“I Felt Like a Failure”: One Mum’s Story of Miscarriage

This story of miscarriage was shared by one of our Stay at Home Mum community members, Moira.  We thank her for sharing her story with us here at Stay at Home Mum. If you would like your own story featured on the Stay at Home Mum page, please send your unique story to [email protected]. 

Being a nurse I was all over the trying to conceive thing, and knew straight away that I was late and pregnant. We couldn’t have been happier. I was ecstatic, planning away every aspect and dreaming of getting fat and life as a mum. When nausea kicked in, I couldn’t wipe the smile from my face. I booked Doctor’s appointments well in advance and was more than ready for what was to come.

Life was amazing.

I had a dating scan at 8 weeks that didn’t fit with my dates – it showed the baby’s size was almost 10 days off, and I knew that it couldn’t have been right. But my eyes and heart saw that heartbeat on the screen and nothing else mattered.

Shortly after the dating scan, I began to feel different –  almost better really. The morning sickness was subsiding but I was almost 10 weeks, so I assumed it was all okay.

It was when I had stomach pain I knew that something wasn’t right.

Within a few hours I had blood loss and was having awful cramping in regular intervals. I had several hours of heavy loss, up and down from the couch to the loo. I could feel the gush coming and several phone calls to the doctor later confirmed what I knew was happening.   He said that I was right to stay at home as long as the bleeding wasn’t more than a pad every 15 mins and began to lessen.

Several hours later it began to subside, but the tears flowed. I felt like a complete failure, to my husband, to myself and most of all that little human whose heart I saw beating.

The comments and condolences came next. I tried to rationalise all the “loving comments” that hurt so much:

“You’ll get pregnant again“…….I don’t want to, I want to be pregnant now,

“There must have been something wrong“…….well that just made me feel even worse. Why can’t I make a baby that will grow, why did I make a baby with a disability?

“Better for it to happen now than later”….. well I didn’t want it to happen at all.

“One in three lose a baby”..…… I didn’t lose it, it was taken from me. All these well meaning words didn’t help; they made me feel worse at the time.

I had hopes and plans and dreams and a life mapped out for the little human in those 10 short weeks. My husband didn’t really have the same feelings as I did, but he is a very literal man, which was good. His standard line was that we didn’t do anything to make it happen, it’s out of our control.

I had a scan a few days later as the bleeding hadn’t stopped, and it showed an incomplete miscarriage, which meant I had to have a D & C. This brought all of those feelings of failure back to light. Not only could I not make a healthy baby, but my body couldn’t even clear it properly. I was completely devastated all over again.

We then had to wait for 2 cycles which felt like an eternity. On my third cycle we got pregnant again, and I was a nervous mess, just waiting for it to happen again. It was a tough, emotional twelve weeks, and I really don’t think I relaxed until I had the 18 week scan. Thankfully it didn’t happen again and I have a healthy 8 year old. She was born the same month that we miscarried a year later!  I’m sure that meant something.

Well it did to me.

Anyone who has experienced a miscarriage, whether complete or incomplete, whether at 5 weeks or 10 weeks knows this pain. And if my little story can make someone feel less alone in their loss, then it’s worth having online.

Thanks for listening to my story.

Moira

Please, share your thoughts in the comments below and if you would like to share your story about the life as a parent, please email [email protected]. We look forward to reading them.