Pregnancy After Miscarriage

"Happy birthday to me!" I sang out as I bounced onto my bed to join my husband and one year old daughter. It was my 25th birthday, and in my hand I was holding the greatest gift I could have asked for: a pregnancy test confirming a second little life nestled inside me.

We were ecstatic, of course, anxious to meet this new little person and to see them grow and change our family. I did all of the normal things: told a couple of close friends and family members, booked an appointment with my gynaecologist, basked in this semi-secret knowledge.

The gynaecologist's appointment came a week and a half later, on a Wednesday, and our first glimpse of our baby already indicated that something wasn't quite right. He (or she) wasn't quite as developed as expected, but my doctor assured me that this didn't mean anything - after all, how far along I was was only a guesstimate, really. She performed a few routine internal exams, reassured me that any bleeding was normal and wouldn't last, and sent us home.

I did bleed and it did last...and last, and last. I waited until Friday morning and when it clearly wasn't stopping, I went to the hospital, my one year old in tow. It was a beautiful summer day and I remembering telling my daughter as we walked to the bus stop that everything would be fine, because nothing bad happens on beautiful days.

Of course, it wasn't fine. The baby had completely evacuated itself from my body and left barely a trace. This was all normal at such an early stage of pregnancy, and though I kept hearing that and knew it to be true, the fact didn't make it any less heartbreaking for me. I sobbed on the bus, on the tram, on the sofa all evening. It was a short life, but it was one that had brought me so much joy. The nurse at the hospitals parting words had been to remind me how quickly most women fall pregnant again after miscarriage, but to warn me to wait a cycle. Comforting, informative words, but essentially lost to deaf ears.

A month later we were packing for a weekend away in Spain for a friend's wedding. My dress was a bit too tight, and I cursed my lack of self-restraint in the chocolate aisle as I threw it aside and packed the next best thing. I was tired, crampy, and anxiously awaiting my period so I could just get it over with. Maybe I'm pregnant. The thought cropped up a number of times, and while at first I had pinned it down to wishful thinking, I figured I might as well take a test. Better safe than sorry.

I bought the cheapest, crappiest test I could possibly find and hid it from my husband, who I knew would say I was crazy. I took it without telling him, and when the results came back they were near impossible to read. The whole test was cased in blue plastic, and the lines came up in blue. What had I been thinking?! But it looked positive...so I bought another, more expensive but understandable test and tried again. Positive, due just 6 weeks after the last. I couldn't believe it.

I felt like I was walking on eggshells throughout the first few months of the pregnancy. I didn't want to talk about it with anyone, including my husband, knowing the disappointment that could come. And, as the pregnancy progressed, it was wrought with complications that, although minor, were at times horrifying for us. We were told over and over again by medical professionals that our baby would be born premature, that we were facing a spell in the NICU at best. My husband never said it, but I'm sure I wasn't the only one wondering if it was our fault for getting pregnant again too soon.

Today my pregnancy has finally reached 37 weeks. Full term. And my baby girl looks happy, healthy, and even bigger than my first. We still have three weeks (or more, or less) left to go, and nothing is ever certain with babies, but today I feel like I can breathe again.

In many ways, I feel guilty for the way this pregnancy has gone for our baby. With our first daughter, I would spend hours thinking about her, talking to her, and just generally rubbing my belly and feeling so excited. This time I feel I've been much more distant. I haven't played music once specifically for her, or read her a book, or talked to her about life on the outside. I guess I've been afraid. I know that I'll love her once she's here and safe, I do, but I just can't seem to let myself love her fully yet. Maybe from today, as I breathe a bit easier, I'll be able to love a bit easier, too.

I don't have a happy ending to this story yet, but I hope I will soon - any day now! Either way, I needed to let it out. It would have given me strength in the last nine months to know that the staff in the hospital were right, and that babies can be more resilient than we think. I need to let it out, in the hope that someone else sitting on their couch sobbing can let it give them hope the way it would have given me.

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I wrote this post before the birth of baby A, who arrived three weeks later, a day after her due date. She was, and - almost seven months later - continues to be, practically perfect in every way. And now I know that everything is as it always should have been; no other baby could have taken her place in our family.