Where do we go from here?

So this blog is starting as a means of not randomly sobbing into my pillow or into Paul's chest. Whilst it's completely normal to cry as it's a normal part of grief, I want to try to get my head together as it's more all over the place than a strobe light at a rave.

So grief in respects to miscarriage... that's a weird one. Feeling very guilty about grieving for the four lost pregnancies. I keep having to step outside myself and consider how I would treat a friend in the same situation and I would say that grief is a normal part of getting over losing something that you've loved but at the same time, grief for a miscarriage? Perhaps a stillbirth where you have to give birth to a dead baby but a miscarriage? It doesn't even look like a baby and yet from the moment of the two lines or the cross on a stick, it's not just a "baby" but your son or daughter. Logically it's nothing more than a few cells that may have once held the promise of a baby but fail to produce a heartbeat and yet it's not that to the person carrying it. 

At the moment, I can't even begin to imagine actually having a baby. For me it's all about managing to be pregnant for more than eight weeks, going to buy maternity clothing without fear and having a bump. Having a baby seems so far off at the moment that I can't even begin to dream about it.

I have had four miscarriages now since being together with Paul. The first was about four months after Ruby our niece was born. Very early, like all the others since, but a huge amount of bleeding. In fact, I bled for four and a half weeks and probably should have gone to the doctors. The next one was in the February of 2012- a big bit of guilt here as if it had gone to a full pregnancy, my wedding dress wouldn't have fitted! Found I was pregnant again (my oh my, can I get knocked up easily!) at the end of November and after a weekend of cramping and bleeding (oh and the excessive vomiting that is always a pointer that things are going wrong!), I miscarried in the second week of December. We then went away for an incredible honeymoon to the US where somewhere along the way, another pregnancy was created! This was picked up in a uterine scan as aftercare for the previous miscarriage.

Things seemed to be progressing well: my boobs were seriously huge, had nausea and a hatred of coffee. Had a bit of spotting and legged it to hospital with Paul. They all thought I was completely mad, bearing in mind that it was a tiny amount of blood and I had no cramping!The hospital found that the fetus seemed to be staying put but had only grown a little since the previous week. There was something wrong though. The following weekend, my mum and I headed to the cinema and the excessive vomiting started again. We had to go back in the Tuesday for a scan to try to detect a heartbeat. Of course, there was none.

I had been checking this pregnancy like a madwoman. testing every two seconds as if one was going to come back saying, "Don't be so daft! This is all a mirage and not real", like the ending of a seriously shit book. My iPhone battery was constantly worn away to nothing where I had been checking everything that crossed my lips and even whether I could pluck my eyebrows... Even though I am a devout atheist, I started making deals with all the gods, praying that something would give me what I desired- a healthy pregnancy and maybe even a baby at the end of it? My lunacy even stretched to praying on ambulances- when I went through my crazy catholic stage whilst at uni, I remember one of the girls praying for ambulances when they passed with blue lights-I was making deals that if I was good enough to pray for this person, whom I have never met, then surely I deserved to have a baby? Every toilet trip, double the amount out of fear not just baby bladder, was a trip towards certain doom- the blood on the toilet paper. When the heartbeat wasn't there, there was a moment of sheer relief. I wanted that pregnancy more than anything else in the world but not the madness that came with it.

It wasn't a spontaneous miscarriage like all the others-it was a missed miscarriage where the dead foetus is still inside you and your hormones still say to your body that you're pregnant. Despite the grotesque description, it felt more human than the others as I got to have a little control by dictating that I wanted it removed. I felt very alienated when I went in to have it done but as soon as I came around from the anaesthesia, I wept. My baby had gone. The baby that I had a scan photo from the hospital- the one that I really hoped would be a baby I got to hold. The surgeon, the consultant whose care I am under for the other miscarriages, came to see me (probably because my dad had pulled every NHS trick he could to make sure I was seen by him and no one else) and asked how I was- the brave face "Fine" started.

Brave face had seen me through the day at work until Friday. Friday afternoon, our lovely music teacher had my class when my TA and I were asked to get a book ready to be sold at the Comic Relief  sale after school. Within a couple of minutes out of class, I was weeping at poor Mandy. Before Friday, there had been the odd moment when tears would flare but generally, I could get it back under control. The floodgates opened and I was full on weeping in the corridors, something that previously I had managed to save for bus journeys and reaching home. I spoke to our Deputy Head as I feel like the past two weeks, I've just been giving short shrift to everything and I didn't want her thinking that I was slacking. She said the same thing that everyone else has been saying about how well I've been coping etc and the usual stuff about how unfair it all is. The thing is there isn't anything else people can actually say or do is there? It's what poor Paul begged of me when I had been sobbing from 9 at night until 2 the following morning- what can I do? but there is nothing that anyone can do or say to make it better as nothing brings that baby back, stops the bleeding, the tiredness or the lowness.

I do keep asking Paul if he is ok as the attention does go to the woman. His response is always that I am his number one priority and at most he'll say how unfair it all is. I have apologised for bringing these problems into his life but he said that I was open from the beginning of the relationship- that having a baby was always going to be difficult. There was also a text exchange last week where I apologised for all the crazy that I was bringing at the moment and wished we didn't have to go through it. His response was beautiful,"I love you girl. No need to apologise sweetie. I wish we didn't have to deal with this situation but I would rather deal with it with you than not have the situation and not have my girl." Poor man. Constant crying fits that can last up to five hours? Woohoo!

Pragmatism is my chant at the moment. Trying to constantly remind myself of how much I already have and I have a hell of a lot! I utterly adore my husband and he is my best friend; even though my family are mad, they don't drive me completely bonkers and I love them very much; my friends are seriously awesome- more like family members than friends; I have a job that I adore and enjoy getting up for; I have two very broken but loving cats and live in a beautiful apartment in a lovely part of London. I keep repeating it to myself to remind myself of what I've got but as my step-mum said, "Once you start the babycrack, that's all you want!"

So we get to what happens next... It's not true infertility as after all, I can get pregnant and pretty easily. I have inherited a balanced set of trans-located chromosomes from my dad- the number 9 and 18 basically have swapped ends so there's the right amount of data but it's in the wrong places. This results in a 30% chance of miscarriage for every pregnancy (15% being the norm for everyone else) and a 3% chance of a serious genetic malfunction that would result in a viable pregnancy but not a baby that would live for anything longer than a year. Yes, as my Deputy Head said that actually it's 70% chance of a baby and 97% chance it will be completely healthy but realistically, after having four that have landed in the 30%, you can't think in that way. I fell like I'm dealing with percentages rather than the hoped end result of a baby. We can carry on trying naturally as after all, my mum and dad managed to have two children (seven miscarriages) and my step-mum and dad managed to have one child (five miscarriages)- yeah, I'm in the low leagues against them! 

The other next steps are a bit hairy and frightening (also feel like all hope has been given up)- PGD (pre implantation genetic diagnosis) where they will harvest some of my eggs and Paul's sperm, create embryos from them, checking them at the eighth split and re-implant the ones that have a chance of not having genetic damage to them. So, the live birth rate of PGD in 2011 was 31.6% per cycle. The next one is egg donation- I am not bothered about the DNA not being mine as after all, I'd being giving birth to it and feeding it etc. The chance of having a baby at the end of egg donation is 43.1%. The final choice would be adoption- something that both Paul and I are open too. I am quite frightened of the IVF route. There is still no guarantee of a baby at the end of it and the side effects can be really nasty, and I'm not just talking mood swings but cancer and ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome.

Urgh! So anyway, a scary path ahead. Just please understand my hatred towards pregnant women and the lack of likes from me on your new scan photos 'cos fuck it, that grief is real! How come you get your baby and Paul and I don't? My mum is currently on a new baby knit strike- refusing to knit for any new babies until she gets her first grandchild. So excuse me for my current craziness and be warned that it's likely to be a long one!