Miscarriage

Was hit by a wave of sadness today that doubled me over. It’s a week since our fifth miscarriage, and as we’ve decided this was to be our final attempt, I’m writing down how it feels. I’m very good at putting on a brave face and trucking on, so figured I’d try writing as a method of properly processing some of this stuff. Also one day I’ll look back and want to know what my head was doing, and maybe better explain to my daughter how I felt in 2023.

For the record (just in case I reread this in 40 years and need reminding), I’m 41, live in SE London, happily married to Charlotte and have a super-smart and beautiful five year old daughter, Coco. I drink too much tea and wine, love riding my brompton, cooking for people and enjoy a job which takes me to Kenya a lot. I’m a happy person and proud of my life. We also have a cat called Goober – he has no relevance but deserves a mention.

Between 2019 and now we’ve had five miscarriages. Some were later than others, and each one had different details and procedures. However each falls into a familiar pattern in my mind:

• The initial learning of the pregnancy, and associated excitement and terror. What will it be like having two? What will it mean for our relationship etc etc. With each miscarriage this phase got increasingly loaded with the probability of failure, displacing positivity and excitement with cold pragmatism.
• Telling people good news; we have wonderful and supportive families who have shared in every bit of excitement and grief with us, and so we learned with time to be more guarded and not to get others hopes up along with our own. I would make decisions ahead of seeing people as to whether to saddle them with the burden of knowing.
• Dreaming of what could be. I would (and still) lose hours scrolling through old photos, remembering those fun early months, and thinking how lovely it would be to do that all again, this time with Coco playing a part. Imagining her as the big sister, curiously waking up in the night when the baby might cry, will play in my head forever.
• The miscarriage. We’ve spent a lot of time in Lewisham hospital, and getting awkward apologies, queuing systems, and the harsh reality of COVID when Charlotte was informed of the miscarriage on her own as I wasn’t allowed in the room. A lot of time sat outside of bathrooms while things happen with Char. These moments are seared onto my brain.
• Telling people bad news. Over the phone, in person, on WhatsApp. It’s always shit. I find it hard to accept sympathy, and in these dark periods my only thought is to keep going. Keep waking up. Keep smiling with Coco and keep supporting Charlotte. How I feel is least important, and so I hold it in until nobody needs me, when I can breathe out. Open the tap a little and see what comes out.
• The waves of sadness; the thing that triggered me writing all of this. It’s like filling a bucket to the brim with feelings, and then hoisting it about, only for the occasional trip when a big glug slops over the side. A big splash of emotion. I’ve learned to engineer ‘trips’ in order to keep the bucket manageable, creating scenarios where the sadness takes over but nobody can see. Solo cinema trips are my specialty as it’s dark so nobody can see tears; it’s also late at night so I can walk home afterwards and put my head back together.

Coco and her cousin in Richmond — it was the day after one of the miscarriages and I had met up with my brothers. It’s bittersweet thinking about how much support my siblings provide in the context of all this.

Not sure putting this into a neat set of phases is what I had in mind. Also I worry about what people reading this will think. I’m ok. I genuinely am. I don’t want or need sympathy. I just want to share a little of what it feels like to go through something that so many others have also been through. I’ve been amazed by the number of times I’ve opened up and told a friend or colleague about a recent miscarriage, and they’ve replied with a knowing expression and confirmed that they too have been through it, often many more times than I have. There will be people you know that have experienced miscarriage and who have never mentioned it.

I think today’s sad-wave was triggered by staring at my daughter playing; we’d just eaten lunch and she went into the lounge to set up a Connect-4 match with Char. Looking at her sat alone nudged a broken bit of my heart, the same bit that made me cry watching her run around LegoLand on her own last year– thank god for sunglasses. Knowing she’d be the best big sister still kills me, even though I know in my most rational moments that she has a wonderful life. She needs for nothing and is surrounded by love. When she’s older we’ll tell her about this stuff and she’ll understand.

We watched this shortly after miscarriage two or three, and I remember crying uncontrollably as it unlocked something that had been lodged — lovely film

Not sure how to end this. I’m sure I’ll come back to it and add some bits that come to me. Or delete it. It’s useful to write these things down, as I worry the whole process has made me colder, so it’s weirdly comforting to remind myself of the emotional assault course that’s led to today. I look at photos of me (and us) from five years ago and sometimes don’t recognise the care-free people we were before all this happened. Before everything got so heavy.

Thanks for reading. If you’re one of the people that’s been there for us, said nice things, sent nice things, or just given me a bit of space and changed the subject, thank you. I’m not an easy person to support; probably a bit like trying to give affection to a robot or refrigerator. I’ve noticed more and more I’m expert at firing questions back before anyone else gets a chance to properly ask me how I’m feeling. And if you’re reading this and have been through the same, I’m sorry. It’s shit.