I had planned this post for a while… A couple of times since my last entry I went to put in a filler post but decided against it… why not wait for the really big news?
Sadly, this is not that entry… not the big news… and most certainly not the entry I’ve been planning to write for quite some time… I’m not sure when that entry will happen now.
I had planned to announce an imminent new family member. Something I’ve wanted to share for quite a while now. Once we'd had the first scan I was going to let work know about my pregnancy and start planning maternity leave, the beginning of a whole new phase of life, letting everyone know how excited we were...
I had had my 12 week visit with a midwife, and booked our first scan for last Friday afternoon - 13 weeks. We walked into the clinic nervous, excited and ready to see our forming child for the first time. Tom held my hand as I lay on the bed and our technician (Hugh) got started.
Hugh was very quiet to begin with and explained that I had a retroverted uterus and that was making it difficult for him to “see”. He also went on to explain that this wasn’t anything to be concerned about… well that was a relief… but it was making his job a little harder. He continued to look hard at the screen and remained very quiet. I thought it was a bit odd that he wasn’t explaining what he was seeing but it was my first scan – how should I know how these things went? Heck he was probably concentrating on keeping the scanner pointed at the right spot, around my other organs behind which my (newly discovered) retroverted uterus was hiding …. Right?
And that’s when he turned to us and said “I can’t see a heartbeat”.
In that moment we went from being excited new parents to … what?
Hugh turned the screen towards us and pointed out the foetus and told us how it was much smaller that it should be and was only about the size it would be at eight weeks not 13 weeks there was no sign of a heartbeat he’d give us a moment while he got a second opinion from someone else….. I barely remember what was said.
As he left the room the blood was rushing around my head and I felt like I’d been thrown off a cliff. Tom squeezed my hand and we both said to each other how it just wasn’t meant to be and it was just nature’s way. It would be okay, we’d start again.
Deep breath… deep breath…
Hugh came back in with confirmation… and a pamphlet on dealing with miscarriage… He was very sorry, and not really any consolation… but there would be no charge for the visit. Well thank God for that… I couldn’t get out of there quick enough… out the door and heading for the car, gulping down the fresh air as I scrambled for the car. Gritting my teeth and trying to keep it together… and Tommy… God… how was he feeling?
What a shitty way to find out... there'd been no real signs of anything being wrong and yet in split second all the plans and excitement from the last couple of months dissolved around us.
Where to from here?
1 comment:
I'm so sorry.
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