*Sensitive subject* This is a post I have imagined writing for such a long time - but also one I have worried about writing (and then worried that both the worrying and the imagining would somehow jinx things). But here goes: I’m pregnant. 19 weeks and 5 days pregnant, to be precise. It’s been four years since we started trying for a baby, three years since our first miscarriage, two since we got our ‘unexplained’ verdict from the recurrent miscarriage clinic, and this time last year we were still in limbo, waiting and giving ourselves time to recover after a fourth loss. But today I am pregnant.
.
We kept it a secret for much longer than I ever thought we would (you probably know my feelings about the so-called ‘12-week rule’ by now - a rule which means so many pregnancy losses happen in silence and misplaced shame) but the anxiety for us this time round has been beyond anything I’ve ever known.
.
I will be writing about this latest chapter in our story in more detail at some point soon, but for now I wanted simply to share our news and also to say that I know this might be hard for some of you to read. And if you need to mute me or unfollow for a little while, I completely understand. Don’t feel bad about it, not even for a second. Believe me, I’ve been there, feeling like the only one who isn’t pregnant - and even, sometimes, like the only one within the baby loss and TTC community who hasn’t got their ‘rainbow’ yet.
.
Rest assured, the focus of this account is not suddenly going to shift to pregnancy tips and pram recommendations (as if!) I’ll still be sharing other people’s stories as well as my own thoughts on pregnancy after loss.
.
P.S. I haven’t posted this with a scan picture, because I still find them hard to handle, when they catch me off guard, even now. So instead, enjoy this image courtesy of @amandabanhamceramics (Who I’m hoping will start selling these beautiful ceramic rainbows online again, so I can get my paws on one...) 🌈✨
.
.
.
#pregnancyafterloss #pregnancyaftermiscarriage #pregnancyafterrecurrentmiscarriage #PAL #pregnancyanxiety #rainbowpregnancy #maternalmentalhealth #pregnancyafterlosssupport #theuterusmonologues
One of the first posts I wrote when I started my blog was about learning to fail (link in bio if you’re interested). Feeling like a failure runs in the bloodstream of miscarriage/infertility. With this in mind, there is an entire chapter in this book called ‘How To Fail At Babies’ that I highly recommend reading. Day writes about her own IVF treatment and miscarriage honestly and unsentimentally. But more than this, she points out that how we frame these experiences places undue blame on the women going through them. Whether we talk or a pregnancy ‘failing’ or someone ‘failing’ to respond to fertility drugs, it questions whether, instead, society and the healthcare system is failing *us*. I cried reading this chapter (and also the chapter on failing at marriage) but bits of it also made me want to punch the air.
.
(I also really recommend two particular episodes of Day’s How To Fail podcast - one with Deborah Frances-White and one with Jane Garvey. The first is one of the most honest conversations about having/not having children I’ve ever heard, the second covers recurrent miscarriage - reflecting on the experience many years later - and the best way I can explain it is that it made me feel understood.)
.
.
#babylossbookclub #howtofail #miscarriagesupport #ttccommunity #ttcsisters #infertilitysucks #babyloss #lifeafterpregnancyloss #cnbc #yournextread #coffeeandbooks #theuterusmonologues
This quote is the sort of thing that would have made me roll my eyes five years ago. But now I think I get it. After the first couple of miscarriages, a realisation started to seep in that no one was going to be able to do it for me. I was going to have to pick myself up and find ways to make myself feel better. A different kind of self-soothing to the one I’d expected to be dealing with. Just white-knuckling it, as I had been, pushing harder and harder, grimly determined that another pregnancy - and having a baby - would make it all go away, wasn’t going to cut it.
I don’t interpret this quote as the baby loss version of ‘you have to love yourself before anyone else can love you’ - I don’t really believe it works like that. And there are plenty of people who don’t have to put in that sort of work before they get to be someone else’s mother. But I do think that there are lessons in motherhood that even the briefest of pregnancies can teach you - and how to truly care for myself was, I think, the biggest and the hardest of these.
P.S. For anyone wondering about my Mum’s Voice series on pregnancy loss - it is coming back SOON. I had to take a bit of a break what with moving and then catching up with work-work. If you’ve sent me a guest post, I will be in touch soon about the re-jigged schedule - and if you’ve said you’d write one and it’s taking you a while to get it to me, please, please don’t put any pressure on yourself, there’s no rush and I’ve now got a bit of a backlog, anyway. And if you want to make sure you don’t miss a post, you can subscribe via my website (link in bio).
.
.
.
.
#thisismymotherhood #ihadamiscarriage #talkingaboutpregnancyloss #ttcaftermiscarriage #ttcafterloss #miscarriagesupport #babyloss #lifeafterloss #miscarriagequotes #theuterusmonologues
Books for the long, grey months...Like about 400,000 other people, I got Charlie Mackesy’s The Boy, The Mole, The Fox, And The Horse for Christmas. If you are finding January heavy going, I cannot recommend it enough - it’s the perfect thing to dip into when you feel a bit hopeless, or overwhelmed, or just a bit ‘meh’. (Also, the cake-obsessed mole is my spirit animal 🙋🏻♀️🍰 ). Other books I would recommend for this dreary time of year are Help Me! By @marianne_power_writer, which I read this time last year - she attempts to follow the advice of a different self-help book each month. It’s very funny, but also very wise on what really makes us happy and the pitfalls of relentless self-improvement.
And I’ve just finished (on audiobook, hence no picture) Matt Haig’s Notes On a Nervous Planet - another great antidote for the ‘do more, be more’ months. The thing I think unites all three of these books - and what makes them so comforting and helpful - is their complete lack of cynicism. After all (to paraphrase Matt Haig badly) cynicism is a privilege of those who aren’t struggling with their mental health in some way.
P.S. This matcha latte may look greenly virtuous, but it also has a shot of hazelnut syrup in it and is therefore DELICIOUS. 🍵 .
.
.
.
#babylossbookclub #bibliotherapy #miscarriagesupport #griefsupport
#recurrentmiscarriage #antijanuaryblues
#babyloss #PAIL #tfmr #fortheloveofwords #comfortreading #bibliophile #amreading #coffeeshopcorners #coffeeandbooks
