied women while waiting for the scan.
Overall, I just wanted to say thank you for even sharing your story. It isn’t spoken about enough, and it needs to change. More people need to speak up about it so others know that they are not alone. Thanks again.
Thank you so much for sharing. I came to this article whilst searching for words of wisdom whilst I await a scan tomorrow morning which we think will tell us my 7 week pregnancy isn’t viable. It has filled me with reassurance that it will, eventually, be okay. Everyone in the comments too – you’re all so brave, thank you