I Had a Miscarriage

This has been a very difficult week for me; I had the plans, I had a goal to reach, and then, without warning, it was taken away from me.I was going to not talk about this publicly, but it may be a step closer to helping me get better. You could say I'm looking for attention or sympathy, but I'm not. I know a lot of women go through this, but even though that is true, it doesn't make things easier for the women that are currently going through it, or have been through it.I will tell you the story of how I found out, to how I'm feeling now.I was coming up to the end of my first trimester, and I had my 12-week scan coming up. I met my midwife, who was very kind, I had my blood tests taken. I did tell her about my anxiety and worry about the chances of having a miscarriage, and I would be lying to say that it wasn't what most of the time, I was thinking about throughout my pregnancy. I paid for a private early scan, and when I went, the sonographer said the heartbeat was very healthy, and there wasn't anything that looked concerning. I was seven weeks pregnant at the time, and that was the first and last time I saw my baby alive.I then had to wait until I was 10 weeks pregnant until I could meet my midwife. Throughout the time I was waiting, I could tell there was something wrong, but everyone around me was saying it was only my anxiety. After I met my midwife, she booked me in for my 12-week scan at the hospital. A few nights before my appointment, I had a very horrible dream, where I was having my scan, and the babies heartbeat was only 10 beats per minute. Then suddenly the heartbeat stopped. There were then slides that had pictures, starting from what a 12-week old fetus looked like, and it counted back until the first week. When it got to the first week, I saw the poison sign.The next day, I started to bleed. I called the midwife, and they said they couldn't do anything about it until I was at least 20 weeks. I went to my GP, and she said to me it's possibly just my cervix changing, and she told me to wait for the scan the next day.The night before my scan, I felt like I didn't want to go, and I even asked my boyfriend to not come to the scan with me.

On the 1st of February 2018, I went to the hospital, and I was waiting in the waiting area, and I started crying. I didn't want to be there, and I was surrounded by pregnant women with other children. When my name got called, I followed her, and she could see that I had been crying, and was shaking. I told her my concerns and that I had been bleeding, and she told me to hop on to the chair you go on and she put lube on my lower stomach. She took a while to say anything once my scan had come up. I asked her if there was a problem, and she turned the screen towards me— and there was no heartbeat. She told me that I didn't look twelve weeks, when I knew myself, I was definitely 12 weeks. She got another midwife to come in to check to see if she could find the heartbeat, but she couldn't either. She turned to me and said, "I'm very sorry, it seems you have miscarried."

Immediately, I remember thinking back to when I was a teenager, and when I thought I had a broken heart; and the truth is you do not know what true heartbreak is until you've lost a child.After I got my heart broken, they took me into a room that was obviously for purposes like what happened to me, and she said that the nurse would come and talk to me, and explain why it happened. I sat there for at least 20 minutes, and I used up both of the tissue packets. When the nurse came in, she explained that this does happen quite often, it was nothing I did or didn't do. I also found out, that that week where I got my early scan, was the same week my baby stopped developing. I had a delayed miscarriage. She advised me that body goes through this naturally, seeing as I was already bleeding. She gave me information on how to deal with grief, and she advised me to get support, and she said I can take as much time as I want in the room. She left me be, and I must have cried another hour and a half in that room. The bathroom was just across the hall from the room I was in, and it was even hard to go from one place to other. When I got to the bathroom, I cried for another 20 minutes. When I parked in my parking space at home, I could not leave my car. I cried for at least 30 minutes, and I had 20 notifications on Whatsapp from four different people, asking me how my scan went. I went into the house, and I got into bed with my clothes on. My boyfriend sat beside me and asked me a lot of questions, and I just couldn't answer him. I couldn't talk for at least three or four hours.The next few days, I felt like I was in labor, the difference is, labor is worth going through the pain, because, at the end of it, you get to meet your baby. I spent most of my time in a hot bath, trying to soothe the pain. Then, I saw my baby leave me.I think the hardest part of the grief is over, but I do get a sad spell of sadness each day since then. I put a memorial display in the bathroom of the house I'm living in, and I light the candles every time I get sad.