When my miscarriage started I didn’t know how to cope or even begin to process losing our baby. I usually write to understand my feelings but writing in a journal didn’t feel right, writing a diary entry just felt wrong to me. Then the words to form a poem floated into my head as I tried to fall asleep and I began to write. I added to it and changed it for a few days until I had written something that expressed my experience and feelings at this time. They are my raw, unedited feelings early on whilst I was still miscarrying. This is my poem to my baby about their life and my emotions surrounding this.
Bubbles
Created the same day as your brother
way back in 2018.
Frozen and safe for 822 days,
then you were chosen out of 5,
you came out of the freezer to thaw.
We were delighted that you made it.
Transfer was just you and me,
covid rules said Daddy couldn’t be there.
They gave me your picture
and I nicknamed you bubbles.
I looked at your picture and felt love,
you were back where you belonged.
Transfer done
I went home to rest and take care of you.
Laughter and happiness was the prescription but the two week wait was hard.
We were fearful of the result
but hopeful all the same.
When we tested we were overjoyed,
it had worked again.
We were going to have another baby.
We made plans.
We got excited.
We told your grandparents.
Then I saw red, so much red,
the colour no one wants to see in pregnancy.
Shaking and scared I called the doctor.
Just rest and see he said.
I thought it was over,
I thought you were gone.
I questioned what I had done.
Had I lifted your brother too much?
Had I bent over too much?
Was it the antibiotics I was on?
I said sorry over and over,
I felt like I had failed.
I stood in the shower,
water washing away the tears and blood.
I sobbed and I began to grieve.
I loved you and now I was losing you.
I was letting everyone around me down.
My body had failed to keep you safe.
But then it stopped as suddenly as it started, no more red.
We tested again,
I couldn’t see how you could have survived there had just been so much red.
But there it was, unmistakably 2 pink lines.
So hard as it was I rested as instructed.
I wanted so much to lift your brother,
to soak up his joy at life,
but I was unable and I felt such sorrow.
I couldn’t protect you
and I couldn’t care for your brother alone.
After 10 days we had a scan,
I don’t see a heartbeat they said.
They said it could just be too early,
to wait another week and see.
You see they could see you there,
measuring a little behind but there all the same.
An inconclusive scan it’s called,
a pregnancy of unknown viability.
Written in black and white,
said without compassion.
Such horrible terms.
You were my baby not a medical description.
Another week of pelvic rest,
I felt so lost and alone.
Moments of hope
but mainly just despair.
Spots of blood came and went,
it could be normal they said.
I still felt your presence,
I felt sick and tired and bloated.
But was it really you
or was it just the progesterone?
Questions I asked myself every day,
answering a different way every time.
You see no one could really tell me,
I needed to wait and see.
I did everything I could.
In my heart though I knew,
I don’t know why but I did,
I just knew you were gone.
Two days before our next scan I did a test.
It said ‘not pregnant’.
Oh the bluntness of those two words,
like a dagger to the heart.
I was pregnant, but I wasn’t anymore.
My heart sank and I crumbled.
Though as much as it pains me to say it, a tiny part of me was relieved.
At least now I knew what had happened.
I could try to pick up the pieces,
I could try to move forwards,
I could make a plan.
I held it together in the daytime,
your brother needed me to be strong.
I felt everyone needed me to be strong,
I couldn’t bear their pity or their words of sorry.
But at times I let go and I felt every emotion, felt the absolute anguish I was in.
I don’t think reality had really set in,
69 days of hormone treatment
34 days of growing you inside me.
But I’d known about you for 856 days,
loved you for 856 days.
How could it be that you no longer existed?
People may think it’s strange
to love a frozen embryo.
But to me you’d been life that whole time, you’d been hope, you’d been a potential brother or sister, you’d been our future.
Scan day came and I dreaded what they’d say, I still loved you, I wasn’t ready to say goodbye.
I hoped for a miracle knowing it was impossible.
I told the nurse we were expecting bad news, I didn’t want to put the burden on them.
With tears in her eyes she told us:
I’m so sorry,
there’s signs of a little baby
but it didn’t develop as it should.
I wanted to be strong,
I didn’t want to cry there, it felt too public.
Me and Daddy went home,
probably in shock, numb from the pain.
We hadn’t processed,
couldn’t bear to process, what had happened.
We’d lost you, yet I still had to pass you.
I should’ve been 7+4, it should’ve been happy.
The tears come in spurts,
one moment I’ll be holding it together and the next I’m not.
My grief takes my breath away.
When it hits me I feel like I have no air to breathe, it floors me and pains me too much to feel.
It pains me that life continues
just as it was for the rest of the world.
Watching other people pains me,
every pregnant person or newborn
breaks my heart.
It should be me, I am angry and resentful.
Grief hits me in waves,
I can be cooking and the tears start flowing, I can see a family of four and feel anger, I can be cuddling your brother and feel guilt, guilt that he’s missing out on you, guilt that I’m sad when I’m lucky to have him.
I move backwards and forwards through grief but I worry about Daddy.
I hope he will release his tears someday.
There’s no easy way through you see,
everyone copes in their own way
but together we take each day as it comes.
I know you likely weren’t meant to be
but I wish I could’ve protected you.
You were (and always will be) my baby.
November 12th will always be your due date, March 30th the day our world crumbled, Easter weekend the weekend I passed you.
You will live forever in our hearts.
This year I will: write poems to my baby, a new way of writing for me but one that gives me some peace and helps me to express my feelings surrounding my loss.
