In a year marred by never-ending tears, I lost my lust for life, my confidence and my sense of self-worth.
On New Year’s Day 2024, my partner and I hiked up an icy Munro in the Scottish Highlands with some friends. With one miscarriage in the not-too-distant past, I was determined to feel optimistic about what lay ahead. I captioned a rare Instagram post from the top of the mountain with ‘Here’s to 2024!’ and I really felt, in my heart of hearts, that this would be our year. The year that the rest of our lives would start.
But it wasn’t. Instead, it was the worst year of our lives by a long mile. The year that we lost two more babies, and I lost hold of the tiny specks of faith and hope for our imagined future that my fingers had been clinging on to. It was the year that I stopped trusting the NHS to care for me in the way that it always had, and realised that this is an institution, so constrained by funding cuts and regressive policies, that it is devoid of the innovation and compassion so badly needed to treat women’s health issues in the 21st century. And it was the year that I became a defeated and desolate shadow of my former self. In a year marred by never-ending tears, I lost my lust for life, my confidence and my sense of self-worth.
I have written in the past about the experience of miscarriage in the purest and most honest words I could find. I have explained what it feels like to begin to grow a baby inside you, to see its tiny heart beating, and to have that baby die inside you, and to leave you, before you ever had the chance to say hello, let alone goodbye. What it feels like to have all your hopes and dreams crushed in an instant, by the look on a sonographer’s face. I have spoken of trying to deal with this experience in a world which continues to view miscarriage as ‘one of those things’ and refuses to engage in meaningful conversation about its earth-shattering repercussions. There are stories I have told to close friends and family about the physicality of this experience, of the surgery and procedures and the pain, which in my view the world is still not ready to hear. Instead let me simply say this. When I lie in bed at night, the thoughts rolling round and round in my head, clutching to my chest the pendants which I hang around my neck in memory of my babies, it is those images which come back to me, and which I will never forget.
Everyone around me is living out my trauma, but for them it is wrapped up in pink and blue ribbon. It is placed in a basket attached to a shiny balloon with the words “HELLO WORLD!” stamped across the front.
But the emotional effects of this ordeal can and must be spoken about. Last year, through TWGGE, I had the truest pleasure of meeting and listening to the stories of some of the most remarkable women I will ever know, each of them having walked this path and shown the world how strong, resilient and powerful the female body, mind and spirit can be. It is only through the countless conversations I have now had with them and others, each of them having recounted the same thoughts, the same feelings and the same reactions to this experience, that I feel able to share this story. I had felt so alone for so long, but now I know that I am not. I know I am not deranged; I am not hysterical or overreacting or irrational. I am just a woman coping as best I can with my grief, as the fear and uncertainty of my future stretches out in front of me.
Without exaggeration, I estimate that 75% of the women of child-bearing age in my life have fallen pregnant or had a baby since my first miscarriage. Even acknowledging that we are of the approximate age at which this happens, that is a lot of babies in a short time. I have been trying to think of another situation where you might be confronted with a past trauma as forcefully and repetitively in your day-to-day life as this.
Imagine, perhaps, that I am a soldier returned from war. I keep having flashbacks of the battlefield. I become convinced that tragedy awaits me and my family on every corner. I wake at night in cold sweats, breathless, reliving what I have seen and what I have done. I have nightmares in which those experiences are distorted, even more monstrous than I remember. My friends and family were not there with me, but they have made films, productions, plays about this war. They keep asking me out or calling me up to tell me, to invite me to the premiere. I go along and I sit in the front row, and my greatest fears, the horrors from my recent past are played out before me, on repeat. As the credits roll and the curtain falls, the audience rises in rapturous applause.
Everyone around me is living out my trauma, but for them it is wrapped up in pink and blue ribbon. It is placed in a basket attached to a shiny balloon with the words “HELLO WORLD!” stamped across the front.
I rejected a world and a life that I had once found fun and vibrant and stimulating, which now seemed hostile and uncaring.
The topic of this conversation is uncomfortable. It is awkward. It is averting your gaze and shuffling your feet, it is looking away and texting ‘Congratulations!!’ as your eyes well with tears. Because we are not bad people, and admitting this particular type of sadness, whether out loud or in our own heads, makes us feel like we are. We want nothing but happiness for the people in our lives who we love, and, regardless of our own fate, in time we will love their children just as much as we love their mums and dads. But the here and now is really fucking hard; I have been robbed of the joy of pregnancy and childbirth.I will never see a baby bump that does not remind me of my own babies that I lost. I see posts and photos of newborns and I wonder ‘what is wrong with me’ and ‘why did your own body fail?’ Logic and reason and, indeed, the truth, will remind me that it was nothing that I did, that there is no fault or guilt or blame, but it festers. It festers and it grows.
In 2024 I lost myself. I ignored phone calls, I stopped replying to texts. I cancelled plans and rejected invitations. I stepped down from work projects and responsibilities. I missed birthdays and hen parties and family occasions. I rejected a world and a life that I had once found fun and vibrant and stimulating, which now seemed hostile and uncaring. It was, and sometimes it still is, easier to be alone.
…he has been my rock and continues to remind me that no matter what is coming next or what our future looks like, we will be together and we will, one day, be happy again.
Pregnancy loss stole who I was, but it has also stolen who I might have been. There is a version of me out there, in a parallel universe, who might have been blessed with an uncomplicated pregnancy. But that woman might also have taken for granted the phenomenon of childbirth, without an understanding of the million and one things that must be behaving and coinciding so perfectly in the male and female body to grow a healthy baby from sperm and egg. That version of me might have struggled through the tough early years of motherhood with little appreciation of how hard it can be to get there, without coming to the unshakeable and unyielding realisation that this is what she wants for her life, in the most painful way. And she might have looked at the man she is going to marry as simply the man she had fallen in love with. Instead, he became the man who picked her up from the shower floor where she lay crying beneath the flowing water, the man who held her close and stroked her hair through the sleepless and breathless nights, who, three times, sat in the adjoining chair as they blinked through the darkness at a motionless black and white screen and still drove them both safely home through the streaming tears. He is the man who squeezed her hand so tightly through the doctors’ appointments and the blood tests and who encouraged her, little by little, to face the world again. In such hard times and despite the challenges we have faced, he has been my rock and continues to remind me that no matter what is coming next or what our future looks like, we will be together and we will, one day, be happy again.
2025 does not start with the strained optimism of 2024. It is hard to see anything as I look into the future, neither joy nor pain, only the void of the great unknown. But I do know that I enter the year as a changed woman, certainly not glad of having lived these experiences, but more rounded and more whole because of them. As Britney would put it, stronger than yesterday.
Written by Caz Carter.
I feel like someone looked into my head and put all my thoughts down on paper. Thank you for so openly and honestly speaking your truth…. The New Year has brought a mixed bag of emotions after miscarrying our twins just after Christmas ,I feel so isolated and alone . But reading these words has helped me feel less so ….. thank you so much and thinking of you through this awful time ❤️
Thank you so much for taking the time to comment Laura. I’m so moved and so glad that the article has made you feel less alone. If there’s one thing to be taken from this shit it’s that talking and being there for one another is what will get us through. Sending you so much love xxx
So beautifuly put. I feel all of this! Especially the bit about its easier to be alone. Thank you for sharing and I hope 2025 is kinder to you.
Such a beautifully written post ❤️. Being brave enough to share your story will help loads of other women feel less alone x
Thankyou for sharing your story. I am just under 18 weeks but sadly facing a TFMR hysterotomy to end my pregnancy tomorrow due to abnormalities with Baby. I have already withdrawn and stopped replying to messages, I can’t bring myself to face people or to give an honest answer when someone asks “how are you”. Because that answer would be far too uncomfortable for them to hear, and then I would feel awkward and withdraw even more.
The last 4 weeks has been unbearable, the NHS has severely let me down, and I am not sure how I will ever recover from this. It helps to read other people being so honest. I wish you all the very best x
Kathy I am so very sorry for your loss. I have been thinking of you since you posted your comment. There is no need for you to respond to messages or provide an answer when people ask “how are you?” I felt exactly the same about this question. When you are ready and if it is available to you, I would encourage you to seek some professional counselling. For me that has been paramount.
Know that although your baby will stay with you forever, you will get stronger, you will start to live again, and this experience will be a part of you, but will not have broken you.
With all of my love xxx
Wow, this literally captured my own thoughts and feelings around this journey. I had three losses in 2024 and relate so much to the notion of losing yourself. I love your perspective on the you in a parallel universe versus the version who now has an understanding and appreciation for pregnancy and motherhood. So thankful for our husbands, their unwavering support is so powerful. Thank you for sharing your story ❤️
This touched me so deeply. It captures everything I feel in such a raw and beautiful way. Thank you for reminding me that I’m not alone. Sending love your way. x
This post gave me the words I couldn’t find. It almost exactly matches my experiences, thoughts and feelings and has allowed me to share with my family what I’m going through. Thank you – it was written so beautifully and is so honest.
Wow I could have written this myself (if I was much more eloquent!). This had me in tears this morning. Thank you for putting into words the absolute mess of feelings that come with this experience. ❤️
This has moved me so much. Thank you for sharing such an honest account of pregnancy loss and how it changes us forever. I resonate so much with all of this having lost 5 babies over the past 2.5 years. Hang in there 💜