15th June 2023

The start of the end? 

Today I had the first real physical indication that things may be turning for the worse. The lightest of pink discolouration when I wiped has sent me spiralling down into one of the many worst case scenarios. So far in this pregnancy I have managed to keep the terror of using the toilet at bay. Early on I would steel myself every time I wiped, fully expecting the white tissue to return with the colour every pregnant woman dreads seeing. If you haven’t experienced pregnancy complications or pregnancy loss yourself, then you probably wouldn’t know that the simple act of going to the loo – something you will very likely do several times a day – can fill you with pre-emptive terror of what might happen. It’s a real thing and common among those of us who have been there and experienced the worst.   

It’s nothing 

What would very quickly be written off as ‘nothing’ by anyone else has brought me face to face with the very thing I was afraid of the moment I saw that second line appear; that now I have something to lose and it won’t be me who gets to decide. Combined with the faintest of faint hint of red is a familiar pain in my lower back. Maybe it’s nothing. I want it to be nothing. I want this to pass and feel fine by the time I’ve finished writing this.  

Staving off the inevitable 

My protective pessimism has been grooming me to believe that the progesterone, folic acid and aspirin holy trinity may actually be supporting an otherwise unviable pregnancy. They are staving off the inevitable, maybe supporting a foetus that has already ceased to grow. Every corner of my mind holds a different version of a bad outcome.  

Torture 

So why write this all down? Why torture myself by capturing every painful moment of this when it feels like the end is predestined? Who is this for? What is its purpose? At first I thought it would be cathartic for me to get out of my head, casting all of my darkest thoughts out of my mind and onto the page. Giving life to something, if not a child. But I think it’s more than that. 

Creating a loving space 

I want the world to know that this little life, like so many others, was wanted and existed; for the smallest amount of time, hidden within me, they lived. Even if they never take breath they were mine for a moment and will always be part of my World. I never allowed myself to really feel the losses of my three miscarriages; our society doesn’t have the emotional framework for it and we don’t have the right language, so I want to create a loving space that says ‘we loved you, we wanted you, you mattered’.  

If, at the end of this story, there is no baby then at least I have spoken some truths about how it feels to live in between the pink lines. Maybe someone who thinks they know about the earliest stages of pregnancy and baby loss but hasn’t been through it will learn something and, little by little, we can start to build the language and support that should be in place for this terribly misunderstood fact of life. 

I want this all to be ok. I want this blog to end with the safe arrival of my baby. But I am losing the will to hope.