Nobody wants to hear about miscarriage, but I need to talk about mine

‘You’d lose your head if it wasn’t screwed on’. This family catchphrase was often tossed at me when I carelessly lost another set of keys, a phone, a new jacket.

For some reason it came to me as I lay on a Spanish hospital bed, staring blankly at the ceiling. The doctor said, ‘there is nothing inside’ then ‘it has gone’ and despite their faltering English, I knew I had lost something else that was precious.

In the doctor’s defence, it’s hard enough to break the devastating news that you’ve lost your baby in your first language.

This was my second miscarriage. In the time it takes other couples to meet their precious bundle, I lost both my babies.

Maybe I’d have been a careless mother and this was nature’s way of stopping that from happening? I wrongly thought at the time.

Obviously, with a clear head I know this is ridiculous – as silly as many of the other things I tried to convince myself of in my guilt ridden state. ‘If I hadn’t gone to Spain, I could have seen the doctor when I started spotting. Then my baby would be OK.’ Also not true.

Any medical expert will tell you, once a miscarriage has started, there is no intervention that could keep your baby alive. But you could tell me this and any other logical response and in the depths of my grief I would have glared stubbornly at you (on the inside anyway, on the outside I would have nodded mutely).

You drag yourself back into work while you’re still bleeding. You smile and nod, when colleagues ask if you’re feeling better

That’s if we even had the conversation. Because in reality, miscarriages are so often suffered in silence.

How do you express the grief you feel at losing a baby you never even held? Many couples never glimpse a photo, with the majority of losses happening before the 12 week scan.

There’s a hush around early pregnancy, keeping it secret until that all-important scan confirms ‘it’s real’. Well, like many couples will know, it was real for me from the beginning.

I started loving that life inside me the moment I knew they were there. I lovingly looked after them, chose what I ate for them, painted dreams for them. And in part, it’s that future you’re grieving for.

But you drag yourself back into work while you’re still bleeding. You smile and nod when colleagues ask if you’re feeling better. How can you possibly say, ‘not so much, I’m currently in the midst of losing my baby.’

On my return to the office just a couple of days after I returned from Spain, I was greeted by baby-shower balloons and confetti on my new desk after a send-off for the colleague whose maternity I’m covering. As losing a baby is such a hidden grief, none of my colleagues would have known the pain this brought me.

And so, you feign excitement as another friend announces their pregnancy, or proudly posts peekaboo snaps on Instagram, oblivious to your secret sorrow. Because nobody wants to hear about the sadness that pregnancy can bring – only the joy of scan reveals, baby-showers and bump selfies.

In that silent loneliness, those nagging doubts and fears bubble up. After you blame yourself for not being able to do the one basic function of a woman, then come the doubts about your relationship. Maybe we just aren’t a strong enough couple, we’re not meant to have a baby together.

The strain of trying for a baby can be stressful for any couple, even those who haven’t suffered a loss. The constant testing and waiting for the ‘magic three-day window’, the arguments and frustration when someone’s work trip ruins another month, the bitter disappointment that erupts during ‘that’ time of the month.

But if you have known the pain of loss, this strain intensifies. Both so longing for your healthy baby after the tragedy of loss but fearing it will never happen for you.

Even the excitement when those two lines show up on the Clear Blue swiftly switches to anxiety and dread that your nightmare is waiting around the corner again.