It’s not easy to articulate the feeling of travelling to an early scan when you’re convinced the outcome is going to be bad, but every part of you is willing it to be good. But I’ll try.  

Essentially  you feel like you’re going to have your heart ripped out and so your body reacts accordingly; your chest feels extremely tight and your thoughts are a showreel of catastrophe and disaster.  

Pay on arrival

To make sure there were no misunderstandings, when we arrived at the clinic I made sure to be visibly terrified; eyes wide, voice quivering and hands shaking when I made payment. As a side note, I had a strange moment of relief when they took payment upon arrival. My second miscarriage was a so-called missed or silent miscarriage, in that it was diagnosed at a private scan. I had been experiencing small amounts of bleeding which my local EPU dismissed without offering me any support or examination, but everything in my body told me it was different. No matter the amount of bleeding, any bleeding in pregnancy to a woman who has already lost a pregnancy (or more) will undoubtedly signal the worst. And so we booked a private scan. 

The inappropriately jolly sonographer (an older man) immediately joked about finding I was carrying more than one baby. Further into the scan when it became clear that the pregnancy was not viable he quizzed me on when I had had positive pregnancy tests; it was as if he was trying to imply I had never been pregnant at all. Ignoring my distress he pressed on and told me it was so early it would be like having a heavy period (the all time worst misnomer out there and any medic who says this should be immediately whisked back to medical school to retake every and any module relating to gynaecology and obstetrics). As we were leaving the scan with broken hearts, he slapped me on the back and told me to come back when it was better news.  

And from the distress and indignity of that we then had to go back to reception to pay for the privilege. Clearly I dived straight out of the door back to the car to rage and completely fall apart.  

So being asked for payment upon arrival made a lot of sense to me and I was grateful. I was equally grateful for the dour and solemn conduct of the sonographer. This may not suit everyone, but it at least indicated to me that this woman understood what was at stake.

A quick outcome

I opted for the internal ultrasound because I was assured we would get our answer quicker and, despite the indignity and discomfort, I needed to be in and out of there as quick as possible. The silence in the dark room was long and heavy. And with every millisecond that ticked by I felt we were drawing ever closer to the inevitable. So when she found the pregnancy sac and a flicker of a heartbeat the energy in the room changed to the soundtrack of a sob that I had held in since taking the tests.  

There is a long, long road to walk, I can’t ever forget that, but my god it’s nice when you feel like you’re walking on air. If only for a moment.