Our Story

The analogy I use to describe miscarriage is to think of myself as a house. Miscarrying is like a bulldozer that slams through the house and destroys it down to its foundations. I then must rebuild the house from scratch which takes an enormous amount of energy and is very heavy work. Sometimes I manage to rebuild completely before that bulldozer comes smashing its way through again, and sometimes I’m nowhere near complete before it makes its next attack. This is what recurring miscarriage is like for me. A constant cycle of destruction and rebuilding.

Like many women I just assumed that having children was par of the course, that you just decided it was time and that was that. Looking back, I don’t even think I knew the word miscarriage and certainly nobody ever spoke about it. So, when my husband and I decided that we wanted to start a family we didn’t think there would be any issues at all. Besides loads of people around us were having babies so how hard could it be, right?

We became pregnant quickly and of course we were super excited, so we told people straight away. However, within a week of getting a positive test I spontaneously started bleeding at work. I was so confused but I knew instinctively that it wasn’t good. The bleeding didn’t stop and turned into something like a heavy period with lots of cramping. My overriding emotion apart from shock, was embarrassment, especially when I had to tell everyone what had happened. We moved on however and just kept going, determined to get pregnant again, surely stuff like this didn’t happen more than once!

We became pregnant again quickly, within about two months of the last miscarriage. Although I was nervous, it all seemed to be going swimmingly. Until I was about 10 weeks. Again, I was at work and while in the bathroom I noticed some spotting. My heart must have stopped for a brief second as suddenly I felt like I was going to pass out. I called the Early Pregnancy Assessment Unit and they said that this type of thing can be normal and to wait for my 12-week scan. So, I did, I waited knowing full well that something didn’t seem right. The scan came and I’ll never forget the silence. The silence said it all really. It’s hard to describe those moments when they’re searching around in your uterus looking for the baby that you and your partner desperately want. It must only take a minute or two, but it feels like an eternity. Then she said it “I’m sorry but there is no heartbeat”.

It’s like the whole world stops and your head just whirls around in a sea of confusion. She called it a blighted ovum; I’d never heard those words in my life.

They told us to sit in the waiting room with all the pregnant women holding their scan pictures in their hands and getting their good news. It was surreal, but at that point neither of us had any capacity to make sense of this awful situation, or to ask questions, or to even tell them how wrong it was to put us in a waiting room full of pregnant women.

They called us back in to discuss our three options, conservative management (basically just let nature take its course and wait), have a medically managed miscarriage, or surgery. I didn’t know what any of it meant so in sheer panic and overwhelming desire to get out of there I said I’d wait and see what happened naturally. There was no explanation about what to expect, no offer of counselling or signposting to any support. We just walked out feeling devastation and confusion.

Two weeks later and nothing had happened. My sister who lived in London at the time invited me down to try to take my mind off it all, so I went with my Mom for a girly weekend. That night I woke up in pain, but it disappeared after a minute or two, so I went back to sleep. Then I woke up again, this time in more pain, then it started coming quicker and more intensely. By morning I was in agony and the pain was coming in quick repeated waves. I was having contractions. My Mom called 999 and they rushed me to hospital, I still to this day don’t even know what hospital I was in. The gas and air did nothing so when I arrived at the hospital, they hooked me up to a morphine drip. I remember standing up at one point and blood splashing all over the floor. I was terrified. I don’t remember too much after that but a few days later at home I went to the bathroom and passed a large liquid filled sack. I held onto it for a bit, then not knowing what else to do and with no idea that I had any other option, flushed it down the toilet.

Emotionally after that I was a wreck. I’d be walking down the street and see pushchairs all over the place and burst into tears. I was lost in a sea of emotions ranging from anger to depression to confusion. The jealousy was off the scale and I just couldn’t bear the constant stream of happy parenthood that society sends our way in every shape and form. Now in hindsight and with a lot more knowledge, I see that all those emotions were part of the grieving process, they were a result of trauma, deep sadness, and loss.

As I was trying to manage my grief, I found one of the greatest support networks I’ve ever encountered: alternative therapy and the support of women who have had similar experiences. I continue to benefit from the support offered by these women.

I was told about acupuncture and reflexology from an ex-colleague. I had acupuncture, reflexology and started taking Chinese herbs for about 6 months. Alongside this I started focusing on my general health and wellbeing. I can honestly say, that was the healthiest I’ve ever felt in my life. And low and behold, I was pregnant again.

I was terrified for the first 12 weeks and was convinced that my body just wasn’t up to the job. But somehow, against all the odds, we had our little girl in July 2013.

She is without a doubt the most incredible thing that I’ve ever done. All that heartache was worth it, but the trauma left its mark. My anxiety escalated after having her and I lived in a constant state of fear that something bad would happen to her. In December 2019, a research study with the purpose of investigating levels of posttraumatic stress, depression, and anxiety in women in the 9 months after early pregnancy loss was published by Elsevier Inc. It concluded that “Women experience high levels of posttraumatic stress, anxiety, and depression after early pregnancy loss. Distress declines over time but remains at clinically important levels at 9 months.”[1] This is so important to recognise as, in my experience, pregnancy loss is a taboo subject that our society seems to struggle to speak openly about. The lack of conversation does nothing but isolate those experiencing it, prolonging grief, increasing anxiety, and halting the healing process. This not only results in poor mental health but often presents itself in the form of physical health related problems in the future.

A few years later we decided to try for our second baby. Like all the times before we became pregnant quickly for the fourth time. Due to my history the midwife organised a reassurance scan so at about 6 weeks we did the usual routine and braced ourselves for the worst. This time however, we saw a little heartbeat, but I still felt uneasy, unsure, and anxious. I was running to the bathroom as often as I could to check for spotting and I was hypersensitive to everything I felt. Then at about 8 weeks it happened again. I saw that same spotting that I’d seen before and immediately knew. I called the midwife in tears and she booked me in for another scan. It was confirmed, the little heartbeat that we’d seen flickering away only two weeks ago had stopped.

This time I opted for a medically managed miscarriage. We weren’t told what to expect so we went into the ward the next day with a packed bag just in case. I was called into a separate room where the nurse administered the medication. “It’ll take about 4 hours to kick in” she said, “and then a couple of hours for the tissue to come away”. On this occasion, and rather unexpectedly, we were sent home to wait it out.

As predicted 4 hours later the pain started and it wasn’t long before I was rolling on the floor in agony. When I think back to this, I just think about my husband and how he must have felt, not knowing how to help or what to do. He must have felt helpless. After a couple of hours of this and no pain relief except paracetamol, the bleeding intensified and yet again I had to flush another baby down the toilet. This was my third miscarriage and I still didn’t know that I had other options in this respect.

The emotions this time were different. I started to cut myself off from everything. It’s like a switch gets flicked and all the lights go out. I’m functioning in everyday life but there’s not much emotionally going on. Every now and again something would trigger me and I’d either burst into tears or my anger would flare up, but I’d bottle it up instead of releasing it. It was the same grief I’d experienced before but now with added guilt for not being able to give our little girl a brother or sister. Now that we had our daughter, I could see what those little babies could have become, and I found that really hard to deal with.

It was about this time that I discovered the Miscarriage Association and Tommy’s. Both were flagged to me by friends and colleagues who’d had similar experiences. The Miscarriage Association informed me of my rights in terms of the “disposal” of my pregnancies and informed me that I could have them analysed to get answers as to why I kept miscarrying. By this point I’d had some investigations at the local hospital, but they all came back showing no issues. This is when we went to Tommy’s. Tommy’s was an altogether completely different experience. They just got it. They understood and gave us time and empathy for our situation. It felt less clinical and more caring. They ran all the blood tests again as well as giving me a biopsy to test for endometritis and natural killer cells. Immediately they gave me progesterone to take next time I got a positive pregnancy test as there is growing evidence that progesterone can be beneficial if there’s early bleeding in a pregnancy. Tommy’s gave us back some hope.

Prior to our first consultation at Tommy’s we became pregnant for the fifth time. It went exactly the same as before. We saw the little heartbeat at 6 weeks, then two weeks later, no heartbeat. Again, I opted for the medical management but this time they kept me in overnight. Armed with my newfound knowledge, we insisted on having the tissue analysed so we could try to get some answers. Six weeks later we received the results that our little girl had Trisomy 22, a chromosome related issue that is “incompatible with life” as the medical report states.  

Tommy’s gave us so much hope but when the test results came back, they were all perfectly fine. I say this with disappointment because by this point, I’d rather they find something wrong so that they can fix it as opposed to having no answers and being told to just keep trying. There’s nothing worse than being told to “just keep trying” when trying will most likely result in more miscarriages. I started to realise that there’s been such an historical lack of investment into early pregnancy loss. Thankfully, the tide is turning and organisations such as Tommy’s plus many more are really starting to make an impact.  

Our fifth and sixth miscarriages happened in quick succession. Both were chemical pregnancies, so the bleeding started about a week after the positive test. Like my very first miscarriage, this was just a heavy period with cramping. However, the lack of labour like pain doesn’t diminish the emotional pain that these miscarriages caused. They were two more bulldozers knocking down the walls that I’d only just started to re-build again.

At this point I want to briefly speak about taking time off from work in the aftermath of a miscarriage. I took time off from work only once in all my miscarriages, but I know now, that for me, that was a mistake. There was an earthquake going on inside my body, heart, and mind but I pushed it away and carried on as if nothing had happened. This not only delayed my grief but also my healing, and all for what? To keep up appearances? To not cause damage to my career? I know that for some, work is a welcome distraction and a way of moving on, but for me what I needed was peace and an enormous amount of self-care. On the Support page you’ll find a link to The Miscarriage Association’s guidance about your rights to time off and returning to work as well as other support.

The support groups that I found online were, and continue to be, a lifeline. There’s such a stigma around speaking about pregnancy loss that anyone would be forgiven for feeling completely alone and isolated. However, there really are so many of us out there in very similar situations searching for answers and we’re all so willing to offer support and guidance to help each other through this most difficult of experiences. You can find a list of support groups on the Support page.

We became pregnant for the seventh time in the summer of 2020. I’d never felt so pregnant. My symptoms were so strong and although my usual anxieties about being pregnant where still there, I felt hopeful about this one. I didn’t contact the midwife until I was about 8 or 9 weeks. I didn’t want to jinx it. When I did finally contact a midwife, she immediately said that she’d try to get me a reassurance scan given my history. I was reluctant to do this, I just didn’t want to know, but I went along with it and said yes. At about 10 weeks I went in for my scan alone as my husband wasn’t allowed in due to COVID restrictions. I was so scared and being alone made it worse. I was crying before I even set foot in the scanning room. Then, there it was all over again, the silence and the look on her face. I knew straight away, my tears stopped, and that switch flicked off again. Unconsciously, to protect myself from all the pain, I turned off. This time though I noticed it. It was like I was having an out of body experience and I could see what I was doing but I was powerless to stop it. Nor did I want to. It’s easier not to feel than it is to face up to the pain.

She said that she could see the baby but couldn’t see a heartbeat and that I’d have to wait two weeks for another scan to confirm. I’m not great with uncertainty so I knew those two weeks would be tough. People kept trying to give me hope but I knew instinctively that it just didn’t stack up. The scan two weeks later arrived and thankfully they allowed my husband to be with me. As we had feared, there was no heartbeat.

Understandably, the nurses didn’t want to admit me to hospital but they also couldn’t administer the medication for the medically managed miscarriage, so I took home the medication along with Codeine and several bed pans so I could collect the baby for analysis. This seventh miscarriage was probably the most painful to date and there was so much blood. I had to collect the tissue in the bed pans and store it in a Tupperware box. This time I saw our baby much more clearly than the previous miscarriages. I held onto her for a little while and then placed her in the box. I don’t know why I’m saying “her”, it’s just a hunch. The next day we drove back to the hospital and I handed her over to the midwifes in front of a room full of pregnant women.

My husband as always, was my rock, despite all the pain that he must have been feeling as well. I don’t think that we consider the partners in this as much as we should. They must feel so helpless and not know what to say or do for the best. They often get left out of discussions with medical staff and can sometimes be treated as an afterthought. At one consultation, we were 10 minutes in before the doctor even asked his name. I get it, from a medical perspective the focus is on the person having the miscarriage, but emotionally it’s a joint effort.

So here we are today. We received the results of the last miscarriage which confirmed another chromosomal abnormality, Trisomy 4. The last 10 years have been such a journey. The first few years there was a lot of anger and blaming myself. As time has gone on my perspective has started to shift. I know, rightly, that I’m not to blame and that I have the power to take my experiences and create something positive out of it. Having my daughter and the seven miscarriages has changed my perception on life and I’m now starting to see my own potential and rebuild that house of mine, not with bricks and mortar but with self-belief, optimism, and love.

Regardless of whether our family becomes 4 or not, I feel ready now to forge a new path for myself. I know it won’t be easy and as anyone who’s experienced pregnancy loss will tell you, the grief can come back when you least expect it, but I now know what activities and mindset get me back on track and that’s thanks to the enormous and incredible network of support that I’ve surrounded myself with. Recently, I’ve started having counselling with a wonderful counsellor who’s supporting me in ways that I didn’t even know were possible. She’s been such a big part of my life and I’ll be forever grateful to her for her time, patience and understanding. The path to healing and understanding your own actions and behaviors isn’t an easy one, it takes time and work, but it’s so worth it.

In September 2020, I went back to college to train to become a professional BACP registered Counsellor and with that I hope to one day be able to support women and their partners through pregnancy and baby loss. I’m so excited about what this new phase of my life will bring and I wish to turn my painful experiences into something good, powerful and supportive. This website is my first step towards that. I hope that reading my story and exploring the Support page will give you what you need to navigate the space that you find yourself in and help you to know that you’re not alone.

[1] Source: American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology