My Story I've just found this blog as it was on the front page, I hope you don't mind me joining in. Delete it if you like, I found just writing this helped a bit. I was 16 when they told me my ovaries were a bit messed up and that I might have trouble conceiving. At that point, it was a horrific thought. Me? Children? Never! Besides, the fact that I only had about 5 periods a year was a bonus! When I was 18 I met the man of my dreams and I was very open with him about it. We were thinking ahead: He was happy to try for children, and if necessary we'd adopt. We got engaged, were each others' 'firsts' as we planned to be together forever. My happily ever after was really happening. When I was 21 and half way through my final year at uni, I sunk into the depths of depression. I was so tired and emotional and sick; I couldn't eat or sleep or study. I could barely get out of bed. That new year's eve, at my lowest point, I told him that he should start the year without me. I got very drunk, a lot. I smoked, a lot. I skipped lectures, didn't sleep for weeks and had mood swings so bad I couldn't even stand to be with myself. Almost a year ago today, I started to bleed like I'd never bled before. There wasn't really any pain. There was a slight cramp, and then so much blood, more than usual, more than there'd ever been. Despite my medical background, I didn't know what was happening even though looking back now it's so obvious. It's so different when it happens to you. I walked along to the A&E in the middle of the night. When they told me, I didn't believe them. I couldn't believe them. I was about 12 weeks gone when I lost my baby. Everyone tells me it's not my fault, and I know I'd probably have lost it anyway, but no one will ever be able to get rid of the guilt. I drank, I smoked, I stayed out late and partied too hard. For all I know that might have been the only chance I had, and I didn't make the most of it because I didn't know it was there growing inside me. How didn't I know? No matter what anyone says, ever, there will always be a part of me that knows I may have killed my child. I should have known it was there, things could have been so different. Maybe the ending would have been the same. For a long time I didn't tell anyone, not even the father. I was so ashamed, so guilty, so dirty. One year on, and it seems all my friends and family are having children. There are babies and bumps everywhere I look. Each new announcement makes me feel happy, sad, totally inadequate. No one else remembered the due date when it passed; no one else will remember the day my babe was lost. I should have known it was there.  I should have known it was there.

29.1.06 23:43 Permalink / 5 Comments / comment

Tasting Iron A few days ago someone asked me why I don’t have children.  It’s not the first time that someone has asked me this yet I’m still surprised and, I suppose, slightly disturbed by the question.  There are some things that I believe one should be allowed to tell but shouldn’t be asked.  I get a taste in my mouth that comes with fear and stress – it’s what blood tastes like; that iron-like sensation.  Significant events in my life are marked by that taste – a taste so strong that I can smell it.  Hearing that my mother had died; reading the results of my degree; the moment before I married and the moment when a doctor looked across a scanning unit and told me that he couldn’t find my baby’s heartbeat.  All those moments taste of iron. No woman who has miscarried will ever forget those moments of realisation that what was a future, what was a family, is no more.  Perhaps she’ll feel cold and need to be wrapped in a blanket.  Perhaps she’ll fail to understand the words and not believe that it’s over.  Perhaps she’ll taste iron in her mouth and unravel the thread of a button from a shirt that she’ll never, ever wear again.  Evidently one pregnancy in four is lost to miscarriage.  It happens so often yet we have so few ways of acknowledging this event - the loss of a child – the loss of a future, of hopes and dreams; the loss of a nephew; a grandson; a son or a daughter.  Advice is given not to ‘dwell on it’, that it is ‘nature’s way’.  A future has gone and you are told not to ‘dwell’.  When my mother died no one told me that I shouldn’t dwell on it or that it was nature’s way.  And these stories go on and on and babies are lost and we don’t dwell and some people go on to have more children.  Although I would imagine that they never forget the child that is missing from their family.  Perhaps the retina captures for a second the family that could have been just before snapping the family that exists.  Maybe you know someone who tells the same story over and over again, they repeat the story in a variety of ways but it is essentially the same.  Usually this is because they can’t find a way of coping with the knowledge that they have, they can’t understand what happened to them and need to talk about it in order to give it comprehension; to make it Real and to, eventually, let it rest. Maybe you know someone who doesn’t tell the same story over and over again but they’ve got a hard look in their eye and they avoid hearing certain stories.  Maybe they’re avoiding the story because they haven’t been able to make it Real and to let it rest.  Loss doesn’t play with rules only contradictions. We have rituals associated with loss.  With death we have a funeral and memorials.  With the loss of relationships we have divorce or arguments; there is a division of spoils, metaphorical bonfires – for some, not so much a metaphor but the real thing.  We give flowers or we rip up photographs. We mourn, we share and we remember. In our culture we have no ritual associated with miscarriage – with the loss of a baby, a future, hopes and dreams. Years later I watch ‘Lost in Translation’ and feel myself drawn towards Japan.  Then a friend is learning Japanese.  Someone has a very tentative link with Japan through some work he has done. Japan, Japan.  Then I found Peggy Orenstein and her article Mourning My Miscarriage’.  So many things are leading me to Japan, temples, bells and rituals and an acknowledgement of loss. A few days ago someone asked me why I have no children and I tasted the iron in my mouth.  A few years ago someone told me that they couldn’t find a heartbeat and I tasted the iron in my mouth.

14.11.05 10:36 Permalink / 2 Comments / comment