12 August 2022, by E-van and Terry

How I dealt with my miscarriages

It’s a heavy topic, one that triggers many mums like myself. Many of us don’t actually get over it, but learn to live with it. Just like having to lose a loved one, it takes time to heal. In this entry I’d like to talk about my personal experience(s) and how I dealt with the losses of my past pregnancies.

I’ve had two chemical pregnancies, and one missed miscarriage. The definition of Chemical Pregnancy from Cleveland Clinic: “A chemical pregnancy is a very early miscarriage that happens within the first five weeks of pregnancy. An embryo forms and may even embed in your uterus lining (implantation), but then it stops developing. Chemical pregnancies occur so early that many people who miscarry don’t realise it.”

Unfortunately, though it is an almost unnoticeable miscarriage, I noticed it for both. For the first, I took a pregnancy test and saw a positive mark even though it was very faint. Subsequently, I would have pink pee (little blood) and finally, I knew I peed out a clot. And from then on, I did not feel the least bit nauseous or tired anymore and I knew in my heart that the pregnancy was gone. True enough, we went for the ultrasound scan and they could not find the baby.

And fast forward to my missed miscarriage. I was all excited as we went for our very first ultrasound scan, which would have been its 12 weeks. I remembered my husband saying “let’s see the baby first.” He was trying to keep me grounded and keep my expectations low. It was probably a father’s instinct, a hunch. During the ultrasound scan, we found out that what would have been a 12-week-old foetus, was the size of a 6-week-old foetus and was not pulsating as they should, which means they stopped growing then. I was in great shock and disbelief. I went in very happy and excited and for once I didn’t doubt that I would miscarry, because in previous times I always had the hunch. I started tearing up, my husband told me that the intern’s eyes welled up too, watching me go from 100 to 0 in just a few minutes. It must be hard for them to see mothers receiving such news so early in the morning as well. A miscarriage was supposed to happen naturally for this pregnancy, but it didn’t, so I needed the help of pregnancy-inducing pills to flush the pregnancy out. This was the most painful loss. It hurt physically because the pills would cause the uterus to contract, and I really felt it squeezing up, each time tighter, and it felt almost exactly like menstrual cramps but worse, then came the splurge of blood along with the blood clots. It took slightly more than a week to flush out the foetus. A very heavy and painful process mentally and physically.

This was really the hardest one for me. As if to round up all my failed pregnancies, it was to be finished with a big bang. There were lots of tears and sudden uncontrollable sobs for a week. All these happened in front of Raphael and my husband, and Raph would be so concerned. He’d come to me and hug me, and “sayang” (comfort) me. He’d say “it’s ok mummy” in his cute little voice, even though he didn’t know what was going on. It made me cry even more.

How did I deal with it? I let myself mourn and grieve whenever I felt emotional. I’ll allow it to happen, I didn’t have many jobs that week I think, but when I did, perhaps I was too busy working to think about it and cry. But when I had the time, I would let it all out, I tried suppressing it because I felt that I have gone on being sad for too long, but it only made it worse. So I continued feeling my feelings. It was a tragedy, a loss of a child I was looking forward so much to meeting. A painful, sudden loss. And I am allowed to mourn, I wanted to feel all of the pain of the loss of my unborn child. I’ve let myself feel all of it, for all my failed pregnancies. And that’s how I went through them.

And slowly, as proven, time will heal. And time did heal. This tragedy did happen but with time, the pain lessened. The sobs became fleeting thoughts of a painful reminder that I miscarried.

I think for a person like me, who’s likely to not have depression tendencies, it’s okay to do what I did. But if you do, it’s best to seek a professional therapist to go through this painful process with you, so as to organise your thoughts.

I still look forward to meeting my rainbow baby when it happens.