Third time

It was a surprise when I became pregnant for the third time. No, that's not true: it wasn't a surprise. But we weren't trying. In fact, we were actively not trying - except for that one caution to the wind, 'it's okay, it's the wrong time of the month to conceive', moment.

But I knew I was pregnant straightaway. It would have been more of a surprise if my period had begun as normal. I just knew it. It hadn't been like that with the other two; I'd waited anxiously, hopefully, then.

So when the doctor said my test was positive, I nodded and said we hadn't planned it. He looked worried; he knew we had two very young children. 'Are you all right with it?'
'Oh, yes,' I beamed. 'It's fine.'

We'd planned another one at least - just not quite yet. But it wasn't a problem.

Even though Husband was changing his job and we'd have to move to Southampton, it wasn't a problem. Even though I would be very pregnant by the time we moved, that was life: we'd cope.

I loved being pregnant. It was just the best time. I was fortunate to be healthy through my pregnancies and I thoroughly enjoyed them.

Is there anything better than feeling a new life kicking inside you? Than lying in the bath watching your belly be distorted this way and that as baby gets his exercise?

The first sign that anything was wrong was a slight blood spotting. I panicked and rushed to the doctor. 'Go home and rest. Put your feet up.'

I didn't move off the settee.

But it got worse. We called the doctor out. He hm-mmed and ha-hed and said to call again if it got worse. It got worse in the middle of the night.

A locum came. Said casually, 'You've almost certainly lost the baby. Let's get you to hospital.'

They took me in an ambulance while Husband stayed at home with the children. (I didn't have any family around - well, I didn't have any family.) The paramedic sitting with me made small talk; I stared at the roof of the ambulance.

In Emergency, a doctor fired questions at me. I couldn't understand what he was saying. At last the nurse sighed and said, 'He wants to know if you smoke.'
'No, no, I don't.'

They took me to a single room off a ward and left me there.

Sometime during the following afternoon a female doctor came in with a nurse. The doctor said, 'We'll just check what's happening.'

The nurse, before she came and sat at the head of the bed, put up a screen that stopped me seeing the doctor's hands. She sat down, took my hand and smiled at me; I smiled back at her. I was still innocent then.

The doctor said, 'It's halfway out.' The nurse squeezed my hand.

The doctor fiddled around a bit more and then that was that.

They took the screen away. And the bucket.

The doctor said, 'You'll be able to have more. Are you hungry?'

The nurse said, 'I'll go and see if I can get you a cup of tea, shall I?'

Then they were gone. With my baby. In a bucket.

* * * * * * * * * *

I had to have a D&C to clean me out properly. The ward I was on was full of women who'd miscarried. Some were childless and had miscarried for the fourth or fifth time. Nobody said anything but the silence after the questions, 'Is it your first miscarriage? Do you have any children?' spoke more than words. 'What are you so sad for? You've got a girl and boy already. What more do you want?' I'm probably misjudging them; it could be that no-one thought that but I only imagined they did. I would have done in their position.

When I saw my doctor afterwards and told him that it had felt as if I were being gutted like a chicken, he said, 'Um. Well, you'll be able to have another one. It was your hormones not being in balance.'

Oh, so it was my fault then.

When I was pregnant with Younger Son, and we were living in Southampton under another doctor, I told him of my anxieties after the miscarriage. He asked how many months I'd been when it had happened and then told me that at that point, it usually meant that the baby was unable to survive because of problems with the baby, not hormonal balance.

I've written this post after reading on jmb's blog about tributes that are made to lost babies (miscarried or aborted) in Japan. There's nothing like that here. Miscarriage is something we treat as normal, an everyday happening. At three months it's not even really a baby, is it? Lots of women I've met who've had miscarriages have been able - or have said they are able - to treat it as unimportant.

I've never written this down before. I've written a fictionalised version but not the reality. Even now I'm hesitant about pushing the Publish Post button.

The only comment my mother-in-law made to me, the only thing she said about my miscarriage, was, 'Well, it would have been difficult to move if you'd been that pregnant.'

Though, thinking about it, she must have said as well, 'You'll be able to have another one.'

But I wanted my baby, my lost one.