It was around a year ago that my husband and I started trying for a baby. I fell pregnant fairly quickly, at least compared to the year that it took us to conceive Oliver. But as I got excited about the future and what our life would look like come the end of March 2021, little did I realise that I wouldn’t be holding that new baby in my arms. And that I would be a very different person, forever changed by my experiences.
Today was my due date. Well, kind of. Things didn’t quite add up with my pregnancy tests and my midwife and I agreed that I was probably further gone than Aunt Flow would suggest. It wasn’t until our hearts were broken at an early reassurance scan that we realised our twins (ah, that explains the strong tests..) were definitely not 11 weeks old. But, as with any pregnancy (pre-loss, at least), my 31st March due date was imprinted on my brain. And Sweetpea and Nailhead (named after Google’s suggestions of size at their gestation) would have been born around now. (Nailhead, we decided, was going to be the troublemaker of the two)
I’ve struggled in the run-up to this date. Not least because I’ve seen friends, who announced their pregnancies at a similar time to me, going on to have their babies, and being the last of my antenatal group to be well on their way to having two. But also because a second miscarriage – on Christmas Day of all days – means that I know I’ve got triggers ahead of me for a long time to come yet. I’ll get past today and go through these feelings all over again come Jellybean’s due date, which was just a week shy of the anniversary of that scan. Oh and then I’ll be reliving Christmas again. Great.
I read a quote that resonated with me a few months back:
And it’s so true. A miscarriage means the loss of an entire future that you start to plan as soon as you get that positive test*. It’s hard to just forget that and move on. (*At least before miscarriage destroys the happy naivety that a positive pregnancy test = a baby.)
On my bad days, I feel like half the person I was a year ago, utterly broken by my experiences. But on my good days, I feel a bit like me again, just a bit older and a whole lot wiser to the world. Things will get better; I know that.
When we had the first miscarriage, we planted a tree in memory of the babies that we lost. And I can’t help but feel there’s something poetic about it starting to blossom right around now. God knows what that means for our TTC journey going forwards. But it looks pretty. And it’s put a little smile on my face today.
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