Charlotte’s story: two miscarriages and pregnancy after loss
Charlotte experienced two miscarriages, and needed surgical management each time. In her story, she speaks about the impact of her losses, and how it affected her mental health during her following successful pregnancy.
A third pregnancy after two missed miscarriages meant that I had lived with barely tolerable anxiety every moment of every day, terrified my baby had died again and my body had not told me.
I had two missed miscarriages more than 14 years ago and even though I have gone on to have two beautiful daughters, it has taken me this long to even begin to share my story with anyone.
We had taken a long time to conceive and several people around us had conceived or had their babies whilst we were going through our struggles. When we finally did conceive, it did not occur to me that there would be a problem. Miscarriage was something that happened to other people. We turned up to our 12 week scan ready to see our baby and instead, were met with silence in the room. When I asked if they were sure there was no heartbeat, we were told to wait a week and come back for another scan.
That week was one of the most surreal moments of my life, clinging on to hope as I couldn’t even contemplate what might happen next. I felt sure they must have made a mistake. I barely remember being wheeled into theatre and sedated under general anaesthetic. What I do remember and will be haunted by to this day is being placed back onto the Ob/Gyn ward, also the maternity ward, to recover from my surgery. Listening to women successfully deliver their babies whilst I recovered seems intolerably cruel in retrospect and unbelievable that it was allowed to happen.
This happened one more time, four months later. This time, I did not enter the scan with hope as I had previously. A missed miscarriage means that your body keeps telling you that you are pregnant when your baby has actually died, so I had lost all trust in my own body. The second time I was wheeled out of theatre and placed back onto the maternity ward to recover, I barely even remember what happened, other than some truly amazing friends who came to escort me home. Some of these friends are like family now, and without their support I might not have made it through. Sadly, we also encountered judgement and criticism from a number of other women who took it upon themselves to tell me I needed to get over it and that I should ‘put it in a box and move on.’
My third pregnancy was successful although the birth was an emergency c-section so my mental health did not come out as unscathed. When they took my baby out of theatre and away from me as she was blue and needed the special care unit, something inside me broke. I lay in the hospital bed, unable to move from the neck down as a result of the spinal block and had a clear vision of a balloon breaking away from the string it was tied to and floating out of my grasp. I felt a moment of peace and detachment. A third pregnancy after two missed miscarriages meant that I had lived with barely tolerable anxiety every moment of every day, terrified my baby had died again and my body had not told me. My mind could not process being in the same theatre, transported back to the same ward, and although I knew I had had a live baby, she was not with me. My mental health collapsed and I spent the next few months battling post natal depression, for which I received very little support at the time or since.
With the recent publicity by Myleene Klass to break the taboo, I have finally found the strength after 14 years to make my story public. I hope that my daughters will never have to go through the same experiences and that better support will be available for those going through repeat miscarriages. No woman should have to go through this and face the taboo of feeling too ashamed to share their story.