Angie’s story: 10 years after my miscarriages
Angie experienced 2 miscarriages before having her 2 children. She shares how she feels 10 years on.
It is almost ten years since my first miscarriage, which was quickly followed by my second one... A story about a celebrity losing a baby, or a TV storyline about baby loss can bring it all back like it was yesterday.
It is almost ten years since my first miscarriage, which was quickly followed by my second one. It was a very dark time in my life, and I used to spend all night awake frantically searching online questions such as, ‘Why did this happen to me?’ and ‘Will I ever have a baby?’
But one question I kept coming back to was ‘Will I ever feel normal again?’ Grief had become such a huge part of my identity that I wasn’t sure if I would ever be able to move on with my life.
During this time I was having a conversation with my grandmother, then in her late eighties, a mother of 8, and the epitome of the quiet, stoic matriarch. She held my hand and whispered quietly, “Me too. I know what you’re going through.” It was then that I knew that this grief would be something that I would carry with me for the rest of my life, but that eventually it wouldn’t be the all-encompassing, overwhelming thing it was then.
But have I ever felt ‘normal’ again?
I have a new normal now. With time, I was able to return to an outwardly normal life. I returned to work, began socialising again, and was eventually able to become a mother to two children. I know this isn’t the end result for a lot of people and I’m so grateful to be able to do that.
My sadness is still there and I think about it every day. Most of the time it’s a quiet, background sadness that only I know about. Some days it’s a lot stronger. A story about a celebrity losing a baby, or a TV storyline about baby loss can bring it all back like it was yesterday.
It has been hard to arrive at this new way of life, but I can tell you, when you’re up all night searching for answers, that one day, you will sleep again. You will laugh again. You will find joy in something. It’s not the old normal, but it’s pretty close.
