One way or another

I’m at a stage now where, had things been different, I probably would have started to tell people the news. In the end I only told three people. Four, actually, as I told my osteopath who I saw just days after I had my positive pregnancy test. I had an appointment with her today, an appointment I made when I was pregnant. The idea was that by this stage there would be more certainty one way or another. It turns out it was another.  

Shrouding the pain

Call it social convention, superstition, or just plain ridiculous, but we are conditioned to believe we shouldn’t tell anyone about a pregnancy before reaching 12 weeks. The greater wisdom states that most miscarriages happen before this time, so it’s better that no one knows. We shroud our early pregnancies in secrecy and, if the worst happens, no one else needs to know. Society wants to celebrate the good news.  

Except, when the worst happens, it would be better if people did know because there doesn’t really seem to be a pathway or social convention for what to do when it goes wrong. The social convention seems to say ‘keep your pain and suffering quiet’; it shrouds the pain in silence, and in that silence shame starts to take form.  

Spinning the yarns 

In the weeks immediately following this loss I have felt raw. I have felt ashamed I haven’t wanted to see people and it would be easier if they knew why. 

But by nature I am an intensely private person. Maybe a hangover from growing up in a very big family where privacy was in exquisitely short supply. It’s something I craved and have arguably placed greater value on it than is particularly healthy. Either way, keeping things to myself comes unnaturally naturally.

In the weeks I was pregnant and since I have been going through this latest miscarriage I have had to spin some very light yarns about why I couldn’t do certain things. I was signed up to take part in a great physical challenge to raise money for charity; I pulled out at the last minute and blamed injury. My dad’s weekly visit coincided with the day after the ill-fated scan; I invented a play-date that I had ‘forgotten about’. I had plans to meet up with a group of friends that same weekend; I lied and said my daughter had a fever.  

Scattering little white lies

Before the miscarriage was confirmed I scattered little white lies around the place like breadcrumbs, becoming just a little elusive for a few weeks. Somewhere, tucked away in a box labelled ‘hope’ I thought in a few short weeks I would retrace my steps and swap them out for the truth. ‘Actually’ I imagined myself saying, with a little glint of joy in my eye ‘I’ve been a bit quiet lately because…’ smiling as I told people the beautiful, surprising truth.  

Social convention 

I realise there is a choice and an option to tell people the less beautiful truth. And some people do – they should. I have in the past. But when you condition people not to tell anyone about a pregnancy before 12 weeks ‘just in case’ they have a miscarriage, you leave them stranded and suffering with a shit choice to make. Do you announce a miscarriage when your heart and soul wanted so very much to announce a pregnancy?  

If we did share our news earlier, not only would we have those glorious moments of joy that you get when you announce a pregnancy, but there would also be more people to catch us and carry us through the worst moments when fate intervenes. Instead of grieving in silence, alone, smothering our unacknowledged pain, we could do it with the support of others. Yes, miscarriage is very common (a trope all too readily trotted out as a reason to brush it under the carpet) but so is the grief it often sits alongside.  

Social convention should be on the side of everyone, not just on the side of people who don’t have miscarriages. 

The irreversible journey 

An early miscarriage means you transform from not pregnant to pregnant to not pregnant again. Rarely is there an external change that anyone would register, and yet you go on an irreversible personal journey. At first you’re protecting and nurturing something beautiful, putting a light dusting of deceit on your interactions in the expectation that, soon enough, the dust will lift and turn to glitter when we reveal the truth. But when the worst happens the deception settles where you left it, only to be disturbed if you feel you want to, or feel you can, be honest.  

What could have been 

I have conducted myself in as normal a way as I feel I can while I come to terms with taking this ill-fated journey once more. Some days I don’t have much in the tank and I’ve withdrawn communications with a few people to try and get myself back in shape. Being asked how I’m recovering from my fabricated injury presses the bruise. A reminder of what could have been. A reminder that I won’t get the big reveal, my moment of joy.  

When I’m ready I’ll have to cast a few more untruths about why I haven’t been around much; weave a few more strands into that tangled web. I just don’t think I can say ‘I was pregnant and now I’m not’. At least not out loud and not yet.