It's a Motherfucker

I posted a piece about my miscarriage yesterday on Facebook. It was more about the experience of miscarriage rather than my own personal one – but of course it is personal as it must be. The last few days I have an urge (if that’s the right word) to be open about what had happened. Perhaps it was because I feel myself getting stronger. I think it’s also down to the weekend that just passed, it was a bit of a milestone for me.

I work for one charity and am involved on a volunteer basis with another – this weekend each had their biggest event of the year. When I was pregnant I had been so looking forward to the weekend so I could show off my bump to a large audience. I have always been a fan of the baby bump and of course the thoughts of my own bump to rub was almost too much to bare! As the weekend approached I felt really conscious that I had nothing to show of my pregnancy, and for those who I hadn't told they would have no idea of how everything had changed for me.

I find this concept so interesting. We look people in the eye every day and we really have no idea what is behind them. We treat people well, badly, rudely, kindly and we have no concept of how our behaviour towards them will affect them in that day. Having lost my mother when I a teenager I have been careful in my dealings with people, knowing that a brave face can look like a perfectly normal one to the person looking at it. As it turned out both events went extremely well, I was actually quite proud of myself but more than that I was grateful that I have a very full life and many people who enhance it.

Anyway back to the piece I shared on Facebook. I was apprehensive about sharing it – you never know how people receive such personal pieces and I have no doubt I have previously rolled my eyes at something I have seen. I wanted people reading it to know where it had come from. I wrote it as a person who is feeling more positive and optimistic about the future, but who remembered the fear of not feeling this way. The response was incredible, should I have been surprised? Perhaps not, people are nice which, sadly, is something that can be all too easily forgotten.

I received a number of private messages and mails, along with public comments of support and women sharing their experience. I felt validated in posting my message which in itself is quite sad, maybe it would have been better to be alone in my feelings. From the messages I received I learned that many women felt silenced, lonely and the word taboo was used a number of times. Isn’t that awful to think of? A person loses their child and somehow enters a world that can be labelled taboo. One woman said the response to her miscarriage had been negative, it hurt to hear that. My support system could not have been more encouraging, patient and kind. My family, my friends – every person I dealt with helped me to heal – for one woman to experience the opposite is one woman too many.

I’m not sure what can be done about this, what needs to be done and what I personally can do. Maybe with time I can figure out a way to help, or maybe the question is what is it that I am helping? Is everything perfectly fine with how we deal with miscarriages?

There are a few things I believe we humans could be better at doing. One is how we treat Mums & Dads who have had a miscarriage, the sensitivity and respect we give to their grieving. The weekend I miscarried we were also moving house…dreadful timing yes. My father-in-law came over to help, when I thanked him he replied ‘that’s what Grandads do’. I cried when he said that because I knew in that moment that he still thought of me as parent and my first baby, although unborn, would not be forgotten. Small things like that can be the difference between surviving a miscarriage and losing yourself to it.

Another is ridding the stigma surrounding them and, in my personal experience, around having an early miscarriage.

We all know that 12 weeks is a magical marker where we can stick on the microphone and publicly announce our pregnancy ‘Hear ye Hear ye’ etc.. I don’t really get that to be honest….but more of that again. However because of this golden rule of pregnancy when you do tell people before 12 weeks and then miscarry, there is a very gentle message whispered in the wind from some people that really you shouldn’t have told anyone yet now should you. There may even be a slight tilt of the head you would expect to get when you climb the wall you were told not to and then fall off.

Why is this?

Are they telling me that my baby didn’t exist before 12 weeks? That my hopes and dreams for this child were meaningless before 12 weeks. That the physical effects of the pregnancy on my body where phantom before 12 weeks? I hope not.

So why then should it make a difference that I tell you about all of these before 12 weeks? And why do we feel that a miscarriage before then should not be as cruel to the parents who experienced it?

All questions I have yet to answer and which maybe I never can. Conversations are good though and hopefully that Facebook post may lead to a rethink about what losing an unborn child means to the people who experience it.

Also as a side note: I’ve been listening to The Eels, It’s A Motherfucker…..I recommend it.