Miscarriages are heavy losses too!

 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.