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I've had this entry written a while, but waited for the party season to finish before posting. It's the kind of thing that puts you off celebrating anything as you can imagine.
If you're new to this blog let me explain. Before our current bump, we had another one on the way. Mrs Will got pregnant end of Jan 2006 but we lost it a couple of months later.
I said before that I wasn't keen on having a kid, but any doubts I had evaporated when we got the test results. The thought of having a little one turning up was, forgive the cliche, like Christmas coming early. Imagine me, a dad! It's a heady combination of bluddy hell and over the moon Brian.
So the missus and I started reading baby books, collecting tracks on iTunes and we even gave our little one a name - Bunting. It probably sounds a bit soppy, but prospective dads will recognise all this I'm sure.
All was fine for about two months until Mrs Will started bleeding. We were jumpy anyway with it being our first, so called the doctor straight away. Early bleeding is common apparently - another bodged bit of design God or whoever you are - but we got booked in for an early screening the following Monday. We didn't get much sleep that weekend.
The day of the scan I sat beside my partner as she lay on the bed and held her hand. We both saw the haze of the ultrasound on the screen and all seemed fine at first. It was an early pregnancy so we didn't expect to see much.
The nurse looked pained. Like she was playing Hunt the Baby. Well, she would have been looking all day as there was no embryo there. All we could see was a black hole where our child should have been. I felt empty inside.
Blighted ovums we later found out are pretty common.The baby starts growing but stops for some reason and the body just flushes them away, leaving only the egg sack intact.
So why does this happen? No idea, said the consultant. Was it going to happen again? It's like rolling a dice, she said. Same odds of it happening every time.
We were offered counselling which seems to be the answer to everything these days. But there was very little in the way of practical advice short term. Was it OK to have a bath for example? When should we start trying again? Could we try again?
All I remember is being shunted to the back of the room. The consultant barely bothered about my partner's feelings either, instead concentrating solely on the medical necessities. In the space of an hour, Bunting changed from being our little one to a problem to be got rid of. Maybe we shouldn't have expected any more, but we both felt hung out to dry.
We were given two options. Either have a D&C where they surgically remove the contents of the womb or take the glibly titled 'self management' route where you bleed on your own and suffer whatever pain that comes with it. By this point we just wanted out, but had to wait a week for the hospital to call it. We both kept working as neither of us wanted to think about it and finally arrived for the procedure ten days later.
It wasn't the easiest hospital visit in the world. We were told it was an in and out job, but Mrs Will kept getting bumped down the queue as more urgent appointments came in. I left my partner there in the end and came home to an empty flat and my thoughts.
Neither of us felt too bad at first as we were in and out of the hospital. It finally came home to me when we saw a friend's baby for the first time. Not for you pal. Tough was not the word.
Looking back now I wish I could have talked to Mrs Will about what I was feeling. Ever find your brain's locked up and you can't find the words to describe what's happening? We were ready to throw in the towel and stop trying. I'm glad now we didn't.
If you find yourself in a similar situation don't be afraid to open up, talk to your other half and ask the medical staff questions. Be prepared to go to A&E too - we had one trip up there when the missus was in a lot of pain, but she was given some pretty potent drugs and almost enjoyed the experience!
Feel free to share any similar stories you may have. I'm interested in how you're remembering your baby that never was, if you choose to remember it at all. We had a mini birthday for ours and will tell our son about Bunting when he's old enough. I'm not religious but like the idea of Bunting being a little Angel that looks out for our new nipper.
It's a weird one knowing what you want to write, but not quite knowing how to say it - not that I have been in the same situation, but the feeling of wanting to verbalise what you are thinking about I have experienced. I guess it is a bit like knowing what you want to say, but not knowing how to say it, and who to say it to - without feeling you are being a burden, or for want of a better word ,a bit pathetic, or needy in your attitude. Maybe it is a man thing?
Top marks for writing about it Will - I am sure there will be many peeps out there who will find your words useful.
Just to say good on you will, it hits you immediately this was an incredibly difficult piece to write and you should be applauded for it.
As JoeK said, it really puts things in perspective, like at the moment im on a bit of a downer due to a number of things including things with my girlfriend but it just seems like nothing compared to what you've been through.
Well done mate, good luck with your recent nipper and i hope many find your advice helpful, i just hope i never have to use it.
I read Will’s blog with great difficulty; it brought back many emotions which were buried somewhere. I’ve thought long and hard before contributing this, but, like Will, I hope it may help others to understand or to walk along a difficult path.
I think the greatest grief for me was not actually being able to meet our children (two of them) – something that I had longed for more much than my Mrs. (I was the one who really wanted kids). That brought its own complications, because I was expected by family to be emotionally strong for the Mrs.
It was definitely her that they were concerned about – I can completely understand why, but I was left out on the edges and didn’t know how to say “…..and what about me?” without sounding selfish.
Grief was only one emotion – for me there was loneliness, isolation and depression. It was extremely difficult to talk about it, not because I didn’t want to, but because the Mrs was fixated on self blame - a dreadful state of affairs, so to talk about how I felt inevitably meant talking about her, which didn’t help.
These thoughts lasted for months, making it even harder to begin to put the pieces back together again. After the second time, we both became jealous towards family and friends who were pregnant; we even stopped going out to places where people were likely to talk about pregnancy/babies, but after a few months, this passed and we were able to celebrate their joy once again.
We did drift apart for a while, despite the fact that we probably needed each other the most! Even with professional help things were very strained for a long while and we had to learn to deal with our personal stress before we dealt with each others.
The breakthrough came one day quite unexpectedly; we both seemed ready to talk and listen to one another, and step by step, we reached the point of crying together, rather than crying alone. Because of our ages, we got to the point where the risks were too great, and sadly by the time we had decided ‘not to try any more’ we were considered too old to adopt!
We are now in our 50’s, and we both get a great joy from having youngsters around us. Obviously we’ve got a completely different lifestyle to those with children, and we’ve learned to be grateful for that, though it’s no real compensation.
I think the only real tinge of sadness for me, if I’m being really honest, is that my family line comes to a close when I pop my clogs. Oh well, onwards and upwards.
I can't add much to this other than Will and Dalesman are both very brave for sharing, i couldn't imagine losing fatbaby and we have a 20 week scan coming up.
we too have given the 'little one' a name, decided it covers all bases if it is a boy or a girl, now you may laugh but it is amazing how many people have also started referring to her belly as Chewbacca...
I can't agree more with Dalesman. Although it sounds selfish, the woman does get all the attention/sympathy and it appears that the man is just left to 'deal with it'.
We went through a horrific time when my wife had her miscarriage. When my wife started bleeding we went straight to the hospital for a scan. Although the scan showed a baby, it didn't show a heartbeat. We were told not to worry about this as it may be too early to detect one (6-7 weeks) and were told to come back in 10 days time for a second scan. It was the longest 10 days of my life!
At the second scan, it showed that the baby hadn't grown and there still wasn't a heartbeat - basically, we had lost it (or so we thought).
For the next couple of weeks, we kept getting told we had lost it/there was still a small chance/etc,etc. We felt like we were losing our minds! If we knew one way or another, we could try to move on, but the uncertainty made it worse.
In the end, we did lose the baby and we received no help whatsoever in trying to come to terms with this. We were just left to get on with it ourselves.
Having sex for the first time after the miscarriage was terrible for both of us. We both wanted to keep trying for another baby (we already have a son) but felt guilty that we could 'forget' about the baby that never was. Fortunately, my wife became pregnant again and carried this baby full term - but she delivered 5 days short of the 'anniversary' of the miscarriage.
We later found out from the hospital that 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage.
It was a time in our lives that we will never forget.
We later found out from the hospital that 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage.
Is that 1 in 4 after you actually find out you're pregnant? Because I'm sure I read somewhere that many people get pregnant but the embryo doesn't take for whatever reason and it just passes out naturally - I don't know if that's counted as an actual miscarriage.
I always remember my aunt losing her baby, it was very late into the pregnancy and there were complications etc. They had named her and everything, and they had to have a funeral with a little white coffin. Awful. What made it even worse is that it all happened on my birthday and I felt weirdly responsible or something.
I definitely think the father can be left out in the cold in these cases though - and like people have said, is expected to be strong and not seem selfish by also asking for support. They have lost a baby too after all.
I think they refer to that as a chemical pregnancy PV.
One of my friends has just lost a baby. He was born 2 months premeture, and sadly he didn't make it. Thanks for sharing guys, as it's helpful to have a male point of view so I can see things from his point of view a little better.
