Twelve.

Three weeks today i got the news that my baby had stopped growing. Twenty one days. My bleeding is finally subsiding. I have continued having bad pains which i thought were cramps from my uterus but have been told that infact i have a bladder infection and i am now on antibiotics. If things weren’t bad enough.

Each day is getting a little easier. I cry a little less. I have had a couple days where i have not cried at all. It doesn’t mean i haven’t thought about it though.

I am slowly getting my life back on track. It’s a big effort but i know that i can only go one of two ways – i either see my friends and remember that i am alive or i bury myself in depression for who knows how long. I have managed to do something each day for the past five days that i am proud of. It may be a simple task like cooking a meal or putting the laundry in to wash, but it is a step in the right direction.

I have alot of unanswered questions about my miscarriage and how the hospital dealt with it. I am considering arranging a meeting to speak to someone and ask my questions, and hopefully get the answers that i need to feel like i can get closure and move forwards.

I am so grateful for my family the past few weeks. They have supported me, cried with me and helped me with anything i need. None of them have had any experience of miscarriage and were as blind as me about how the hospital treats you and how long it goes on for and how painful it is; physically and emotionally. They have made an effort to keep me talking and haven’t been offended when i have snapped at them. They have been sensitive of my feelings and made arrangements to spend time with me.

Me and my partner have a weekend in italy next weekend. It was meant to be a celebration and to make the most of our time we had together before a baby came along. Now it has turned into a weekend away where we will reconnect with eachother and try to enjoy eachothers company. Its not that we haven’t been enjoying spending time with eachother, but we cope very differently. He buries his head in the sand and keeps himself busy. I close down and don’t have the energy and motivation to do anything, and when i do find some and manage to do something i become angry if he doesnt realise how much effort it took me to do it. I am angry at everything just now though. Neither of us mean any harm or to intentionally hurt eachother though, i guess that is what a partner is there for though – to support you emotionally even if it means putting up with your verbal punches through the hard times.

I have made a promise to myself to get back on track when i get back from italy. To get back on my healthy eating journey, to get back swimming, to get back to being myself again and celebrating my life. I refuse to get lost in a future that wasn’t meant to be when i have a future ahead of me that is.

Eleven.

I dont know what to do. How to feel. How to survive. I feel so empty.

I had my confirmation scan today which confirmed theres no pregnancy left inside me. Im so sad. I feel like theres a hole inside me and i dont know how to fill it.

I keep comfort eating and feel like if my mouth and tummy is full then my cries cant escape.

I want to howl and sob and i keep stopping myself cause i know my heart will literally break and i dont have any superglue strong enough to mend it and dont know if i can live through it. I dont know what to do.

Its like being in the worst depression and just being alive feels like too hard a job. If i wasnt breathing automatically i would not bother even breathing. It hurts inside my heart to feel my chest rise because i know my baby never got to feel that.

I can’t face the world. The critical part of me is saying im pathetic and to get over it. That it wasnt even a proper baby. Then the lonely sad part of me gets even more depressed. Its a vicious cycle.

I asked at the hospital today for my scan photo from last week. I wasn’t thinking last week to get one because i thought I’d see my baby again. As far as i understood from what the nurse said when i was there it was probably just that my dates were wrong. It wasn’t until i got home and read the leaflets that i understood.

I phoned the following day to request it. Then again when i spent Saturday-Sunday in the hospital due to my contractions and bleeding being so severe. I asked on the phone on Tuesday and then today when getting the confirmation scan.

The sonographer replied saying they dont give out scans that had stopped growing because its not a baby its just a sac and nothing is there. It is still my pregnancy though. I still had a 12 week pregnancy. It was still my baby. My peanut.

I just want my scan photo to help it all feel real i guess. To have something physical that shows i was pregnant and that my pain is real. Some people think that a baby loss in early pregnancy isnt as hurtful as losing a one year old or your mum or your brother or sister but its all the same. Its still a loss and its not just an empty sac to me. Its the hopes and dreams and the future you planned thats been stolen from you.

It doesnt mean i am going to sit and look at it and cry all the time but it means i have it if i want to look at it. Possibly for when times are sad or i feel hopeless, i can look at it and tell myself if i got through that then i can get through anything. Maybe for if we have babies in the future and i want to show them their little brother or sister. I just want to make it feel real and not let its memory fade.

I might get it and never want to look at it again. I dont know how i will feel about it in the future but atleast i have it if i want it.

I know i am becoming fixated on fighting battles when i really need to just sit and care for myself but i feel like a protective mother goose guarding her eggs, in the blind hope that they’re okay after the cunning fox has eaten them all.

I am fighting for my baby to not be “just another empty sac” thats forgotten about. It was my baby.

“You were carried for only a moment but will be loved for a life time.”

W.♡

Ten.

I sit in the bath remembering
How much things change in a week
For only a few days ago
We couldnt wait for our sneak peek

We had stayed up late questioning
Would you have my ears or his
I imagined your eyes sparkling when you smiled
The softness of your skin i couldnt wait to kiss

We went to the ultrasound room, cosy and dimly lit
I climbed up on the bed, shaking only a little bit
I was excited to see your tiny face, hear your beating heart
But in that second all i felt was my world being torn apart

A silent miscarriage, i got told
My body doesnt even realise
The baby stopped growing weeks ago
My heart breaks as i hear my throat let out its cries

I am angry at my body,
bittersweet in its unacceptance
My grief trickles down my face
You’re our angel now, forever there to protect us

Sobs leave my body as i think about what could have been
I close my eyes and try to sleep
My body feels empty, useless and desolate
I fight my way into dreamland as i continue to weep

I spend three days in labour, with nothing to show at the end
Just contractions and pain and a heart that needs to mend
A miscarriage that was missed, But missed you shall be
The future that never began which stole a part of me

I will think of you on your due date, and shed tears for what never was
I will hang a stocking on the fireplace when expecting santa claus
I will blow out your birthday candles and wish your soul to come back to me
For i will long for you, forever, my little chestnut tree.

Nine.

Empty. Broken. Numb. Bittersweet. Words that describe what i am feeling right now. Words can’t describe what i am feeling right now.

This morning i woke up, 12 weeks pregnant and bursting for a pee that i wasnt allowed to let out yet, ready to go for my first scan and see our baby.

For weeks we have known, have been thinking of baby names, wondering if it will be a boy or a girl, if it will have my nose or his ears, what colour of hair it will have, for everything to come crashing down around me today.

I sat back in the hospital bed in the dimly lit room, expectantly waiting to see our peanut. I felt the pain of my full bladder being squeezed as the ultrasound monitor pressed against my lower abdomen.

“Is there a chance you could be earlier than expected?” the nurse asked. She told me that my baby was only measuring 7 weeks.

My mind is racing. I cant only be 7 weeks. It was about 7 weeks ago i had my positive test.

The nurse asks if we can do an internal ultrasound. She tells me i can empty my bladder first. That sounds like a good plan. I come back, with my urine sample in hand as i know the midwifes need that after the scan is completed. I undress my lower half and get back up on the bed.

Again, she states that its only measuring 7 weeks. That there is a yolk sac but no foetus inside it. She takes some measurements on the computer and then lets me get dressed again. I am fearing the worst. I can feel the lump in my throat forming.

She comes back in smiling, apologising, saying that sometimes you just cant tell whats going on but that i should come back in two weeks for another scan. She asks if i have any questions. My mind is empty. I ask her what the date was 7 weeks ago, she doesnt know. I get my phone and check the calander on it. It was exactly 7 weeks ago to the day that i had my positive test.

I ask her what this means. She says that i am just measuring early but if the scan in two weeks shows no growth then it means something untoward is happening. She explains that the early pregnancy ward is open and what the number is, and that if i experience any bleeding to phone them. We leave with heavy hearts.

How am I meant to feel? I haven’t been told that i have lost my baby. But I haven’t been told that i haven’t lost my baby.

She has given me some leaflets which i open. “Managing miscarriage” and “Cremation of pregnancy loss”. I read through them, confused. Why am i getting these if im just showing earlier than expected.

I read a paragragh which resonates with me.

“A missed miscarriage, also known as a delayed or silent miscarriage, occurs when a foetus dies, but the body does not recognise the pregnancy loss or expel the pregnancy tissue. As a result, the placenta may still continue to release hormones, so the woman may continue to experience signs of pregnancy.

A missed miscarriage is usually diagnosed during a routine checkup, where the doctor will fail to detect a heartbeat. A subsequent ultrasound will show an underdeveloped foetus.”

There was no heartbeat. Just a big black empty looking yolk sac. There was no little baby.

I feel my heart crack. Break. Shatter.

I read on. “If your sonographer thinks you have a missed miscarriage based on your ultrasound, she’ll need to confirm with another scan.”

That is why i am coming back for another scan. Not to check if its grown but to confirm its not growing. To be sure than my baby is dead.

How can i have had a miscarriage when i havent experienced any cramping or bleeding? I have never heard of this type of miscarriage. This means that i have been carrying my dead baby inside me for weeks. My womb has become a tomb. It sounds quite poetic if it wasn’t so heartbreaking.

I have to go through the pain of telling my mum, my sisters, my best friend, that the scan didn’t go well. That it’s bad news. This wasnt how i expected my day to be. I had already thought about the big reveal. I had already room planned the nursery. I had signed up for pregnancy yoga classes. I already had a cot.

I sit and wait for the bleeding to start. No promises that it will. My body has held on to my peanut for the last 5 weeks. It doesn’t want to let go. My body cant comprehend that the baby has died. Why will my body just accept it now and expel the pregnancy when it hasn’t already? Its becoming a reality that i need to think about how i want to remove the dead baby that is inside me. Will the surgical anaesthetic option be the least traumatic for me? Then i won’t need to see my dead baby and birth it like i did with the 2009 termination.

That’s made me think. I always bet myself up and told myself that the baby in 2009 was my chance to be a mum. But i choose someone else over my unborn baby and i had to punish myself, not allow myself to flirt with the idea of having another baby as i didnt deserve it. That my babys soul felt unwanted and unloved.

After seeing the physic medium in January and she told me that my baby forgave me and was safe with my granny looking over me, i started to heal. I started to let myself think maybe i did deserve another chance. Then i found out i was expecting and it was a sign. That the universe did want me to have a baby and that i was deserving of another chance.

Maybe i was wrong. Maybe that is why this has happened.

I can’t think any more. My brain hurts. My heart hurts. My eyes hurt.

W.♡