Babyloss Awareness Week 9th-15th October

"Do you know about babyloss week?" said the email. Well...

I have been pregnant three times (that we know about), I know the nervous wait after peeing on a stick, looking for that second line and not quite believing it when it appears. I know the sense of wanting to immediately take another test 'just to be sure' as my stomach produced flurries of butterflies, 'could it be wrong?', 'am I hallucinating?', 'just do one more to be sure'. I know the nervous sitting down to tell Matt, showing him the multiple tests so he can be sure and the phone calls to nearest and dearest to share the news 'but keep it to yourself for now, it's early.' I know the visit to my GP and the booking in with a midwife, getting a due date, going for a scan, seeing the tiny fluttering of a heartbeat. I know all of that. I know how rubbish morning sickness is, how tiring being pregnant is and how tricky it can be to get on with life as normal and not give the game away. The week after my second pregnancy was confirmed, a friend came for dinner and told me that she thought I was pregnant, because of what she had observed me do or not do, I thought I had given nothing away - oops. I know how lovely it is to look around the shops at all the lovely baby things, trying to decide what to buy and when.

I know how terrifying it is to go to the loo and see blood, probaby just a bit of spotting according to the midwife, common early on, nothing to worry about but call again if it doesn't stop. I know the relief of it stopping. And I know the anxiety that comes from thinking it might happen again. I know the quickly popping to the loo just to check several times an hour. I know the panic of phoning the early pregnancy unit to ask for scan because the spotting has worstened and doesn't seem to be stopping. I know the neutral face of the sonographer, turning the screen slightly away from me and gently saying she needs a colleague to have a look. I know the horror of being told there is no heartbeat and the fear of what is to come. I know what it's like to go out to celebrate your spouses birthday with friends knowing that the baby you are carrying has died and not saying a word about it when other people might have cancelled. I know the pain, physical and emotional of bleeding so badly that I needed to be in hospital, of birthing my child, my tiny, perfectly formed child. I know the frustration of arguing with the doctor who assumed that I wanted surgical intervention, when I did not. The sadness of sitting silently with the hospital chaplain, who in what seemed to be another life was also my colleague. The nauseating sense of dread when I met people who didn't know our baby had died and the fury at a friend who openly dismissed Matt from the conversation we were having, didn't his child also die? Wasn't he allowed to be sad, grieving? How dare she?

I know what it's like to say goodbye to your child. To go to church, say prayers, read poems and weep. I know how hard it is to go back to 'normal', I mean, what is normal after this? To be the one everyone looks at with the slightly sad face, head tilted to one side as they ask 'how are you?' And to be the one that 'should be over it by now' when I crumble under the weight of my grief and need therapy to cope. I know what it's like to be quietly taken aside and confessed to, 'it happened to me too', by all sorts of women. And I know what it's like to be given that look, when people ask me if I have kids and I say no, although occasionally I tell them the truth which results in a different way of being looked at, but neither is great. Each a reminder of what I do not have, what I can not do. I know the need to look for answers to the why, why did this happen? And that most people never get an answer. I know how gut wrenchingly awful it is every year on 'birthdays' and the memories of due dates long gone. Yes, email I know, not just know about babyloss week, I know about babyloss with every fiber of my being. I know three times over.