My Experience Of Miscarriage

  • You WILL and WILL your eyes to see a heartbeat when looking at the scan and automatically assume the doctor is incompetent.
  • You will feel 100% patronised by the doctors, who inevitably say’ “maybe you conceived later than you think?”…
  • You feel like you want the foetus out of your body as a matter of urgency – NB with missed miscarriages you have to wait a week and have another scan to prove the lack of growth and heartbeat. This is a legality, it feels grossly unfair but there’s no choice.
  • You still feel pregnant. It’s real grim.
  • You still have the pregnancy habits, oh is that 4th tea too much? This butter and marmite laden crumpet is FINE because I can… It feels very sad to then break them.
  • Nurses and doctors at the hospital don’t know what to do with you. Everyone needs some mega training on this. I was aching for frankness – I was aching for someone to tell me the baby has died instead of ‘let’s wait a week’ or ‘you may or may not miscarry this week’ ‘we’ll just have to see’ WHATTTTT????!
  • You need cold hard facts not fluff. Ask for them.
  • In the delirium, there is hilarity between you and your partner. VERRRYYYYY dark humour creeps in…
  • – When they print off the baby photos and give them to you (whaaaaaaaat???)
  • – When you hear babies born after miscarriage are called ‘Rainbow Babies’ (cue stoic stare to camera)….
  • – When you think about drinking famous ‘mothers ruin’ gin to get things moving…
  • It feels hard to break the imagination of having a baby on the due date you got given.
  • What Christmas would be like, how your baby will be in the same school year as your bezzie mate…
  • You have to remove your thoughts into the fact it was the size of an olive, it was cells.
  • Focus on your life away from pregnancy and babies for a while. Focus on the relief you can drink at a mates wedding in a few weeks, focus on not being clammy with your friends as you hide the pregnancy.
  • Spend some time alone. Tricky for some not for others. I went on a massive walk with my dog the day after I found out. It took me so long to get out of the house but without sounding like someone who says they look forward to their next ‘Rainbow Baby’ it really helped. My phone was off, I took some breaths, I looked at people in the eyes and realised I have NO idea what’s going on in someone’s lives and if someone tuts at me for dropping my debit card at the tube barriers let them. They’ve probably got shit going on.
  • You and your partner become mega-close. Like two massive wooden pygmis like the one Hugh Grant nearly bought in Four Weddings and a Funeral.
  • You want to tell people what’s happened. They may not know you were pregnant but the immediate support from everyone is incredible. People share stories, people have always got someone they know who went thought this (SO MANY). The texts and voicemails make you cry but bloody hell… The support is immense.
  • You need to eat. You need strength for the coming week.
It feels hard to break the imagination of having a baby on the due date you got given.

  • You want to shout it from the rooftops as you realise it’s so common and want everyone to talk about it more. Why weren’t we told in school that 1 in 4 early pregnancies end in miscarriage?
  • Acknowledging this statistic, it’s still really horrible. Give time to grieve and breathe.
  • You hear a lot of statistics but one good one is that the likelihood of this happening again is no lower or higher than before.
  • When you get wheeled through the hospital to surgery on your bed, it’s utterly humiliating and quite hilarious. You’re eye contact with every patient and as you go through double doors they totes slam in your face.
  • I apparently sang The Rolling Stones as I ‘went under’ because apparently I love them? (I wasn’t aware of this).
  • I was nil by mouth for so long I had genuine thoughts I’d look like that blonde naked dragon lady from Game of Thrones. (I don’t) .
  • You feel strangely strong. Exhausted. But determined to get better.
  • You feel like you’re part of this crew of incredible women who know how challenging and miracle-making pregnancy is. My friend Tomo calls them Powerful Minnows.
  • You realise that women are even more machine like than you knew. From someone who wasn’t part of the pregnancy crew to having a small insight. The few weeks of extreme tiredness, the sickness, the food cravings and the hormones were intense. It blows my mind that, reproduction is what makes the world go round. Yet it’s SO hard?!

  • So there it is. It’s all pretty sad. But it’s going to be ok. Here’s to that Rainbow Baby eh?

Why weren’t we told in school that 1 in 4 early pregnancies end in miscarriage? Asks Author Camilla Trindle. It's a good question. One that its hard to find a rational answer to.