Suddenly life wasn’t a bed of roses

My hubby and I have it pretty good. I’m lucky enough not to have to work (although I know I’ll have to go back some when!), we have a great family, my son is doing well in his work and now lives happily in London with his partner.  We are healthy and we’re pretty fit.

So, it seemed like the cherry on the cake when we fell pregnant just before Christmas, we were hugely shocked and very nervous (due to my advanced years) but also incredibly happy.  At first I thought it was too good to be true and scared myself with stories about sky high miscarriage rates in all pregnancies, but especially in pregnancies in women of my age.  However, as time went by and all progressed normally, including all the unpleasant pregnancy symptoms, we began to dare to hope.  Alas, it wasn’t to be…

At ten weeks we went for a private scan and were diagnosed with a blighted ovum.  Something I’d never heard of before falling pregnant, a blighted ovum is also called a ‘silent or missed miscarriage’ and ‘happens when a fertilised egg implants in the womb, but a baby doesn’t grow’.  BANG – since then life hasn’t been the same.

Initially I was caught up in the medical process.  As my silly body thought I was still pregnant, I needed to go to a NHS Early Pregnancy Unit (EPU) to induce miscarriage.  The waiting room in the EPU felt like the saddest place on earth, so many couples going through what I was.  I could have had an operation to remove the pregnancy but I opted for a ‘medical miscarriage’ (tablets) as I thought that a general anaesthetic was a bit drastic and I didn’t want to spend anymore time in hospital than necessary.  I won’t lie the medical miscarriage wasn’t pleasant, it lasted for over a week and involved a lot of pain, but I was warned at the hospital that this would be the case.

The physical symptoms ended about a week ago and finally a pregnancy test is showing as negative, because, cruelly, throughout my pregnancy I was getting positive tests along with all those symptoms I mentioned (food aversions, fatigue, extreme nausea and not to forget massive boobs!).  For me, this is the saddest thing about a missed miscarriage, my pregnancy was never viable, and yet, if not for a private scan, I might even have made it to that holy grail of being 12 weeks pregnant before I found this out.  I know whenever I’d have lost my pregnancy it would have been tough, but hubby and I agree that earlier would have been better.  But it is what it is.

Now I am left with the emotional effects of a miscarriage, the mourning of what might have been.  Never before have I noticed how many babies and pregnancies there are on the TV and the radio and suddenly it feels like all my friends and extended family are falling pregnant.  Thanks to targeted advertising I can’t log on to Facebook or Instagram without seeing adverts for fertility clinics (these adverts used to be for maternity bras but they have finally cottoned on to the fact that I am no longer Googling pregnancy and instead I Google miscarriage and so the b*st*rds are trying to set me up with IVF clinics!).

I find myself asking “What now”?  I have gone back to Slimming World, but I was in and out like a flash as I can’t face people at the moment.  As I was successful in the Ride London ballot I have decided to train for that (a 100 mile cycle ride in August which follows the route used in the 2012 Olympics) but I haven’t started yet.  As I have a Cineworld Unlimited card I’ve been to the movies a couple of times, but I can’t really trust myself in public yet, for instance there were snot and tears at yesterday’s movie (in hindsight going at the same time as Saturday morning kids club wasn’t my best idea!).  As you can see there are a lot of if’s and but’s in this plan of mine to try to get back to some sort of normal. I guess readers I just need to test the proverb that ‘time is a great healer’ and hope that things will get better.

Wish me luck!