Hi all,
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately since I had my beautiful DD in September last year.
Prior to my pregnancy with her I had a miscarriage in late 2019. That was my first pregnancy and it was slightly unexpected. I was absolutely over the moon but shocked as my fiancé and I were planning our wedding and nobody thought babies were on the cards for us yet.
I knew I was pregnant for about a week and a half before I started to bleed one morning. I felt like my heart stopped in that second, I was in complete shock and disbelief that this was happening. I went to the EPU and after doing some bloods they confirmed I was miscarrying (I didn’t have high enough HCG for a scan). I was 6 weeks pregnant at the time of the miscarriage.
The aftermath was horrendous for me mentally. I suffer with anxiety anyway and all I could think was “what’s wrong with me?”, “why couldn’t I carry this child?”, “what did I do wrong?”. All very common thoughts I know and of course everyone told me it wasn’t my fault, it’s just one of those things that happens. None of those wise words made any difference to me. I became convinced and obsessed with the thought that there was something fundamentally wrong and that I would never be able to carry a child.
Whilst I became depressed about it quite quickly I feel like people around me started to become frustrated. I was told by a few close to me that “you were only 6 weeks, these things happen, at least you can get pregnant, at that point it’s only a bunch of cells”.
My sister also suffered a difficult time the year before in that at 12 weeks she found out her baby had Down’s syndrome and she decided to have a termination which I completely understand. However I felt many people were comparing our situations and downplaying my grief in comparison to her horrendous situation.
Anyway, very quickly I became pregnant again with DD which was, thankfully, a successful pregnancy. My fiancé and I are so in love with her and I couldn’t be more grateful that I have my so longed for child.
However, now that I have her I often think of what would’ve been, I view the baby that I was pregnant with first as the child that I lost even though I know (as people told me) it was only cells at the point I miscarried. I sometimes become emotional about it but I feel so stupid and self indulgent to feel that way.
My partner doesn’t understand my grief, he says it’s different for dads and he hadn’t thought of that pregnancy in the same way he now feels about our daughter. He is supportive of me but just feels like the past is the past and why dwell.
I completely understand his view and those of others around me but I still feel the grief of a mother that lost her baby.
So I suppose my question is - am I being silly? Should I just get over this?
Am I entitled to my grief or am I being way too overindulgent?
P.S I know there are lots of women that have multiple miscarriages and I have been very lucky to fall pregnant easily after my miscarriage and have a successful pregnancy. I’m not looking to offend anyone x