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TTC: UK

Miscarriage 1 year ago, I finally broke down

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to share something quite personal.

I don’t really have friends. I’m very family and business orientated, and somewhere along the way I’ve lost a lot of connections because of it.

I have my partner and a big family, but somehow there are certain things I just cannot talk to them about.

Today my aunt had a phone call from my cousin, who is seven years younger than me, and she said she’s thinking about starting a family.

Normally I would feel happy for her. I do love her. But my heart sank.

And I know that sounds awful, but I think it opened something in me that I have been trying very hard not to look at.

I have been trying for a baby for around five years. The day before hearing that conversation, I had started my period after another negative pregnancy test, and I was already feeling sad. But I think underneath that sadness, I am still grieving my miscarriage far more than I ever admitted to myself.

I lost my baby at around two months.

I had already been bleeding and having pains, and the day before I had gone to the NHS. They sent me home and told me that bleeding in early pregnancy can be normal.

But something in me still didn’t feel right.

So the next day I went to a private clinic because I just wanted someone to check my baby. I wanted reassurance. I wanted to see that everything was still okay.

Instead, while I was there, I started bleeding heavily.

I remember rushing to the hospital with a towel around me because I just kept bleeding, driving like a bullet trying to get there. I had contraction-like pains, I was eventually put on morphine because of how much pain I was in, and then I had to have surgery because my body wasn’t able to let go of the baby naturally.

And somehow, after all of that, I just carried on.

I nodded to the doctors. I cried a little. I left the hospital and told myself, “It’s okay. It wasn’t meant to be.”

My birthday was the next day.

I hugged my family and said the same thing.

“It’s okay. It wasn’t meant to be.”

But today I kept thinking, why did I not scream?

Why did I not completely fall apart?

Why do I always have to be this composed woman who holds everything together?

I think maybe I have always been like that.

I was the oldest. There was no dad around. My mum had an illness, so I felt like I had to be strong for her. I had to be strong for my brother because he looked up to me.

Somewhere along the way, being strong became who I was.

And today I just broke.

I went into the shower and I slammed my hands on the floor while the water poured down and I just kept thinking, it’s not fair.

It’s not fair.

And suddenly it wasn’t only about the miscarriage.

It felt like a Pandora’s box opening.

Old wounds came up. Feelings about my parents. Feelings about growing up. Feelings about the love I didn’t receive, the absence, the things I had convinced myself I had already forgiven.

And I do forgive my parents.

But I think I am allowed to forgive them and still feel angry about what I didn’t have.

I think hearing about my cousin just touched another old wound too.

I love her to death, but our relationship has always brought up complicated feelings for me.

Growing up, she had what looked to me like the magazine-cover family. There was more stability, more financial security. Meanwhile I was poor. I had a lot of hand-me-downs and I started working as soon as I could.

I was the oldest, so in the beginning I was the one everyone had hopes for. I was supposed to graduate, do well, make everyone proud.

But I didn’t follow that path.

She did.

And whenever I did something wrong, I sometimes felt like my family would use me as an example of what she shouldn’t do. They would steer her in another direction, or not want her hanging around with me.

I was somehow the black sheep, even though I was never even that wild lol.

So I think somewhere inside me, probably in that teenage part of me that never fully got over it, I started feeling like she had taken the little attention or approval I could get from my family.

I know now that she didn’t take anything.

She was just living her life.

But feelings are strange because sometimes the adult part of you understands everything perfectly, while the younger part of you is still standing in the same place, feeling the same hurt.

So when I heard “baby”, something in me thought, is this another thing?

Another thing I have to watch someone else have while I am still waiting?

And I hate that I even feel that way.

I feel ashamed because I am a grown woman and I know better.

I know it is not her fault.

I know it is nobody’s fault.

I know this is just life.

And there is a huge part of me that understands that I have my own journey. I have things I have built and accomplished. I have so much to be thankful for.

But I think I am finally realising that understanding something doesn’t automatically make the pain disappear.

I can understand that life is not unfairly targeting me and still feel that what happened to me was unfair.

I can love my cousin and still admit that our relationship touches old wounds.

I can forgive my parents and still grieve the things I needed from them.

And I can believe with my whole heart that my baby will come to me while still grieving the baby I already lost.

I think that is the part I have been avoiding.

I moved straight into acceptance because acceptance is easier for me than anger.

I said, “It wasn’t meant to be.”

But maybe I never gave myself permission to say, “I wanted that baby.”

I wanted that baby so badly.

And losing my baby hurt me.

It still hurts me.

It genuinely aches my heart.

Especially because it happened the day before my birthday. There is something about that that still gets me every time I think about it.

I don’t even really know what I’m looking for by sharing this.

I think maybe I just needed somewhere where I could say all of it without having to make it sound okay.

Because for once, I don’t want to be the composed woman.

I just want to admit that I’m still grieving. I am still angry, and it’s still unfair.

Sending love to you all, it’s not an easy journey 🤍❤️