So, about losing that baby
Repeatedly reflecting on a particular experience often manufactures new perspectives on said experience - this is very true with miscarriage, especially for me.
I love thinking about my miscarriage because I have learnt so much from it, so many women talk to me about it (because I'm so public with it), and I'm glad that I have been able to help a few people understand how to react to someone who is going through a miscarriage.
True story time!
We had been married four years and when we knew we wanted to have kids, we stared at each other and went, "We don't have driving licenses."
Because we were living, literally, out in the sticks, a car was a necessity. I know some of you might find this obvious but that's because you are familiar with the concept of 'countryside' - but there are some people who have this image of Japan as 'everywhere is accessible by train, even the non-city areas! (insert smiley-face)' on my Facebook. Trust me.
Just so you know, the nearest convenience store from my home was a 20-minute walk away, and it wasn't open 24 hours. It closed at 11 PM every evening. The nearest supermarket was a 10-minute bike ride away. (We were not in Taman Jurong anymore.) Also, the area where I lived had very strong winter winds (14 m/s) which was impossible to bike against while pregnant.
So we spent about a year getting our driving licenses. (At the point of conception, Randy hadn't gotten his license yet.) We spent thousands of dollars on both licenses and a seven-year-old Suzuki Swift. And then we were like, 'Okay Lydia has a bad back, she wouldn't be able to survive the pregnancy without ergonomic shit for her spine' - and we spent another couple thousand on a new Posturepedic mattress and a few hundred on a sofa.
Preparing for the baby took so much planning and so much money. But it was fun - we really wanted to start a family; we had talked about it for years. And here we were, getting it all ready and owning the process.
Okay so finally we got around to business. We tested with a home pregnancy kit when I was four weeks along. It came up positive, and that week was magical. I bought books for my husband and I so we (but more of he) could have an idea of what to expect when expecting (I didn't buy that book! ha) and I bought a Japanese book as well, which guided first-time parents through the whole process - the first gynae visit, the paperwork the hospital will put you through, options offered at hopsitals, etc. Being a foreigner, I really needed a local perspective on things. There was so much I didn't know.
Also, I was really sick. I couldn't eat. I hated food. I could only stomach soup. It was so weird. On top of that the mild cramping never gave me a break, plus I got up every night to pee. I was tired all the time. I kept falling asleep doing my favourite things.
I actually hated being pregnant; but I told myself JUST NINE MONTHS AND IT WILL BE WORTH IT.
And also at the back of my mind was the statistic of 'Every 1 in 5 pregnancies end in miscarriage' so I would pray every night to have the courage to face up to it if it ever happened to me, but also for God to not let it be me.
We went to the gynae the day after we tested positive on the home pregnancy kit. He ran some tests and told me I was definitely pregnant. However, we couldn't see the baby - it was too tiny. He said to come back in a week or ten days because it was still too early to have a clear visual.
So we went home, and the next few days were me being too sick for school, me craving for coffee WHICH I COULDN'T HAVE, me worrying Randy because I couldn't eat.
The night before I miscarried I had a really good appetite. We went out for Indian curry. I thought it was the morning sickness finally letting up.
The next day I went to work and in the middle of class I started cramping and after that I found out I was bleeding, and that very evening I went to the gynae and he told me the chances of me losing the baby were high, because the scan showed that the baby was very small for six weeks.
We were a few days shy of our second appointment, which would have marked the 6-week milestone, which is when we would have been able to hear the baby's heartbeat.
So, the scan of the too-small baby - the visual was clear this time. It was just a spot, but it was there. There was something there that hadn't been there the previous visit, which also meant my baby had grown for days before it died, since my two visits to the gynae weren't even ten days apart.
Just days before our baby had been alive. From something we couldn't see at all on the screen, to something that came into existence (we have pictorial evidence!).
I miscarried hours after this second visit. I've detailed this in an earlier note so I'll spare you the blow-by-blow. I think it was all the more devastating because we had been so ready. We had all our bases covered. License, check. Car, check. Bed, check. Sofa, check. Literature, check.
And suddenly, we didn't need any of these things anymore.
We had woken up every morning for weeks believing that we were bringing a baby to this world. We had slaved for a year getting ourselves and our home ready for the baby. So I was all like, 'don't you dare come raining on my parade when I want to wallow in despair every time I sleep in the bed or drive the car or sit on the sofa or pick up my Kindle!'
Everything around me reminded me of the baby. In a very literal way, mind you. My husband reminded me of the baby, since I couldn't get pregnant on my own.
And it was strange too, when I looked at forums or had interactions with real life people, and there was SOMETIMES (not most of the time) where there was some sort of superiority thing going on. People online would share about their dead babies and they would be like, 'my miscarriage was worse than yours because mine was a formed foetus and yours was a sac' and Team Stillbirth will be like 'OH YEAH TRY CARRYING ONE TO TERM AND HAVE IT DIE ON YOU!'
Really? Comparing degrees of baby fatality? Are you shitting me?
By the way, I'm not making light of the situation, and I have used a hyperbole up there, I'm not gonna lie, but there was seriously a conversation I read that went like that. How can one person even deem a five- or six-week miscarriage lesser than one that is six months? Any idiot would know it's different - but the gravity of death is the same. I would even go so far as to say it the emotions you experience would be the same as if you lost a six-year-old because dude, it hella hurt my heart; but the magnitude of the emotions would most probably be different (more experiences/memories with the six-year-old due to more time spent together, etc). There is no lesser death. Miscarriages = real death.
Many people came up to me to share their own miscarriage experiences, which I appreciated but honestly, I couldn't understand it to be the same. I wasn't angry at them, don't get me wrong. I knew they understood my pain, but it was impossible for them to understand my situation because none of the people who approached me lost their first child and were still childless. The people who came to talk to me were people who A) already had children and then experienced miscarriage and B) had their first pregnancy resulting in miscarriage/stillbirth and proceeded to have children.
I haven't met anyone who has actively chosen to not have kids BECAUSE of a miscarriage. Anyway, I wouldn't know what to say should I meet such a person or couple.
I don't think I am closed off to the idea of procreating (once again). I just don't want kids right now, but the reasons are not really related to my dead baby. It's more of me rebelling against my biology just so I can do all the things I want to do. Also, now that I know more about Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, I know I need to be a lot stronger than how I am now before I consider having a baby. I don't think my body is equipped to handle pregnancy at this point. I still have popping hip joints and stuff.
So, to sum up, if anyone around you is going through a miscarriage, please be there for her (or him!) and treat it as if an important person in said person's life has passed away. The gravity is the same. If you've been through miscarriage yourself, think carefully about how you are going to approach the miscarrier (haha I just coined that word) and try to focus on how you understand the pain but also try to remember, if you have other children, that the circumstances are not entirely the same. More so than your experiences carrying weight or lending credibility to your comfort, your kind words and the information (which is, you've miscarried before) you are choosing to reveal to the miscarrier (haha there it is again!) is what's going to comfort her (or him!) the most. You are definitely helping if you share your miscarriage experiences, but it might not be the best idea to liken the situation to yours if the miscarrier has miscarried a first pregnancy and you have A) other children or B) had a successful first pregnancy. It's just one more thing to process for the already-addled mind of the miscarrier.
I find myself putting up this disclaimer all the time recently - I am not masking my real feelings or taking my baby's death lightly by writing in a light-hearted, sometimes nonchalant manner. Also I apologise for the occasional bouts of coarse language. I just think that now I'm in a good place, emotionally (I think I was depressed for 10 months after the miscarriage and by depressed I actually mean like, I was thinking of dying and stuff) and in a position to talk about these things since I have firsthand experience plus I am really at peace, with God and with my life choices.