Happy
Mother’s Day to all moms reading this today. I’ve had a good one, though it was
a day of mixed emotions; I’m grateful to God for the gift of motherhood which
others do not have, and I’m a little low because this would have been the day
when my second child would have arrived, according to scan results, had I not
miscarried in October 2012. It’s not like heart-wrenching pain I felt when it
happened, but it just is a sad memory that can wipe a smile off your face when
you remember. I have never really spoken at length about it, and will only do
it now.
A
few people in my circle had miscarriages before me, but I never got to speak to
them to find out how exactly it felt to lose your unborn child. I just thought
it would be quite disappointing. It’s way bigger and deeper than a mere
disappointment. . It involves a lot more than just bleeding on a pad and moving
on with life. As I was writing this, I asked myself whether I was just
over-sensitive about something that I should just let go of. I spoke to two
people close to me about their experiences trying to move forward. One said, “I
try so hard not to think about it anymore.” The other said, “It is impossible
to forget all the hopes and dreams that would have been crushed by that event.
I guess I get by by pretending it never happened sometimes.” Clearly those that
have been through it also have to make a concerted effort not to think about
it.
When
it happened to me, it was such an incredibly crushing blow. My first child is
autistic and was 6 when the miscarriage happened. I had been up to the ears in
pressure from all directions to have a second one for quite a few years. One
cousin was always coming to me with tales of how my mother was pushing her to
push me to have another child. No-one cared to ask why I was taking my time. They
just wanted me to have another. That’s actually a discussion for another day.
So
I had the second pregnancy when I felt I was emotionally prepared for it
following the trauma that had come from the autism diagnosis. Losing that baby was
among the worst things that ever happened in my life. When you discover that
you are pregnant with a child you’re ready for, you obviously get excited. You
calculate dates, you start looking at cute baby things in the shops and make
mental notes about what to buy and where to get it from when the time is right.
You see and feel your body changing and you know it’s because you are carrying
another human being inside you. It’s a beautiful feeling. If you have a child
with special needs, it is even more exciting because you feel you have got
another shot at experiencing normal motherhood.
My
GP was worried when my blood pressure got extremely low. He asked if I was in
any form of pain, I wasn’t. Another Dr had also noticed the low blood pressure
a few days earlier and had dismissed it and said maybe the machine was defective.
My GP said I should quickly make an appointment with a gynaecologist, but
before I got round to that, the miscarriage happened. I knew something was
wrong when I saw the look on the Dr who examined me after I had started
bleeding. I don’t quite remember what it was but I just knew. Then he said,
“There’s no heartbeat. I’m afraid you’ve lost your baby.” He said from the look
of it, the heartbeat had stopped a week before the bleeding started. He said I
had to go home and process the bad news, then come back within 48 hours for
dilation and curettage (D&C), a surgical procedure often performed after
miscarriage to stop bleeding and prevent infection. I was quite numb at first.
I just said OK and went back home with very dry eyes. When I got home that’s
when I cried buckets. My stomach was already showing, and I could not believe I
was carrying a dead baby in it. The next morning while making arrangements to
go for D&C, I started having excruciating stomach ache. We rushed to the Life
Brenthurst Clinic in Parktown. At some point I couldn’t see anything and
couldn’t walk because of the pain. I had to be pushed in a wheelchair.
I
will skip the other gruesome details, but all I can say is a miscarriage is not
something to be taken lightly. You don't say, “Oops shame, don't worry you can
try again,” to someone who had lost their unborn child. This is not like you're
discussing a game of chase. Others would say, "At least it's not like losing a real baby. You hadn't met this one yet."
I was told that in my culture, condolences should
not be expressed or accepted following a miscarriage. And why not? It is a heavy
loss. I was told not to respond when people said sorry because it would bring
bad luck. I was also advised not to cry because people who had suffered
miscarriages were not supposed to cry. I cried a lot! For many, many days. Some
family members didn't say anything and just acted like nothing happened. It was
a very difficult time.
At
the hospital I was treated by renowned gynaecologist and fertility specialist,
Dr Herman Netshidzivani, a man with an impeccable bedside manner. I was,
however, taken aback when he kept referring to the baby as "product of
conception". I know it’s probably the medical technology for it, but
because I was bitter and confused, I felt he was making light of my misery,
even though he was, still is, among the most wonderful and warm doctors I’ve
met in my life. The other staff members weren’t very nice.
Reality
set in after the D&C that I had really lost my baby, they had cleaned my
womb, there was nothing anymore, and I woke up wailing for my baby. A theatre
nurse said I should go for counselling, which I never did. Afterwards I’d
find myself grinding my teeth a lot. I should have gone for counselling.
I
didn’t really look around me when I was admitted, but I was placed in a ward
where I could hear newborn babies cry. Even when I was waiting to be
attended to, new mothers passed by with nurses wheeling their babies in
trolleys. It was such a stab in the heart.
When I went for checkup a few weeks later, pregnant women were visiting
the same Dr for their own issues, my stomach was still distended, and excited,
chatty mothers-to-be would ask, "So how far along are you?" Then I’d
say I lost the baby.
Coming
back home babyless was very painful. My son only noticed that my nail polish
was gone. They had removed it before I went into theatre. All I could think
was, this child is worried that my nail polish has been removed. A baby has
also been removed and he doesn’t know that. Nothing prepares you for the pain
that you feel having to explain to people close to you that you suffered a
miscarriage. I won’t even start on the sore breasts when the milk starts drying
out because there’s no baby to take it. But you do recover from it; your heart
doesn’t bleed about it forever, even though you can’t erase it from your
mind.
A
day after the procedure I was back in class, catching up with my final year
project, even though the Dr said I was to take two weeks off. I just
wanted to bury myself in something that wasn’t sorrow.
Suddenly
every woman I saw on the street was pregnant, everyone on Facebook was popping
babies left, right and centre, like they were trying to rub it in my face and
say, "see, easy peasy, this is what you failed to do". I would
see beggars on the Joburg streets with two babies and would ask myself, how
could I fail to carry a baby when I eat good food, have access to healthcare,
and live comfortably? How can I be beaten by this person who eats bad food on
the street (if they eat at all), and probably only goes to hospital to give
birth, with no prenatal visits in-between? My friend, Mary, likened it to what
happens when you’ve just had a break-up. It will look like everyone is in love,
people holding hands everywhere and at every street corner you will see a
kissing couple, and wedding pictures all over Facebook. All you want to do is
go home, hide and lick your wounds. I became so sensitive to certain
expressions. I was doing my end-of-year project, and interviewed a disgruntled
father who felt the justice system had failed him and his miscreant son. He
liked the phrase, “miscarriage of justice” a lot, and the word miscarriage is
what jumped at me and kept ringing in my ears. I almost asked him not to say
that.
Since
I didn’t get counselling, I tried joining some online community for people who
had suffered miscarriages, but ended up unsubscribing because the group was one
big endless pity party, and I didn’t see how I would move forward if I was
constantly around such raw emotion and negativity. I decided to just do it my
way, one step at a time. Baby steps.
In
a cruel turn of fate, my favourite South African soapies Scandal! and Muvhango
were running with miscarriage themes at the time of my loss. When the affected
characters cried, I cried with them.
After
a miscarriage, you wonder what the child would have looked like, what kind of
personality they were going to have. I felt so ashamed of myself, I felt like a
loser, which I was because a loser is someone that has lost. I thought maybe
God was telling me something; that maybe procreation is not for everyone.
I
was worried what I would do with myself on the EDD. I bought candles to light
on the day in a special little ritual I planned to observe every year. That happened to be my busiest day at work and
I only realised after midnight that I’d forgotten to light the candles, and
felt really crappy, like a bad mom who forgot her child.
I’m
still very aware of the loss but no longer cry about it. I think I only cried last
week, which was the first time in the past three years, when someone asked for
details of what happened. I have conflicting emotions. On one hand I’m so
grateful that I got another child afterwards. I want to count the garden by the flowers, not the leaves that fall. I was already pregnant on the EDD
of the one I lost. Others find they can’t conceive after a miscarriage, so I am
indeed blessed. On the other hand, I sometimes feel that by trying to forget,
I’m trivializing the loss. I wish it were possible to cry with one eye, or
smile with half your mouth. This was going to be a human being but didn’t get a
chance.
There
are always subtle reminders. In my case it’s my friend’s baby who was born the
same week mine was supposed to arrive. When I wanted to try, I was joking with
my friend Faith and said let’s do it together. She said, “Yes, let’s do it!”
and we conceived at the same time. So every time her son’s birthday comes, I
can’t help thinking, “Oh…L”.
When
I discovered I was pregnant again, there wasn’t much excitement. I just looked
at the two red lines on the pregnancy test kit, showed it to my husband and we
both didn’t say anything about it. We had been so excited with the other one
and he had bought a nice little potted flower to celebrate. A few days after
the miscarriage, the flower also died and I cried my eyes out some more. I did not get to enjoy the third pregnancy as
other moms get to do. Every funny sensation was enough to send me scurrying off
to the loo to check. I was always on tenterhooks.
When
the loss happened, I wondered if there’s something I’d done wrong, like taking
medication or bad food. Did I overwork? Now I’ve accepted that it wasn’t
something I did. Even if it was, it wouldn’t have been deliberate. It just
happened.
In
the end you just tell yourself God knows best. There must have been a good
reason for that to happen. If you don’t think that way, your thoughts will just
drive you crazy. Now I feel a little better after getting things off my chest.
Miscarriages are a hush hush affair in my culture, but I think people should
talk in order to heal. It’s archaic to tell people not to grieve after they
lose their unborn baby, to force them to just internalize the pain. Way back in time twins and albinos used to be killed at
birth in some parts of Africa, but that is not done anymore. A few beliefs should change along with that.
I
remember people telling me that people with epilepsy would foam at the mouth
during a fit, and if you came into contact with the saliva, you’d automatically
catch the epilepsy too. I also heard the
ridiculous assertion that if you looked in the middle of the footprint of a
person with epilepsy there would be the paw print of a dog in the middle. People
alleged epilepsy was demonic and once you fell into the fire, it would be
untreatable. I don’t know where people got all that, but the message was clear:
We were to stay as far away as possible from Chemadota or anyone with epilepsy.
All that happened more than 20 years ago. It’s painful to note that nothing
much has really changed in terms of raising awareness for epilepsy and other
disabilities. 
