I’ve got to admit, it’s never something I have paid much attention to in the past without having first hand experience in it, but as with many things, that has changed with me currently going through one. Which subsequently leads me to a few questions... Why have I never really heard about it? Why don’t I ever hear of it happening if it’s supposedly that common? Why do I only see the perfect pregnancies, not the ones where the poor woman is bleeding every week? Why is something so harrowing and down right terrifying, so ignorantly glazed over and taboo?
I found out I was pregnant very quickly (first pregnancy ) and we had only been trying that month so seeing those two red lines was a complete shock to us both. Those famous two words, female intuition? It’s no myth and I believe mine when I experience it. Not once did I feel excitement, the urge to tell everyone in the world or begin planning what the nursery would look like. No I just had the one burning question in that moment “But what if I miscarry?” Not through pessimism or morbidity, just the overwhelming feeling that it was going to happen to me. I told a select few as I would need some support in the coming months, only really relatives and a best friend that just so happens to be a midwife. After a couple of weeks I started spotting, very slightly but enough to unnerve me into calling my GP and was sent for a scan the very same day. I didn’t really know what to expect but pregnancy is a learning curve, one that I really didn’t know a lot about prior to becoming pregnant. I had to have an internal scan as I was too early for the abdominal but there it was, the little ‘diamond ring’! With me having longer cycles I was behind on my dates by a week but they were happy with what they could see for the timeframe but as precaution I was booked in for a follow up two weeks later to check on my progress. A week after my scan the spotting started again but I wasn’t too worried as it wasn’t heavy or clotting. A few days after that it started to get heavier but still no pain. The morning of my birthday, I woke up to what can only be described as intense period cramps, I sat on the toilet and there came away the first clot and a stream of red blood. Throughout the day it got worse and that evening I barely slept with the pain and the feeling of impending doom. I believe I passed the embryo the early hours, as the pain started to ease off as did the bleeding. I no longer feel pregnant and what little symptoms I had, I seemed to have flushed away with everything else. I think what I find most heartbreaking is the very thing my body has tirelessly started to create over the last two months is what’s causing all of this pain through it trying expell it and nothing can quite prepare you for that vision and feeling. I don’t believe for one second that my experience can come close to what some women go through but had I not of read up and familiarised myself with the process, I believe I’d of suffered a lot more than I did. This was through the courage of women, who like me feel the need to share their experiences so it can be of solace to anyone about to or going through their darkest hours. It doesn’t need to be taboo, it’s a natural but heartbreaking process that is most of the time, for the best. It will take time but this is just the beginning, I feel I will be more equipped and a lot stronger when it comes to my next pregnancy and I will never give up hope. Everything happens for a reason and for me, it just wasn’t my time.
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