Tag Archives: miscarriage

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Bent but not broken

I have not written anything in almost a year. Yes, there has been the odd brief content churn-out for a client, or the usual mundane social media updates. But I have not written a blog or a diary entry in almost a year. I have felt empty, uninspired, unable to talk past the dark dark hurt.

So why am I returning to my old blog site now? I don’t really know. I think that maybe my story would reach someone else who has walked a similar path. Maybe our journey would inspire someone else not to give up.

The yearning to be a parent never fully goes away. It is that constantly present “at the back of your mind” awareness. It is that heartache when you see families with children everywhere, really EVERWHERE, you go. It is the understanding that nobody is actively trying to hurt you when they give you a baby to hold.

We have had three miscarriages and we are now in the process of adopting. Our parenthood journey has not been an easy one. Our marriage took some knocks, but we weathered the storm.

After months and months of paperwork, we now know that we are not paedophiles (yay!) and we don’t have criminal records (double yay). We also know that we are of sound mind and we are pretty mentally ok. Hopefully soon we will be the proud and happy parents of our little girl, and all this would have been worth it.

I want to share some of what we have been going through on this blog. Please feel free to comment/ask questions/interact with me. I will answer where I can, and hopefully what we have been through will help more people traversing the same rocky path.

Please feel free to join my coaching page on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chrysalisnlp. Let’s stay in touch.

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Miracle required

Not a good day at all today. I’ve gone through a rollercoaster of emotions – from anger to denial and whatever other stages there are in between. Now I just feel helpless. Usually when faced with a problem, I act as soon as possible. There is always, ALWAYS, a solution, and as a problem-solver, I will find it. For this, there is no solution.

I’ve decided to speak out about this, because I’m hoping that what happened to me can be prevented with someone else, with foreknowledge. And for me, writing about something helps me deal with it. It is my personal therapy.

After 3 miscarriages this year, my gynaecologist decided to do a procedure called a hysteroscopy, which he assured me is pretty standard. It is, as far as I understand, a little camera that internally explores one’s reproductive organs. I was a bit hesitant, because I dread hospitals, but hey – all for the sake of getting pregnant and having children.

So today I decide to call the doctor for feedback, pretty confident that all worked out well, because surely I would have heard by now if there was anything, you know, wrong. That is when I found out that everything is wrong. I have a condition called a unicornuate uterus. Apparently this is a very rare condition, and I have it.

According to this article, having a unicornuate uterus unfortunately brings a significant risk of both pregnancy loss and preterm labor, as well as ectopic pregnancy. Estimates vary by specific study, but one literature review found pregnancy outcomes in women with unicornuate uteri to be miscarriage in 37%, preterm birth in 16%, and term birth in only 45%.

I ask myself – what can I do about this? Really nothing. There is absolutely nothing that I can do. I can’t change my lifestyle, take medication or go for another operation.

But what I could have done, is that I could have explored further for reasons as to why I had my first miscarriage. I did every blood test on planet earth, and there was no reason at all according to the Pathcare results. I should have insisted on this hysteroscopy – and I would have known that my pregnancies would all have been at risk. I could have taken more precautions, been monitored more closely and maybe, just maybe, not have had 3 miscarriages this year.

If you have a miscarriage, just be aware that this could be one of the reasons. I am almost 40 years old, and not only is my age a factor in my lack of children, but now this as well.

Today this sounded like the end of the road to me, but knowledge is power. I am a fighter, and I don’t easily give up. This is just one more obstacle to overcome on the road to becoming a mom.

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Silent loss

There are no words adequate enough to describe the joy on discovering that you are pregnant – especially after years of unsuccessfully doing your best to conceive, with the clock mercilessly clicking non-stop.

I found out that I was pregnant, five weeks, on the last day of 2013. I couldn’t believe the positive pregnancy test, and rushed back to buy more from the pharmacy. I’ve been feeling “sick” for a couple of weeks, exhausted, with all sorts of symptoms that I couldn’t logically explain. The only diagnosis that made any sense, yet made no sense at all, was that I had to be pregnant.

Of course, upon confirming with a blood test at the hospital, I had to tell the entire world at once. I was so happy that renting a megaphone and driving through the main road of town seemed like a good idea. I know women fall pregnant every day, but to me this was just such a wonderful momentous occasion that I wanted to tell the world.

Less than 10 days later, the happiest period of my life, I found out that not only had I suffered something called a “missed miscarriage”, I also had large tumors in my womb.

I knew there was something wrong when my HCG levels weren’t rising like it should. My doctor prescribed progesterone, and I did everything I was supposed to. Took it easy, stayed in bed as often as I could, changed my diet, took the necessary vitamins.

Yet, it all went badly wrong. And there is no satisfactory answer as to why. I don’t want to hear about a large amount of “early pregnancies” never making it beyond the first trimester. I’m not interested in hearing that everything happens for a reason. I am in pain, with a sadness to intense that it hurts to breathe.

I know most women hide their pregnancies in those first months, terrified that something is going to go wrong. They wait before making any announcements, in case… I didn’t believe in an “in case”. I never even thought that anything could go wrong.

Although having a miscarriage is one of the most intimate losses a woman can experience, this is almost a taboo topic. There is no accepted grief period, there are no sympathy cards, there is no funeral, no real closure. I am told: “It happens all the time”, as if this line is supposed to somehow make me feel better, put my loss into some kind of perspective.

Suffering a miscarriage is not just about losing a child, it is about losing all the dreams you created for that child. The dreams you created for your life as a mother. It is about the sun disappearing from your world, and everything turning into a dark colourless void. A world where you no longer wake up in the morning with your hands protectively on your tummy. A world where you have to hide your grief because the earth hasn’t stopped turning for everybody else, and hey, life goes on.

With an apparent one in seven pregnancies ending in an miscarriage, there must be a lot of people out there in mourning. It is unacceptable that our miscarriages should be swept under the rug, and we are expected to just get over it. As another mom-who-was-not-to-be said: “Because the only thing worse than losing something that meant the world to you is pretending that you lost nothing.”