You shall not pass...

In between Christmas and New Year, the week following our early miscarriage we had, through our extremely diminutive doctor at the Accident and Emergency, made an appointment with the gynaecological department at our local hospital. Fresh from the upset of our loss and still reeling from the general furore that is Christmas chez nous, another trip to the hospital was pretty far down on my 'things I'd like to do today' list.

But a trip to the hospital was necessary so off we went, nerves a-jangling and anxiety in tow. I had no idea what to expect. All I'd been told was that Dr D had spoken to the gynae department on Christmas Eve and they'd advised me to go along.

Thankfully we didn't have to wait around too long. The waiting room was, in any case, warm and welcoming after the skatey, slippy fest we'd just witnessed outside the front door. Our first port of call was a consultation room, within which waited two ladies in hospital uniforms.

To say the atmosphere in this room was a little different from the waiting area would be an understatement. The talky lady (for the other uttered not one word) called me in. Hubby and I obediently stood and made our way into the room. At least we would have done if 'Talky' hadn't blocked my husband's path in the style of a miniature and slightly rotund Gandalf in the Fellowship of the Rings (picture the 'You shall not pass' moment and you're just about there!).

"And you are?" she growled up at him from a level roughly around his waistline. She may have been small but she was remarkably frightening nonetheless.

"Oh, er... sorry, this is my husband," I offered, trying to diffuse the situation. She huffed and gruffed a little as if the sight of a supportive husband wishing to accompany his wife into the unknown was offensive to her. Not a good start.

After being seated and looking on as Talky and Sitty appeared to conduct a full blown conversations in looks, paper shuffling and weird gutteral noises, I wondered what the hell we'd walked into. Talky began to ask questions, pen poised over the aforementioned paperwork to note down my answers. Each of the questions, although benign in their nature, were spat at me in such a manner as to catch me off-guard like a volley of flying hobbit daggers. I didn't expect the Spanish inquisition (cue a torrent of Monty Python quotations!).

It turned out that Talky and Sitty had no idea why we were there and how we had come to have an appointment. Unable to provide a suitable answer I merely gabbled on about Christmas Eve and the fact that the hospital doctor had sent us... perhaps just to check all was well?

With that, and a distinct lack of ceremony we were kicked out of the consulting room and back into the waiting area. Thankful to be alive and with all our limbs we sank back into the seats to await our next test.

After a scan and a very nice 'talking to' by another nurse with the smallest voice in the world we were sent home with miscarriage literature and the reassurance that none of this was our fault. Talky had turned out to be human after all, once she realised that we weren't just there wasting her time, and had talked to us softly and delicately about any questions we may have and to reiterate that we weren't at fault. This was my body's way of telling us it wasn't meant to be this time.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the human body is the most amazing thing. Sometimes it hurts and goes against our very dreams and desires... but there is always a very good reason for everything, at least in my experience so far.

Until the next time,

Potential Mummy B

Humour in every situation?

There haven't been many horrible events in my life. I am pretty much the luckiest woman in the world (at least in my view).

OK, so every now and then there's been the odd hiccough that has caused me to wobble slightly on this low beam of life. Once or twice I've even had to put my foot down for balance before readjusting the waistline of my jeans, taking a deep breath, straightening my hair and carrying on.

So... the miscarriage issue. I've spoken about it with family and friends, sometimes when all I've wanted to do is crawl into a hole and cry until the tears have dried up, I've read about other people's experiences, I've cried in the dark with my husband's arms around me, I've kept a sort of diary to act as an outlet for my emotions and I've blogged about it.

I've also found humour in a difficult situation.

That doesn't make me a callous person. I'm sure I can't be the only person on earth that tries to maintain a sense of humour (albeit sometimes restrained and kept carefully in check by the realms of decency and decorum) no matter the situation. While I always respect the power of other people's emotions and the need to pander to 'the right thing to do' I think I use my humour as a kind of coping mechanism. And a very effective one it has proved to be thus far.

The four and half hours spent at the hospital on Christmas Eve were some of the longest of my life. My husband and my marvellous Mum were with me and shared these hours, along with some of the comic moments hidden therein. It must be the writer in me that notices things, finds humour in them, develops them in a secret word laboratory in my brain and stores them for consideration at a later date.

Even before I was seen by nurse or doctor my brain was hunting out ways of making the unplanned and enormously unwelcome hospital trip a little more palatable. I started off by watching my fellow inhabitants of the waiting room, thanking all things good that I wasn't in as bad shape as they were. I needed the loo and got all but there (try not to picture me literally hovering in a state of readiness) before realising they'd probably want a urine sample so having to instruct my body, rather hastily, that there had been a last second change of plan... pelvic muscles to the rescue! All good practice.

So, having given said sample and had my blood pressure taken, the next few hours passed without much incident. I mean, once I'd been taken through to the 'cubicles' we were simply hemmed in with enormously fetching disposable curtains and left like battery chickens to await the arrival of a doctor.

There were various comings and going throughout this time which kept me and my faithful companions entertained (sometimes in a good way, sometimes in a gruelling way) but eventually our doctor arrived. Maybe it's a sign of my age, but it is incredibly disconcerting when, in your hour(s) of need and nerves, the doctor assigned to you looks no more than, and I exaggerate not, 12 years old! My pint-sized nephew of a handful of years would compare favourably with this doctor in an 'I can reach further up the wall than you can' head to head! She could barely reach up to me as I lay (yes, lay) on my surprisingly comfortable trolley, and she certainly didn't seem one hundred per cent comfortable in her 'bedside manner' routine.

My heart did go out to her however, when she obviously thought she was breaking some unexpected news about my miscarriage. While my heart hammered at the speed of the Starlight Express within me and tears welled up in my rose-tinted eyes, I still found myself thinking how uncomfortable she looked telling me I was no longer pregnant. Rabbit in headlights move aside... she was more of a gremlin (the cute one, before midnight) caught in the act of raiding the kitchen for a midnight feast.

The way she went about my 'after care' made me slightly worried that she was totally unsure about what to do next. She kept disappearing from sight, handling the curtain around my trolley like it was a precious, fragile metal, tip-toeing around in her Skechers' Shape-up trainers (which incidentally look more like orthopedic shoes... just me?), making surreptitious phone calls as if appealling to some kind of reference source... all confidence inducing merits in a doctor I find!?

Finally I was asked by Dr Diminutive to produce another urine sample. She wanted to see my pregnancy test 'with her own eyes' apparently. So I went, plastic pot in hand, to find a toilet and do as I was bade. When I found a toilet (a quest in itself) my mind was reeling with the events of the evening, the feelings of stupidity alluded to in my earlier blog entry, the disappointment of my situation and the tiny stature of my 'doctor' that, before I knew it, I had used the toilet for its utility but had forgotten to store any in my pot!

Long moments passed as I tried to work out my next steps. Such a straightforward task made infinitely complicated by mere emotions! It was with a heavy but somewhat giggling heart that I padded back to my trolley, resplendent in my hospital gown and socks, to tell Mum and hubby of my slight cock up. "We only need a tiny bit," offered one of the nurses, trying to be helpful. "Really, I used it all up without realising," came my weak and somewhat embarrassed reply.

Half an hour and several cups of water later I managed to deliver and was thus sent home to settle into Christmas. My arrival behind my own front door brought the inevitable fall of the game face and the onset of tears but, without a bitter outlook, that Christmas Eve in the hospital is one I shall never forget.

For both good and bad reasons.

Potential Mummy B

Giveth with one hand... taketh away with the other

When you know you want to, why hang around right? After all, we had no way of knowing how long it would take us to fall pregnant. I know a number of couples who have had to have help of one kind or another to conceive. I also know others who still need that help and have yet to see any results. For them the dream of a natural family seems to be fading with every passing cycle; heartbreaking.

So why wait? Especially, as my husband keeps offering, 'at my age'. He is just a little younger than I and takes great pleasure in reminding me of the fact at every available juncture. Oh how I laugh...

Here's the exciting bit.

When we fell pregnant within the first six weeks of trying our emotions were almost too enormous to contain. I refrain from referring to those emotions purely as positive ones because, undoubtedly, mixed in amongst the undeniable excitement and joy was a rather striking crimson shade of terror. While my husband's reaction was mostly restricted to the joyful side of the spectrum, mine swung like an over enthusiastic bungy jumper swinging over a river valley from overwhelming happiness to white hot terror and back again within minutes.

But pregnant I undoutedly was! And off to the doctors we trotted at a rate of knots to make sure we hadn't got it wrong. I don't know what I was expecting the doctor to do for us but I guess I'd expected him to double check our self-diagnosis. No need apparently. The pregnancy tests one buys over the counter are every bit as accurate as those available to NHS staff so he merely congratulated us and calculated our due date. I was officially five weeks pregnant.

Off we skipped, reminiscent of a pair of 11 year olds racing off to the sweet shop, to tell both sets of parents our happy news. We couldn't contain our delight and our beaming faces gave us away as soon as we stepped through the door. But both sets of parents stood by their duties to wait to be told the news before bursting with excitement and squeals.

Our world was a happy place.

All this happened on 21 December 2009.

Over the next few days I tried to come to terms with the fact that I had a life beginning to grow inside of me. At that time is was a mere cluster of cells but it was my cluster of cells and I loved it for the potential baby it was to become. Hubby and I raced out to the nearest book store to buy some guide books on pregnancy and parenthood. We even stopped by Mothercare for a pregnancy journal which I began to fill in as soon as I got home.

I learned straight off that doubts and worries are commonplace, especially in a first pregnancy which, while doing nothing to alleviate those doubts and worries, made me more comfortable in experiencing them: a strange kind of equilibrium.

I started a journal to record my thoughts, feelings, doubts, anxieties. I began to spot a little the day after we did the test but a second test confirmed our initial hopes so all was well with the world.

I woke on Christmas Eve 2009 with joy in my heart, a developing foetus in my womb and a lifetime of plans doing the rounds in my brain. 'This is the last Christmas we'll have as a childless couple', 'next year I'll be buying 'baby's first Christmas' gifts', 'this has to be the best Christmas present ever'... However, as the day progressed the spotting I'd experienced the day before became more insistent and I developed a nagging, incessant ache in the pit of my stomach. Deep in my heart I knew something was wrong but, like the ostrich, I buried my head, hoping it would pass on by, hastened by the spirit of the season, and leave us good folk to enjoy our pregnant Christmas.

By late afternoon however, I could no longer ignore the pain. I called NHS direct and was told by an out of hours doctor to get myself to the hospital as soon as possible. Before we left, my husband and I agreed, without words, to prepare ourselves for the worst. With a heavy heart and the best game-face I could muster we headed out in the snow and ice.

Four and a half hours later we arrived home again, exhausted, drained of energy, emotion and a little blood. But most of all, we arrived back home without our pregnancy.

It was confirmed. We had suffered an early miscarriage.

Apparently almost one in four pregnancies end that way in the early stages; a fact that did nothing to ease the sense of loss I already felt after only three days of knowing I was with child.

My heart broke just a little that day.