I Should Be Holding My Baby Today

I should be holding my baby instead of sitting here typing this. I should be over the moon in first-time mum bliss. I should be staring down at my perfect bundle of joy that I created.

But I’m not. Today I was due to have a baby. 8 months ago I looked down at the pregnancy test I held in my shaking hand and in that instant planned the rest of my life. I was pregnant. Pregnant! After months of fertility treatments we had done it, we high fived each other like we were the only two people in the world to be so clever we could make a baby (with the help of science and a fertility specialist).

We told my parents. We were excited, him more than me though, something through the next week told me not to let myself be too happy. A sense of impending doom. And then it happened, I had a miscarriage. As many women know, there are no words to describe the feeling of loss, a sense of betrayal from your own body, topped off with guilt.

Go Ask Mum writer, Emily

When the initial devastation starts to lift and you are left with the cold harsh reality, you are not pregnant. You will not be having a baby in November. You will not be a mother. All I wanted to do was talk about it, speak to someone about this utterly life changing moment I was going through but no one wanted to talk about it. No one. It’s taboo. But while everyone’s life went on normally I remember sitting on my couch thinking that the haze of sadness and the feeling of an elephant sitting on my chest would never go away and the only way it would was if someone would let me tell the truth of how I was feeling.

The haziness did go away and the elephant eventually removed itself from my chest, although occasionally when my miscarriages (plural) cross my mind the elephant comes back and the haziness appears for just a moment.

I was due my baby this month, and even though in that pregnancy I didn’t get very far and that baby wasn’t mine, it still came into my mind the week or two before the due date and each day I would silently count the days down until the day arrived.

Today.

I thought I would feel differently than I do, I don’t feel the overwhelming sadness I thought I would. I don’t feel the need to celebrate the day in any way and I don’t feel like I need to speak about it out loud, but I do feel the need to say to anyone reading this who has been through and come out the other side of a miscarriage or is going through one right now; I know how you feel, many people won’t but I do. The devastation passes, the underlying sadness will remain and the overwhelming thought that you are in any way to blame for this leaves you eventually. And yes, when someone told me “It’s meant to be” I wanted to punch them too.

Sending love to anyone who needs it today

Em x