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Miscarriage/pregnancy loss

'It's only a heavy period really, you'll get over it' and other gems for early m/c loss.

5 replies

HereBeHubbubs · 09/08/2014 02:35

I'm not sure if I'm going to hit 'Send' or keep as a cathartic exercise, so apologies for the essay if I do choose the former Blush

Right from the off, I kept using the term 'viable'.
"This may not be viable", "If it turns out to be viable", etc etc in conversations with my partner.

That isn't a usual part of my vocabulary and I never used it with my previous two pregnancies. In fact, miscarriage literally never even crossed my mind previously, and I was age 38 and 40 so statistically, I should have considered it.

I knew the minute I met my chikdren's father I'd have kids with him. It was an overwhelming almost premonition-like feeling. Yet I knew he didn't want chikdren and I wasn't even broody or maternal, never had been in my life in fact. Meeting him it was not overwhelming love or lust or anything, the premonition was just instantly apparent.

With my current partner, I didn't get that 'we're having kids together' feeling.

I also read something online somewhere, a phrase that stood out and made the hairs on my neck stand up: ' an embryo must feel wanted to survive'.

It was probably some knitted yogurt quote but for some reason it stood out. I had been feeling guilty that I had fell pregnant to yet another man that really preferred not to have children.

All along, I think I can confidently state that I knew this pregnancy would not last, and at around 8 weeks I did indeed lose it. I knew when I first wiped and a minuscule barely apparent tinge of palest, palest pink blood appeared on the tissue.

As with regular periods, I'm fairly light, regular and almost totally PMS symptom free, so miscarriage was quick, clean and over with in 2 days.

I caught the sac and placenta and put it in a box and slept with it by my pillow that night, with my finger gently touching it. It felt like a being that had died, which of course is what it was.
When it came out, it was that push-and-slippery soap shooting out moment you get when delivering full term. It felt like I had birthed a little life, so I treated it like a little life that first night.

Before this, I had no experience nor knowledge of miscarriages. So I was completely unprepared for the experience of feeling like I had actually been in labour, and then birthed, and that maternal desire to nurture immediately after losing it.
Of course, my womb had been hosting a pregnancy for several weeks, hormones were performing their tasks and after I had lost it, those same pregnancy hormones were still present, if rapidly dissipating.

I felt guilty sometimes that because I had only lost a life in its earliest stages it didn't count, as I kept reading, 'it's just a bunch of cells'. Whilst there was no apparent baby limbs, I could determine a formed head and eye sockets, and spine, and the placenta was already magnificent with blood vessels. I have even felt embarrassed sometimes, knowing that many women lose a baby fully formed, whilst mine was (to some) nothing more than a 'heavy period'.

I kept hearing and reading the phrase, 'you could have lost lots of babies and never known about it, if early miscarriages just pass like periods'.
The fact is, I did know I was pregnant, whereas 'all those times' I may well have not known I was pregnant so of course I would have been blissfully ignorant.

This experience has alerted me to the distinct possibility I did have an early miscarriage in my mid 20s yet never realised at the time, so lacking in maternal yearning was I then it never crossed my mind I might have been oregnant when I passed a bizarre shaped 50p sized clot. It was what I remember back then and have since learnt are called Montgomery's Tubercles. Little raised white lumps over the areola. I remember at the time wondering what they were, but still it never occurred I might be pregnant. They featured initially again this time, which was the first reason I suspected I might be pregnant this time round.

I still have the little life in a box in my fridge. I can't seem to abandon it yet. I'm still a bit awkward around my partner with the issue, I sense that he can't understand my attachment to it, perhaps men can't anyway,it isn't just him.

It's been about a month and a half now and the sobbing is over, although the grief will resurface I am sure around February when the due date comes.

My reason for this outpouring is that hopefully other women who miscarried 'early' at between 5-10 weeks where no real formed baby is apparent if they saw what they lost, can be assured that this isn't just a collection of cells, a 'heavy period', 'still an embryo' amd all the other dismissive terms.
It is still a little life that you created, you hosted, you nurtured and you grieved for, no matter what the size or gestational age.
it wasn't just the future plans you had for your new baby you lost, you actually may have held that little life in your hand. Mine was just a head and eye sockets and taily spine in her little sac but my feelings of having 'birthed' and then wanting to nurture it afterwards came from a real place that wasn't 'just your imagination'. It came from having held something that was once living in my hand, and that is as real as it gets.

OP posts:
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bakingtins · 09/08/2014 07:40

hubbubs I'm so sorry that you lost your baby and I hope you found writing about it to be cathartic. A miscarriage is a huge deal to the majority of couples who experience it and the sort of dismissive comments you've encountered really don't help. I hope you are able to lay your baby to rest and find some peace in doing so. Flowers

However, it is absolute bollocks that 'an embryo must feel wanted to survive'. I know you are quoting something you read and it's not your idea but a very quick glance around at the number of unwanted pregnancies that either do survive or are terminated when they would have survived will quickly disprove it. It almost implies that women who miscarry just didn't love enough, which is really offensive. Your feelings about a pregnancy have no bearing on whether you will miscarry.

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Attheendof · 09/08/2014 23:01

"It's just a lump of cells" - well, so are we all really.
"Embryo needs to be loved to survive" - tell that to the women wanting abortions, does their embryo spontaneously disappear? (I realise terminated pgs may also be loved, but not always). This is a horrible statement.
Sorry for your loss OP.

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Periwinklepolarbear · 09/08/2014 23:11

This. You have summed up feelings i am struggling to come to terms with and have no idea how to express. So sorry for your loss Hubbubs Sad x

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thesmallbear · 10/08/2014 16:27

Hello OP, just wanted to say that your post really struck a chord with me. I feel that I could have written a lot of it myself. I'm so sorry for your loss. It helps to know that there are others out there who feel exactly the same as me and that I am not crazy. I actually showed your post to my other half to let him know that this is how I feel. You articulated it in a way I never could.

My pregnancy sac is also in the freezer. Currently we live in a flat with no garden so we haven't been able to bury him (had a feeling it was a boy) yet. There was nothing in the sac that remotely resembled a baby. I think something went wrong very early in the pregnancy and he stopped growing. The most we ever saw was a tiny grey dot on the screen, which we were told was a yolk sac and something that could have resembled a fetal pole. Anyway, when I passed the sac it was like I had this overwhelming maternal urge to protect it, even though logically I knew there wasn't really anything there. To me this was still my baby who deserved dignity and I would not just flush him down the toilet like he didn't mean anything. We are shortly moving to a new flat, which has a balcony and we are going to bury him in a big plant pot and find a small tree to plant on top.

The thing about an embryo needing to be loved to survive is rubbish though. If that's all it takes my baby would definitely still be here.

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startwig1982 · 10/08/2014 16:34

I had mc last summer and it took months to get over it. The problem is that some people just don't know what to say and come out with some generic rubbish that they think is better than saying nothing.
In reality, there's nothing anyone can say that is of any comfort. I blamed myself and even though it may not have been 'viable' it doesn't make it any easier.

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