Crying about a sesame seed

In which I think about wanting things more when they're gone

I lost our baby at 4 weeks and 5 days. I haven’t had a natal scan yet, but I was sure I’d lost it after a little bit of spotting turned into what felt like a period, only with heavier cramps and a worrying amount of blood. I didn’t bleed through the sheets or feel lightheaded from the blood loss, but the amount of clots and tissue I was passing was concerning in the sense that I knew I had a miscarriage. I usually have heavy periods, but the bleeding and pain I’d experienced prior were nothing compared to this. Miscarriage, chemical pregnancy, whatever you want to call it. We lost it too early, and it didn’t even develop into a foetus: it just existed in stasis as an embryo until it passed as clots and tissue.

I have a strange, personal superstition where I don’t like to tell many people about big things happening in my life until I’m very sure that they are going to come to pass or that they’d happened already and couldn’t be taken back. In 2017, I didn’t tell very many people that I was moving to the U.K., because I thought it was going to decrease the chances of it happening. After a long, long, long wait, I got my visa a few days into the first term, and just left for another country as soon as I could. Aside from my family, a few friends, and my flatmate at the time, Laura, no one really knew that I was applying for my long-shot visa in 2019 until I got it. And it took me a while to tell people I was seeing Mark, until it was obvious that we were exclusive.

It’s a bit like The Secret, but in reverse. If I put forth hopes for a good thing, instead of manifesting it into existence, I threaten its possibility for happening.

When I found out I was pregnant, I didn’t really tell anybody who was physically far away from me. It was so early anyway, and the prevailing advice was to wait until the first ultrasound (which wouldn’t have happened for a while). I was dying to tell somebody our good news.

Because it was unplanned — though, admittedly, we were casually trying — it didn’t feel as real as it was. I had a name I wanted to use, if the baby was a girl. We were still looking for a good name for a boy.

I feel silly crying over something that didn’t grow beyond the size of a sesame seed, something that I didn’t even really know was growing until that missed period. I feel heartbroken for all the women I’ve seen miscarry, especially those who were much further along than I was. Because the weight of it all was so heavy, and I barely spent time with the thought of pregnancy and motherhood, These women were all waiting and ready, and inhabited that space of expectation much longer than I had been. I can only imagine the difficulty.

In my case, I never really thought about motherhood in a concrete sense. I never read any books; just trawled Reddit when I couldn’t sleep and somehow found my way deep into pregnancy and motherhood subreddits. I truly didn’t know anything about it, beyond biological and basic knowledge. Every little question and concern I had, I tacked on “reddit” after, in the search query bar on Google. The result was a mix of horror and comfort, and a little embarrassment about how little I knew.

I found out spotting was normal in early pregnancies, and that you’d know if it was a miscarriage. The NHS website said to not worry about a little spotting, especially if it was more pink or brown in colour, and I thought it was vague when they wrote that you’re fine as long as you don’t “soak through a pad” within one or two hours or fell over from a fever.

I wasn’t prepared for the amount of blood I was going to pass or the pain of passing so much tissue. I took note of how faint I was feeling (fine, all things considered), if I had a temperature (none), if the pain was manageable with paracetamol (yes). I didn’t take ibuprofen, because it was bad for the baby, and I knew I was probably miscarrying, but what if the baby was still hanging on and the ibuprofen somehow made the situation worse.

I know it’s an embryo, not even a foetus. But truthfully, in those few days that I knew it existed, it was already a baby to me.

I’m still bleeding a little bit; it’s been a week and two days since I first felt the abnormal, miscarrying kind. I finally reverted my period tracker to tracking periods rather than a pregnancy, clicking the CTA button in all caps that said: “I AM NO LONGER PREGNANT.” The app said, if I was still carrying, my baby would have been the size of a lentil now.

I have a natal scan scheduled for 13th of August, which was the soonest the NHS would give me. I would need to bring myself into A&E if I feel an infection coming on. It’s crazy how well your body knows what’s happening to it, and it’s crazy how often we don’t listen. How much we downplay these big things so as not to inconvenience ourselves or other people. Really, I should have gone into A&E the minute I felt the clots, but it was a Sunday and it was hot, and the cramps were gone the next day anyway. I have such a long wait ahead of me for medical confirmation, but I do know in my heart that it’s true that the baby is gone.

On Friday, five days after bleeding out clots, I felt my first bout of morning sickness. I feel tired and heavy and empty all the time. It’s unfair to feel even more pregnant the moment that you aren’t anymore.

I’ve been doing my best: working on stuff around the flat, doing errands and ticking boxes off a list. Getting as much stuff done, to drown out the quiet, so I don’t flounder helplessly in the void I imagined myself in. It’s not easy. I still haven’t found the will to see people socially, and have felt awful constantly cancelling on people. But I know if they ask me how I am, all I can say is that I miscarried. Lost a pregnancy. And, before writing this, I didn’t really feel like telling people so.

I still don’t even think I want to, or that I’m able to articulate all my feelings about this. I don’t think I’ll ever be ready, or that I’ll be able to write everything I’m feeling down. I still don’t know. It still doesn’t feel like a real thing that happened.

I don’t think we were ready for being parents, the way no one is ready for it, but I was on my way there, and now I just feel a little bit lost again. I’m trying to find my footing, but it’s been harder than usual, and I don’t know where to begin.