• Matt smith doesn’t like trigger warnings, but I do, and here is one. This weeks weeknotes mentions pregnancy loss and miscarriage and well, it’s gonna be real.
• On Monday we lost our 14-week pregnancy/potential baby. I was WFH with the eldest, as school hadn’t started. Lizzy called from the hospital, she’d been longer than expected, and all of it was bad news.
• Most of the bike ride to the hospital I was thinking “its okay, they were probably wrong, professionals get it wrong all the time” but they didn’t get it wrong and I then found Lizzy and we cried and then we went to an ultrasound room and watched the senior nurse push around the baby shape that used to hold so much hope. And the little body just sagged and flopped and stayed still in a way where you could just tell things weren’t right and I held Lizzy’s hand tight.
• Then we had to head home and it was hard, and all the way I was thinking about what could have been. How our kids were going to react and how I could explain that we’re only going to be four for the time being.
• I picked up the kids, and argued with the eldest who didn’t want to leave her friends and I did my best to be calm and try and convince her to come back to the house so I could shatter her little world in private with hugs rather than in the street outside our friends house
• And holding her strongly on the sofa between Lizzy and I with her shouting “why did this happen to us!?” And fighting our embrace.
• Then enduring multiple bits of smalltalk as I picked the littlest up. “Yeah we had a good holiday” when all I really wanted to do was sit down and hold my littlest kid and cry that i was sorry she’d have to remain the littlest and wouldn't be a big sister quite yet.
• the littlest one repeatedly asking “but why did the baby die?”
• We lit a fire in the garden and the eldest had an idea of writing notes to the potential baby and setting them alight in the fire, and it took me multiple minutes to scrawl tiny amounts of words on the paper as i contained my emotions and tried to push them through the little pencil nib. And the eldest helped her little sister to draw pictures to the baby and they both talked about what they’d hoped for the future and about death.
• I did a terrible job of phoning close family and explosively crying as I told them what had happened.
• A few days later, we were back to the hospital to do the “physically dealing with it” bit. We had an 8.30 am appointment and Lizzy went for surgery at 17.30 pm, they just come into the room to take Lizzy through to theatre as if we’ve just been waiting 5mins. And I kiss her goodbye and I’m just left waiting alone, writing questionable weeknotes and fighting tears, while also trying to breathe fresh air through the 5cm gap that the window opens. Then they shut the ward, “Closing time” and I’m left wandering Homerton hospital with the plastic bags of our stuff, sitting on plastic chairs in darkened corridors with other estranged partners. But then we’re reunited and we get an uber home and begin the healing process.
• Around all of the sadness, there’s been moments of joy and strength and examples of beautiful, supportive friendships. The NHS, quietly failing and inefficient, but still showing through with compassion and professionalism, finding rooms for us to deal with things privately, expressing their own sadness. Lizzy’s incredible strength at coping with having her body poked and prodded all week. All the friends and family who’ve helped out with childcare, messages of support, flowers, prepared meals, you kept us sane and positive. Thank you.