Content warning: This post contains details of miscarriage some readers may find triggering.
My name’s not that important – I could be the woman shuffling change behind you at the coffee cart, or shrinking my body away from yours on the bus.
I’m any woman, and I’m having a miscarriage. Having. Nobody usually talks about miscarriage that way, do they?
So I’m writing the words I don’t know how to speak, a story we don’t usually tell. Things I wish someone had told me.
Monday, 3pm
It was baby pink, I’ve just told the GP, wincing at the clumsy choice of words. It was mucus, not even spotting, and I only saw it once when I went to the bathroom an hour ago. It doesn’t hurt there, or there.
I’m not worried; just checking because I didn’t have anything like this when I was pregnant with my son, now two. I’m feeling pretty good, actually. My husband and I even high fived this morning because, after being fogged in by first trimester exhaustion, today, in the middle of week nine, I’ve got my bounce back.
But sure, I’ve said, let’s go have a scan to prove everything’s fine. “Threatened miscarriage”, reads the referral slip. But I’m running my hand over the still-small swell of my belly and smiling confidently at my husband.
It can’t be that. It was just mucus. And it was only pink.
Monday, 4:30pm
I tasted grief – metal, cold, dry – in my mouth the instant the sonographer touched my arm.
My brain tried to hold back the ocean of meaning behind words that kept coming from her mouth – “There’s been no growth beyond what we’d expect at six weeks.” So Baby is just little?
Top Comments
I spent hours and even days on google looking for these answers. What does spotting look like? Is bloody muscas ok? But I'm not in pain? Even a visit to the hospital didn't provide any answers after 7 days of the same bloody mucas/discharge.
That night I started to bleed and didn't stop until an hour after I passed a small marble sized white ball of solid mucas. At that point I knew, what else could it have been.
The next day we drove home from holidays to visit my GP. She gave me a knowing look when I told her I think it has happened.. I'm not l longer pregnant. From there is was ultrasound, GP, ultrasound, GP until they were happy I was in the clear and healthy to attempt another pregnancy. Only when I saw my GP did anyone provide answers.
I agree with the Author. The shock and emotional despair for me was not that I had miscarried, I knew the stats all too well from those around me, but that I didn't know what was happening to my body. What was normal? Was this ok?
I just wish it wasn't so painful to talk about because then we might find the answers when we need them.
Very few people talk about the whole process, and sometimes we who had been through this, need to hear we're not alone, and that what we're going through is nothing to be ashamed of. I suffered a miscarriage and I didn't expect to hear that I can't concieve naturally... but I didn't understand... I was just pregnant. But it's true, we need to move forward, and so I went to a fertility clinic called Ingenes in Mexico and they helped me cope with this, with also my husband's help, to finally have our baby. It's very hard, you never really get "over it", but we should try.