Diosa Alchemy

I wrote this blog the morning after i miscarried. I thought i’d share it with you…

Last night I had a miscarriage.

It’s sort of funny really how i knew it was coming. I’d been sitting at my desk and my husband was just about to walk out of the room and i cried and said – i’m so scared to lose the baby. He reassured me and i felt a little better for a while. But then

A few hours later, I had such back ache and then after going to the bathroom, I looked down and saw a watery bloody discharge on the tissue and I knew that it was gone. It’s funny really because I knew I was pregnant just after Christmas because I heard a little voice in my head calling me – Mummy? Mummy?! I really did try to keep you safe. But last night, I heard a little shout twice more, then a ‘Mummy, i’m sorry I couldn’t stay’. I told them it was ok, that I’d see them soon…

Did you know that women over 30 experience miscarriage 2/10 pregnancies? Did you know that 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage? Did you know that… now… now, I’m a statistic. So many people. Doesn’t make it any easier though.

There’s hope when you are actively trying and you see that little ‘pregnant’ sign. You try and be cool, calm and collected about it but really inside you’re screaming with happiness, imagining what they will look like and what on earth you will be like as a parent. There’s such, hope, such expectancy. Now, really, just a sense of loss.

I only knew my little dot for 5 weeks… here come the comments, maybe keep them to yourself. Something like, ‘it was such early days’, ‘you don’t tell anyone for at least 12 weeks’, ‘totally normal for people to loose babies that early’. Can someone please tell my aching body that? My heart? My head? That i’m not supposed to care yet. They don’t know the rules. It sort of feels like an extra kick in the teeth that it hurts so much – do you know what I mean? Like, ok I lost the baby but to be kept awake all night feeling yourself loose the baby is extra torture. I get it, I get it, it’s gone, jeeeez.

When I was younger I went to hospital for a scan and they told me I had lots of cysts in my ovaries, that I’d either be super fertile or super infertile – their exact words. It comes back to me all the time, wondering if I’ll ever be lucky enough to hold my own baby in my arms. I have PCOS, which can be a little tricky when it comes to fertility, and i also have other issues with hormones and i’m 35! Now with this… you try and not let it build up in your head as a nightmare story instead of a reality with many different facets, but sometimes, sometimes like today you just feel sad, a bit worried if it’ll ever happen and well sore.

So day 2 of miscarriagegate. I’m bleeding a LOT, still so sore and uncomfortable. Called the doctors to just make sure I’m doing all the right things for me – I don’t want/think I need a scan, expect I’d do a test next week just to make sure it’s negative and then just take care of myself and see how I feel next cycle for trying again.

This really is the amazing thing about women huh, we bleed every month for like a week – with pain masked by hot water bottles, food, rest and tears. We carry on working, we carry on carrying on and then when things like this happen.. we continue to carry on carrying on. Like it’s expected of us. Can’t take a minute to grieve the tiny loss we experienced – it’s normal, everyone goes through it, we’ll just try again. But wait, wait a second please… let me grieve, let me feel sad, let me mourn the loss of the little life I was trying to grow. Let me grieve the loss of the life that I had envisioned in ours, just let me please. Because if I do not allow myself the space to feel, to experience the feelings that I have, I will fall.

There is much talk about stoicism right now. About being so in control of your emotions that you do not express unnecessarily – that to express yourself outside of something temperate it means you do not have control of yourself. I would like to call bullshit on that. For me, having control of your emotions is to allow yourself to feel every.single.piece.of.it. To allow the feelings to come and overwhelm you and then learn to soothe yourself, to find ways to let those waves calm so that the next time the feelings you come you can say – oh hi ‘pain/worry/doubt/fear’ I remember you. This is how we overcome.

So here’s to the self-soothing, here’s to the better understanding, here’s to the grief and loss and disappointment. Here’s to it all… bye little bug… see you soon.

And so, what now?

And so we carry on! As always… bit by bit, piece by piece. My sister in law described a miscarriage as a silent grief, a grief that is so hard and uncomfortable to share – for those it’s happening to and those around them. A sort of balance between – gah suck it up love, i had one too, to wow – how are you? are you ok? Grieve, grieve that little life. At Christmas my SIL gave us a blanket that their mother knitted for a little baby right before she passed away. A week after the miscarriage, i wrapped it up in tissue paper, along with some baby converse we were given as a blessing for the future and i put it in this beautiful box a gf gave us for our wedding and a book on love and hope. I’ve put it under my bed for when our little one is ready to join us.

The doctor did actually call me back and she was so kind. Spent so long answering my questions, gave me great advice and also, perhaps the kindest bit, gave me the space and grace to grieve. I needed the reassurance. Had a really good cry and i felt much better. Well you know, at the time.

I’ve learnt a lot about myself the last few weeks, how i’m desperate to be a mother, how i know now i can lean on the people i have around me when life feels tough, how i have loved ones i can grieve with even for something as little as a 5 week old life, how bloody weird you feel when your cycle is rocked, and how wow your body is incredible, how little i really know about fertility and creating a life, how much my husband and i want to be parents and what we’ll do to get there… how much love i have in my life.

So here’s to the process, to the vulnerability of life and the little life we hope to create x