One of my favorite expressions. Reminds me of the good old Peanuts gang. I loved that the kids ruled the world and that their interactions with an assortment of clueless, robotically-mumbling, adult automatons was a side issue. Poor old Charlie Brown, was he indeed mirroring his creator's lifelong depression?
Because the funny thing about grief, is that it's never really "good". It can be good for you, sure. I'll admit that my recent and continuing grief over my various IF issues is healthier than my previous oblivion and denial that anything was wrong. But goddamn, it's painful.
For me, the colours of grief are black and red. Black signifying the webbed veins of mascara threading down my face last week as I lay in the foetal position in bed, howling at the cruel fates over yet another failure. Red, signifying the arrival of another unwanted guest. Red will be the colour of the week after yet more surgery to inspect my bits for scarring and trauma caused by so much loss-related previous surgery. Black symbolised my mood upon the return of our Karotyping/Immunology results, showing that our perfect embies are probably being rejected by my foul, defective body.
The paradox of grieving, is that just when you need the understanding/empathy of those around you, you're mired in the most personal of raw, visceral emotion which can barely be accepted, let alone understood by others.
Sadly, other people's tolerance of your grieving leaves the room much sooner than your actual grief does.
Monday 31 March 2008
Wednesday 26 March 2008
Sending you forget me nots, to help me to remember.....
I'm a bad blogger. I've just realised this. Sometimes (not often) I'll click on a link leading to someone else's blog and be shocked to see that they're blogging every day. Good grief, what is there to talk about, every day? Certainly nothing much down my end, unless you're interested in my breakfast and my shopping adventures. I like to save entries for when I'm feeling particularly inspired. Today is one of those days.
I'm a day away from my BT for FET 2. I know it's a BFN as I took a Confirm this morning. The transfer this time was excruciating, possibly an inept Dr but most certainly due to adhesions now covering the entry of my cervix due to too many D+Cs. Fifteen minutes of poking various-sized catheters into that general direction led to him "allegedly" transferring 2 of my blasties. I say allegedly because I have my doubts.....I asked if they could end up anywhere else and he laughingly said, "the tubes". Great! Or should he have said tube? On top of that, I now have a dodgy cervix. When I reach the point that the pain of AC outdoes the pain of childlessness (which I think will be some time this year), I was thinking that, due to being unexplained, we could potentially have one of those bizarro miracle stories, you know, Mr and Mrs Such and Such, who TTC for 5 years, did AC for 2, gave up, went on a holiday and conceived! Blerch. Now, no more. In fact, I need to have more surgery, to fix the result of previous surgery, which I only had because I keep losing babies. It's a wonderful world!
So, the point of today's blog is to discuss another interesting group of people one comes across in one's IF travels. There are Fertiles, which includes the sub-set Rabid Fertiles, who don't want to be made to feel guilty for being so fertile, thank you very much! There are Infertiles and Infertility-deniers. Now, we come to what I like to call, Infertility-Forgetters.
A bloods nurse once said to me, one day when you have your kids, this will all seem like a bad dream. I hope so, and yet I hope not. I would like to remember and retain empathy for those still travelling the path. I will add here that not for me the eternal optimism that I WILL SUCCEED. I don't believe that for one minute. In fact, I'm pretty sure the FC stats are being boosted by Impatient Fertiles (that's a topic for another blog) and that people like me are the ones who end up childless at the end of the whole shebang.
However, on the off-chance, and I give myself now perhaps a 10% chance of having a successful pregnancy and that's if I persevere cycle after cycle, that I do end up with a child, I would like to hold onto every emotion of this journey. I owe it to those still cycling. I will never end up an Infertility Forgetter. They are worse than all the other categories, because now they expect you not to be bitter and twisted and to be happy for everyone. And they're allowed to express that, because they've "had their share of Infertility". Great, it must be easy to be so magnanimous once you HAVE YOUR OWN CHILD/REN.
And no, we haven't forgotten what you were like when you yourselves were suffering Infertility. We remember the emotion, the melodrama, the bitterness, the hatred. Oh yes we do. So please, do us all a favour and pull off those hypocritical angel wings. Don't betray the memory of the many women who are still going through this by telling us we need to get over it because you did. Insult me some other way.
I'm a day away from my BT for FET 2. I know it's a BFN as I took a Confirm this morning. The transfer this time was excruciating, possibly an inept Dr but most certainly due to adhesions now covering the entry of my cervix due to too many D+Cs. Fifteen minutes of poking various-sized catheters into that general direction led to him "allegedly" transferring 2 of my blasties. I say allegedly because I have my doubts.....I asked if they could end up anywhere else and he laughingly said, "the tubes". Great! Or should he have said tube? On top of that, I now have a dodgy cervix. When I reach the point that the pain of AC outdoes the pain of childlessness (which I think will be some time this year), I was thinking that, due to being unexplained, we could potentially have one of those bizarro miracle stories, you know, Mr and Mrs Such and Such, who TTC for 5 years, did AC for 2, gave up, went on a holiday and conceived! Blerch. Now, no more. In fact, I need to have more surgery, to fix the result of previous surgery, which I only had because I keep losing babies. It's a wonderful world!
So, the point of today's blog is to discuss another interesting group of people one comes across in one's IF travels. There are Fertiles, which includes the sub-set Rabid Fertiles, who don't want to be made to feel guilty for being so fertile, thank you very much! There are Infertiles and Infertility-deniers. Now, we come to what I like to call, Infertility-Forgetters.
A bloods nurse once said to me, one day when you have your kids, this will all seem like a bad dream. I hope so, and yet I hope not. I would like to remember and retain empathy for those still travelling the path. I will add here that not for me the eternal optimism that I WILL SUCCEED. I don't believe that for one minute. In fact, I'm pretty sure the FC stats are being boosted by Impatient Fertiles (that's a topic for another blog) and that people like me are the ones who end up childless at the end of the whole shebang.
However, on the off-chance, and I give myself now perhaps a 10% chance of having a successful pregnancy and that's if I persevere cycle after cycle, that I do end up with a child, I would like to hold onto every emotion of this journey. I owe it to those still cycling. I will never end up an Infertility Forgetter. They are worse than all the other categories, because now they expect you not to be bitter and twisted and to be happy for everyone. And they're allowed to express that, because they've "had their share of Infertility". Great, it must be easy to be so magnanimous once you HAVE YOUR OWN CHILD/REN.
And no, we haven't forgotten what you were like when you yourselves were suffering Infertility. We remember the emotion, the melodrama, the bitterness, the hatred. Oh yes we do. So please, do us all a favour and pull off those hypocritical angel wings. Don't betray the memory of the many women who are still going through this by telling us we need to get over it because you did. Insult me some other way.
Wednesday 12 March 2008
The Obligatory Anti-assvice Rant.
Well, I have put this on hold for as long as humanly possible. It seems that every single Infertility blog (ie: the 3 that I've read) comes with what I like to call the Obligatory Anti-assvice Rant. (OAR) So many people have done this so much better than I could ever imagine (you know, the old "what not to say to your infertile friend"), however I now find myself at a crossroads. As the 4 year anniversary of TTC draws ever nearer, I feel the need to draw into my hard shell, to protect myself from the slings and arrows of outrageous assvice. Where once I revelled in the discussion, AKA verbal diarrhoea of such scintillating sessions, now I cower in combined horror and fear at what the next such encounter holds. And that is only being slightly melodramatic.
The genesis of this particular blog was a particularly trying Bloods session at my local pathology clinic on the weekend. My FC was closed (being Sunday), so they sent me literally up the road (without the proverbial, mixed-metaphorical paddle) to collect that day's vampirical supply. Things started swimmingly. No other customers, score! A male nurse slumped over the desk in the 40 degree heat, hey, that means no talk of cycles, babies, pregnancy etc, double-score!
Can you say, WRONG?
Presenting, an Infertility Friends production of Mez and the Apparently Infertile Male Pathology Nurse.
Mez: wow, quiet day
AIMPN: yeah. (pause) Is this your first one?
Mez: (slightly puzzled...he can't think it's the first blood this cycle as my form says CD12) First what?
AIMPN: first child?
Mez: Umm, yes hopefully.
AIMPN: yeah, I just got back from leave, we've just had our second.
Mez: (what I wanted to say): Yeah? Well why don't you just push your hand into my chest, feel around for a while, pull out what's left of my broken, infertile heart, spit on it, stomp it underfoot, then replace it ready to break again for the next loss.
Mez: (what I actually said): Hmmmm....
AIMPN: yeah, we were told we'd never have kids.
Mez: you know, GPs really need to stop telling people that. They're not Fertility experts.
AIMPN: So what's wrong with you?
Mez: (what I wanted to say): Well, I'm sitting here with a syringe in my arm discussing my fertility with some random insensitive fucktard, Joy!
Mez: (what I actually said): We're unexplained.
AIMPN: My wife has endo, PCOS, the works.
Mez: (what I wanted to say): Yeah, that's why you've got 2 kids and I've got none. ps: you win a teapot.
Mez: (what I actually said): You've done well, then.
At this point, before things became farcical, we were happily interrupted by a passing courier, which gave me the opportunity to cunningly change the subject as soon as she left.
Mez: So this blood will be OK in my fridge overnight, then?
AIMPN: (obviously on a roll) Yeah. You know, there's all different levels of treatment.
Mez: (what I wanted to say): No shit, Sherlock Stupid.
Mez: (what I actually said): Hmmmmm.....
AIMPN: Yeah, have you heard of Clomid?
OK, I'm going to press the pause button here because this is where the ranting begins. WHAT KIND OF FUCKING MORON TELLS A WOMAN WITH A SYRINGE HANGING OUT OF HER ARM FOR HER FOURTH IVF CYCLE THAT THERE'S THIS MIRACULOUS THING CALLED CLOMID?????
Mez: (what I wanted to say): Oh My God, hurry up and take this blood already, what kind of fucking lunatic are you???
Mez: (what I actually said): We jumped the levels to IVF due to age.
etc etc etc etc......
Ok, let me just say that I understand that people think they are being helpful with this shit. I really do. But please don't compare your 'difficulties conceiving' (ie: having to try for 3 months) with what I'm going through, and please do not presume to advise me on my treatment options. THAT'S WHAT I'M PAYING $5000+ A CYCLE FOR!!!!!
This is just the tip of the iceberg of assvice I've received over the years. I haven't put in the insulting, basic models (ie: relax, go on a holiday, stop thinking about it etc) because my stock answer to those inanities now generally nips things in the bud. (ie: Oh, will that fix my dodgy tube?)
I would like to think that in a perfect world, people would not pontificate on topics on which they are completely clueless. The problem in this case is the delightful irony, that those who fall pregnant the easiest, know the least about fertility, yet have the most to say, being so successful and all. I personally have not been affected by cancer, so I will in no way think to advise you on that particularly distressing medical issue, however clearly others do not share my apprehension in highlighting ignorance on such topics.
Note also my use of the non-committal, yet highly expressive "hmmmmm....." in the above anecdote. Hmmmmm is very useful for the infertile slapper. Generally, you can lower your tone to a disinterested hum, excellent for killing off any superfluous, pending assvice. I highly recommend its use.
Over and Out.
The genesis of this particular blog was a particularly trying Bloods session at my local pathology clinic on the weekend. My FC was closed (being Sunday), so they sent me literally up the road (without the proverbial, mixed-metaphorical paddle) to collect that day's vampirical supply. Things started swimmingly. No other customers, score! A male nurse slumped over the desk in the 40 degree heat, hey, that means no talk of cycles, babies, pregnancy etc, double-score!
Can you say, WRONG?
Presenting, an Infertility Friends production of Mez and the Apparently Infertile Male Pathology Nurse.
Mez: wow, quiet day
AIMPN: yeah. (pause) Is this your first one?
Mez: (slightly puzzled...he can't think it's the first blood this cycle as my form says CD12) First what?
AIMPN: first child?
Mez: Umm, yes hopefully.
AIMPN: yeah, I just got back from leave, we've just had our second.
Mez: (what I wanted to say): Yeah? Well why don't you just push your hand into my chest, feel around for a while, pull out what's left of my broken, infertile heart, spit on it, stomp it underfoot, then replace it ready to break again for the next loss.
Mez: (what I actually said): Hmmmm....
AIMPN: yeah, we were told we'd never have kids.
Mez: you know, GPs really need to stop telling people that. They're not Fertility experts.
AIMPN: So what's wrong with you?
Mez: (what I wanted to say): Well, I'm sitting here with a syringe in my arm discussing my fertility with some random insensitive fucktard, Joy!
Mez: (what I actually said): We're unexplained.
AIMPN: My wife has endo, PCOS, the works.
Mez: (what I wanted to say): Yeah, that's why you've got 2 kids and I've got none. ps: you win a teapot.
Mez: (what I actually said): You've done well, then.
At this point, before things became farcical, we were happily interrupted by a passing courier, which gave me the opportunity to cunningly change the subject as soon as she left.
Mez: So this blood will be OK in my fridge overnight, then?
AIMPN: (obviously on a roll) Yeah. You know, there's all different levels of treatment.
Mez: (what I wanted to say): No shit, Sherlock Stupid.
Mez: (what I actually said): Hmmmmm.....
AIMPN: Yeah, have you heard of Clomid?
OK, I'm going to press the pause button here because this is where the ranting begins. WHAT KIND OF FUCKING MORON TELLS A WOMAN WITH A SYRINGE HANGING OUT OF HER ARM FOR HER FOURTH IVF CYCLE THAT THERE'S THIS MIRACULOUS THING CALLED CLOMID?????
Mez: (what I wanted to say): Oh My God, hurry up and take this blood already, what kind of fucking lunatic are you???
Mez: (what I actually said): We jumped the levels to IVF due to age.
etc etc etc etc......
Ok, let me just say that I understand that people think they are being helpful with this shit. I really do. But please don't compare your 'difficulties conceiving' (ie: having to try for 3 months) with what I'm going through, and please do not presume to advise me on my treatment options. THAT'S WHAT I'M PAYING $5000+ A CYCLE FOR!!!!!
This is just the tip of the iceberg of assvice I've received over the years. I haven't put in the insulting, basic models (ie: relax, go on a holiday, stop thinking about it etc) because my stock answer to those inanities now generally nips things in the bud. (ie: Oh, will that fix my dodgy tube?)
I would like to think that in a perfect world, people would not pontificate on topics on which they are completely clueless. The problem in this case is the delightful irony, that those who fall pregnant the easiest, know the least about fertility, yet have the most to say, being so successful and all. I personally have not been affected by cancer, so I will in no way think to advise you on that particularly distressing medical issue, however clearly others do not share my apprehension in highlighting ignorance on such topics.
Note also my use of the non-committal, yet highly expressive "hmmmmm....." in the above anecdote. Hmmmmm is very useful for the infertile slapper. Generally, you can lower your tone to a disinterested hum, excellent for killing off any superfluous, pending assvice. I highly recommend its use.
Over and Out.
Monday 3 March 2008
Miscarriage Redux.
Well, it's still boring, although on the positive side, AF did arrive in full technicolour glory and I now await my second FET in about 2 weeks. I have pushed to transfer 2 blasties this time. It was not the monumental struggle I was expecting, although I had Buckley's chance with my first fresh and frozen transfers. I guess with my excellent response, they figured I'd be OK. I even recall with irony the nurse who gushed that I'd get my whole family out of my five, day 5, Grade 1 blasts. Well, sucks to you, nursey, don't be giving me such false hope at my age.
I also caught up with the Melbourne Childless Slappers again last week and much merriment was had. Truly, the only people I want to discuss my secret Infertility business with now is other Infertiles. Look! No ass-vice! No insensitive, ignorant comments! Joy!
Because I don't have much of note to add, I'm going to post a journal entry I wrote just after my first miscarriage/D+C in July 2005, all those years ago. I think I had grand plans of sending it to a women's mag, but for the life of me couldn't fathom how I would market something so depressing. No-one really wants to know, right?
I will add that the pain has indeed been magnified with subsequent losses and some of the stuff in the first paragraph is no longer true.
What does a miscarriage REALLY feel like??
No one really tells you. You expect fear, pain, overwhelming sadness. You hope you’ll survive and recover. You can’t imagine and you hope that you never have to. You hear about women who cry for months, can’t remain in contact with pregnant friends. The ones who create little ‘memory-boxes’ with ultrasound pictures, prayers and gold rings. Who even named their foetuses and now call them angels. I thought I’d be one of those devastated women. I wasn’t.
ML-1001. ML-1001. The inscription on the huge, overhead lighting monoliths in the theatre. Trying hard to squint my eyes to suppress the tears, concentrating on anything but what was about to happen. Why was I crying? Was I grieving for the finality of the procedure I had been avoiding for over a week? Did it mean that my baby would finally, even though two ultrasounds had already shown the reality, no longer exist? No. I was just scared.
This story begins about fifteen months ago. At the age of 34, cluckiness made its better-late-than-never presence felt. I blame my brother for spawning the cutest little boy ever. So, we decided to try for a child. In my naïve state, I thought that the act of trying instantly qualified one for pregnancy. Month after month I wondered what was wrong. I had no gynaecological problems. I was as healthy as the proverbial horse. All I needed was the right partner, who had finally appeared 18 months earlier, after over a decade of the wrong partners. Ok, it’s baby time!
Only it wasn’t. A year passed. Friends and acquaintances with one tube, damaged ovaries/tubes, polycystic ovaries, just about every goddamn form of abnormal ovary or tube going, miraculously fell pregnant all too quickly. We talked uneasily about fertility testing. TTC (Trying to Conceive for the uninitiated) chat rooms suggested that many older women were turning to pharmaceutical help with ovulating. But no, we would do things the natural way. (i.e.: no doctors, thanks!) Then, as much as it pains me to admit it, the well meaning but irritating cliché of “stop thinking about it and it will happen”, came true. We had moved to the other side of the country and both had just started new jobs and had really important things to worry about.
Happy, happy, joy, joy! I kept the little stick as proof and did a little happy dance of disbelief. I took another one a week later and kept that too. More proof! I started getting zombie-like symptoms. Crushing fatigue, KFC cravings, waves of nausea. A few weeks of hell, really, but at least I was pregnant! I could deal with it, even when a colleague told me I smelled of spew, hey, I don’t care! I’m pregnant! I wasn’t really enjoying it, but the end result would be worth every uncomfortable moment.
Fast forward to week 8. (You count weeks religiously when you’re pregnant; every week is a step closer to that magical and safe land known as ‘Trimester 2’) Woke up, felt damn good, symptoms pretty much gone. I know my body and I know when something’s wrong. So I did what every intelligent, curious, modern woman does, yep, I googled. “Pregnancy symptoms stopped”…..well, either the baby had died at week 8 or I was one of the lucky ones. Friends and family and even the GP assured me that I was one of the lucky ones, but I knew better. I’ve never really been that lucky.
Fast forward to week 10. Spotting at work on Monday. Back to my old friend, google. Apparently 25% of pregnant women spot. Of those, half go on to miscarry, not betting odds, that’s for sure. Clean undies on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, phew! Spotting and cramping on Friday. “Be good, class, I don’t feel well today”. Kept running out of class, shaking, to check if there was any more. “I’m sure it’s nothing”, reassured my eternally optimistic partner. I knew better.
Next morning, Week 11, slight bleeding. Went to hospital. Sympathetic nurse who looked sad when I said I had period-like cramping and bleeding. She knew too. The ultrasound showed an empty sac, which had stopped growing at 8 weeks. (I knew it!) Nothing at all on the screen, no baby, nothing. Which made it so much easier to cope, in a bizarre, inexplicable way. You can’t attach if you’ve never seen your baby. I felt OK, calm and collected. I didn’t want a curette; I trusted my own body to sort itself out. Wasn’t my body the only one who had known something was wrong 3 weeks ago? I took Monday off to rest, then went back to school Tuesday.
“Wow, I’ve had a great miscarriage, no pain, no buckets of blood”, I repeated, over and over. Was I in denial and just avoiding the overwhelming, visceral pain, which would, doubtlessly, strike at any time? I’m sure colleagues were just waiting for the hysteria to strike, if the kid-glove treatment was any guide.
A week later, back at hospital for the check-up. Still mildly cramping and bleeding, my normally healthy body was letting me down. The empty sac was still there with some other bits and pieces, mocking me it seemed. I booked in for the curette and rang my partner who was working up north. We had no friends or family in this city, so he rushed home the next day.
Wednesday, back to hospital. This resilient, little, black duck was shit-scared. Never been in hospital a day in my life, if you don’t include for half an hour, 2 years ago, to get a broken leg plastered. Lots of waiting around, going from waiting rooms to change rooms to pre-op, then finally to the theatre. Finally, it was all too much and the silent tears flowed. “It’s alright to cry, it’s very emotional losing a baby”, the theatre nurse empathised. “It’s not that, I’m just scared,” I wept.
You can google miscarriage as long as you want, but you’ll never get the real story. For me, this was a strange, unreal, fifteen-month journey, which ended with nothingness. Not sadness, not hysteria, not even much pain.
Every woman is different. This was what my first miscarriage really felt like.
I also caught up with the Melbourne Childless Slappers again last week and much merriment was had. Truly, the only people I want to discuss my secret Infertility business with now is other Infertiles. Look! No ass-vice! No insensitive, ignorant comments! Joy!
Because I don't have much of note to add, I'm going to post a journal entry I wrote just after my first miscarriage/D+C in July 2005, all those years ago. I think I had grand plans of sending it to a women's mag, but for the life of me couldn't fathom how I would market something so depressing. No-one really wants to know, right?
I will add that the pain has indeed been magnified with subsequent losses and some of the stuff in the first paragraph is no longer true.
What does a miscarriage REALLY feel like??
No one really tells you. You expect fear, pain, overwhelming sadness. You hope you’ll survive and recover. You can’t imagine and you hope that you never have to. You hear about women who cry for months, can’t remain in contact with pregnant friends. The ones who create little ‘memory-boxes’ with ultrasound pictures, prayers and gold rings. Who even named their foetuses and now call them angels. I thought I’d be one of those devastated women. I wasn’t.
ML-1001. ML-1001. The inscription on the huge, overhead lighting monoliths in the theatre. Trying hard to squint my eyes to suppress the tears, concentrating on anything but what was about to happen. Why was I crying? Was I grieving for the finality of the procedure I had been avoiding for over a week? Did it mean that my baby would finally, even though two ultrasounds had already shown the reality, no longer exist? No. I was just scared.
This story begins about fifteen months ago. At the age of 34, cluckiness made its better-late-than-never presence felt. I blame my brother for spawning the cutest little boy ever. So, we decided to try for a child. In my naïve state, I thought that the act of trying instantly qualified one for pregnancy. Month after month I wondered what was wrong. I had no gynaecological problems. I was as healthy as the proverbial horse. All I needed was the right partner, who had finally appeared 18 months earlier, after over a decade of the wrong partners. Ok, it’s baby time!
Only it wasn’t. A year passed. Friends and acquaintances with one tube, damaged ovaries/tubes, polycystic ovaries, just about every goddamn form of abnormal ovary or tube going, miraculously fell pregnant all too quickly. We talked uneasily about fertility testing. TTC (Trying to Conceive for the uninitiated) chat rooms suggested that many older women were turning to pharmaceutical help with ovulating. But no, we would do things the natural way. (i.e.: no doctors, thanks!) Then, as much as it pains me to admit it, the well meaning but irritating cliché of “stop thinking about it and it will happen”, came true. We had moved to the other side of the country and both had just started new jobs and had really important things to worry about.
Happy, happy, joy, joy! I kept the little stick as proof and did a little happy dance of disbelief. I took another one a week later and kept that too. More proof! I started getting zombie-like symptoms. Crushing fatigue, KFC cravings, waves of nausea. A few weeks of hell, really, but at least I was pregnant! I could deal with it, even when a colleague told me I smelled of spew, hey, I don’t care! I’m pregnant! I wasn’t really enjoying it, but the end result would be worth every uncomfortable moment.
Fast forward to week 8. (You count weeks religiously when you’re pregnant; every week is a step closer to that magical and safe land known as ‘Trimester 2’) Woke up, felt damn good, symptoms pretty much gone. I know my body and I know when something’s wrong. So I did what every intelligent, curious, modern woman does, yep, I googled. “Pregnancy symptoms stopped”…..well, either the baby had died at week 8 or I was one of the lucky ones. Friends and family and even the GP assured me that I was one of the lucky ones, but I knew better. I’ve never really been that lucky.
Fast forward to week 10. Spotting at work on Monday. Back to my old friend, google. Apparently 25% of pregnant women spot. Of those, half go on to miscarry, not betting odds, that’s for sure. Clean undies on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, phew! Spotting and cramping on Friday. “Be good, class, I don’t feel well today”. Kept running out of class, shaking, to check if there was any more. “I’m sure it’s nothing”, reassured my eternally optimistic partner. I knew better.
Next morning, Week 11, slight bleeding. Went to hospital. Sympathetic nurse who looked sad when I said I had period-like cramping and bleeding. She knew too. The ultrasound showed an empty sac, which had stopped growing at 8 weeks. (I knew it!) Nothing at all on the screen, no baby, nothing. Which made it so much easier to cope, in a bizarre, inexplicable way. You can’t attach if you’ve never seen your baby. I felt OK, calm and collected. I didn’t want a curette; I trusted my own body to sort itself out. Wasn’t my body the only one who had known something was wrong 3 weeks ago? I took Monday off to rest, then went back to school Tuesday.
“Wow, I’ve had a great miscarriage, no pain, no buckets of blood”, I repeated, over and over. Was I in denial and just avoiding the overwhelming, visceral pain, which would, doubtlessly, strike at any time? I’m sure colleagues were just waiting for the hysteria to strike, if the kid-glove treatment was any guide.
A week later, back at hospital for the check-up. Still mildly cramping and bleeding, my normally healthy body was letting me down. The empty sac was still there with some other bits and pieces, mocking me it seemed. I booked in for the curette and rang my partner who was working up north. We had no friends or family in this city, so he rushed home the next day.
Wednesday, back to hospital. This resilient, little, black duck was shit-scared. Never been in hospital a day in my life, if you don’t include for half an hour, 2 years ago, to get a broken leg plastered. Lots of waiting around, going from waiting rooms to change rooms to pre-op, then finally to the theatre. Finally, it was all too much and the silent tears flowed. “It’s alright to cry, it’s very emotional losing a baby”, the theatre nurse empathised. “It’s not that, I’m just scared,” I wept.
You can google miscarriage as long as you want, but you’ll never get the real story. For me, this was a strange, unreal, fifteen-month journey, which ended with nothingness. Not sadness, not hysteria, not even much pain.
Every woman is different. This was what my first miscarriage really felt like.
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