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
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.
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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.
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HereBeHubbubs · 09/08/2014 02:35
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