I think a lot about women who have suffered miscarriages. So many of them had either planned or knowingly anticipated the arrival of their babies. I still can’t imagine the depth of their pain, because my miscarriage was unknown and definitely not anticipated.
It’s okay, I wasn’t invested … or so I was told.
For almost a year now I have been blocking the whole situation out because I never really felt like it mattered. I saw no pink lines, no ultrasound. What I saw was nothing but blood and something I had passed in the toilet. I wouldn’t even call it a baby; I couldn’t have been any more than 4 weeks.
It is funny how so many people shrug off miscarriages due to an unknown pregnancy. So many people thought I was okay because I had no knowledge of the pregnancy, therefore I had no attachment to it. I seem to recall feeling differently.
It was an average day, my boyfriend and I thought we’d spend the day in bed watching movies and talking. It was cosy and sweet … until I sat up to go to the bathroom.
“Holy shit, are you okay?!” my boyfriend said just as I turned around and looked down to see a puddle of blood that had seemingly come out of nowhere. I remember my instincts saying “miscarriage”. I rushed to the bathroom.
My friend took me to the doctor. I sat in the waiting room completely shaken, trying to process what had just happened. I suffer from PCOS and had not had a period since I had to go off the Pill, so the doctor just assumed that’s what it was.
I was content to write it off as a period until I was doing the dishes later that afternoon, when all of a sudden I was overcome with a nasty abdominal cramp. I went and sat on the toilet. I won’t get too graphic, but when I got back up I saw something in the bowl that I’d never passed before (or since, for that matter.) .
For the following few weeks I was exhausted and anxious. My legs and feet were killing me. I felt physically traumatised enough, but my mental state was absolutely shocking for months after. For such a long time after, I looked down at my sheets to make sure it hadn’t happened again.
Mia Freedman talks about feeling lost after miscarriage. Post continues below.
I was nothing but a shell for a very long time. It didn’t help that I didn’t know how to talk to my friends and family about how I was feeling and they didn’t know how to approach me.
My miscarriage occurred during the last few weeks of my final semester at university. At that point we had to undertake internships. I was neither physically nor mentally fit enough to do it, but I persevered through strength and the support of my lecturers. I finished university on nothing but determination; any passion for writing (or anything else) had long left me.
Hindsight makes me wish I had allowed myself to process my feelings, that I didn’t write it off like it didn’t matter.
Even if I was not invested in the embryo, in the aftermath I felt a loss for what could have been.
I have become incredibly anxious for the future in terms of having children. I pretend that I don’t want children out of fear that I will not be able to have them even though I’ve always wanted to.
Nearly a year on, I finally feel the need to stop sweeping it under the rug. My miscarriage happened and I endured it. Even though I was unaware I was pregnant, it still affected me physically and mentally.
I am moving forward with my writing and I have found my passion again. I came out of the other end much stronger than before and now I wish to share my story hoping that somebody in a similar situation doesn’t feel as alone as I did.
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