Laugh, So You Don’t Cry

In 2022 I fell pregnant accidentally. To those of you reading this who have struggled with infertility and loss, I know that’s an incredibly jarring thing to hear. But bear with me.

I think we have all overheard or been part of conversations where people discuss getting pregnant just by looking at their partner. But if you desperately try to escape social situations where statements like that get thrown around, I promise you are not alone.

It was all blissfully simple until I began bleeding…

I was never sure about whether having children was for me which is so ironic to reflect on. I have always been very career-oriented, pushing myself to the limit at times to achieve my goal of becoming a solicitor. When I met my now husband I was honest that I had not made a decision about having babies. Then we fell pregnant and everything changed.

I was so apprehensive at first as it felt like a huge responsibility. This tiny life I needed to guard for nine months. We discussed names, started looking at baby clothes when we went shopping. It was all blissfully simple until I began bleeding when I was nearly eight weeks pregnant.

I went backwards and forwards to hospital and had scans and examinations. During one, we saw our baby’s heartbeat and the joy of that was such a wonderful thing. Despite it, I felt uneasy, as if we were on the precipice of a cliff where things could drop away beneath us at any moment. Intuitively, I knew something was wrong.

A week to the day after my birthday we went for another early scan. The night before we had been in A&E all evening because I was bleeding heavily. As there had been a strong heartbeat a few days prior to this, we were reassured, sent home and told to come back in the morning just to check on our baby.

I was excited to see the little heartbeat again. Except the room was deadly quiet. Then we were told the heartbeat had gone, our baby had died and I was in the throes of miscarrying it.

The sound of my husband quietly sobbing beside me that day will live with me forever. Shortly afterwards, a registrar told me to bring the ‘products of my miscarriage’ into hospital in a Tupperware if I wanted them tested. I just stared at him blankly.

I couldn’t cry at first, pure shock set in and I just felt numb. For those first few days we grieved together and I took medication to help my body expel our baby. We bought a plaque for the garden, naming our baby Patrick. I had a bracelet made with his due date  which I have not taken off since it arrived. There was no evidence that he was a boy, just a feeling we both had.

I threw myself back into work. As no one there had known I was pregnant until after our loss,  it was easy to distract myself. Those that did know told me I was young and could try again. Some said it was natural and that something must have been wrong. I smiled and disassociated until the topic changed.

Looking back, I was really struggling even then. I would sit in the garden for hours next to Patrick’s plaque to feel close to him and cry myself to sleep most nights. I carried on as usual but internally I was far from it.

A few anxious days after my positive test, I collapsed with pain at home in my bathroom

We decided to try again in January 2023. Each month I got my period was like a knife to my heart. I became consumed about falling pregnant. Around this time, all my friends were starting families of their own and I felt bereft that I was being left behind.

In May 2023, I found out I was pregnant again. Initially, I cried with happiness but that was sadly short lived. A few anxious days after my positive test, I collapsed with pain at home in my bathroom. I was taken to hospital where there were concerns that I was experiencing an ectopic pregnancy and one of my fallopian tubes had ruptured.

Eventually, it was determined that, unfortunately, I was having another miscarriage. Though I lost a lot of blood and needed to stay in hospital, they never managed to find the pregnancy on scans, so it was considered to be one of unknown location. Another consultant told me on the phone “don’t worry, you can try for another baby in a few months.” This time, I wept.

I wasn’t offered a face-to-face appointment to ask questions or even given a bereavement leaflet but I can honestly say that I didn’t feel anything at the time. I refused to allowed myself to. I was back at work three days later, with my managers asking if I was sure I was ready.

Of course, I said yes. Anything to distract myself to pretend it hadn’t happened. That was how I coped, immersing myself in my career. Although I’m sure at the time my colleagues could see right through me. I didn’t want to be noticed. I didn’t want anyone to talk to me about it. I wanted to make it all disappear. I made jokes and cracked smiles like they were going out of fashion but on the drive home from the office the weight of it all would feel suffocating.

As a couple, we decided to take a break from trying to conceive for a few months to recover. During this time, my mental health began to deteriorate rapidly. I went to my GP to ask for help and they offered me antidepressants but told me that any counselling would not be available for six to eight months.

I sought therapy privately, trying several different counsellors who said they specialised in baby loss. I recall vividly one communicated by WhatsApp and her profile picture was her holding a newborn. Unsurprisingly, I didn’t connect with any of them. At the time, I was struggling to process what had happened, so talking about it with a stranger felt impossible.

I was so very angry, full of rage and sadness for the two loved children we had lost. But there was no one to blame for it. If you have had a miscarriage, you will know that medicine is not able to provide much comfort. I wanted a point to focus my fury on and, when that was nowhere in sight, I turned it inwards towards myself instead.

The period that followed was one of the darkest of my entire life. Grief and I are not strangers and many people are touched by it throughout their lives. But miscarriage is such a personal pain, it truly feels like being betrayed by your own body. The tiny baby you want so badly to hang onto that slips between your fingers without your consent.

I was familiar with the symptoms of PTSD. My area of specialism as a solicitor is clinical negligence and through this I have worked with many claimants who suffer from the condition following traumatic and life changing events.

Somehow though, I missed my own diagnosis entirely. I was struggling to sleep through the night and having regular, terrible dreams about being back in a scan room, hearing our baby had died. I couldn’t focus and felt constantly on the verge of tears. I avoided seeing friends or family and had intense anxiety about social situations.

I started experiencing flashbacks. Once, when I was shopping in a supermarket, I disassociated entirely for several minutes much to the concern of a friend who was with me.

Throughout this period, I felt like I could hold it together if I was good at my job. If I supported others going through hardship and felt happy for those who had been blessed with a successful pregnancy. But, ultimately as much as I tried, I got to a point where I could no longer paper over the cracks.

My marriage was struggling because I refused to discuss my distress with my husband. I lost friendships because I couldn’t bear to see their children who were the same age as our first child would have been had they lived. No matter how many meditation sessions I attended or self help books I read, things were not improving.

Eventually, I could no longer keep up the facade. I spent an entire weekend crying on my sofa before my husband and mum persuaded me to go to the GP for help. I met with my current GP, feeling a huge amount of distrust and anxiety. I was sure they wouldn’t understand.

So many of my interactions with medical staff before had been handled insensitively but she spent an hour and a half listening to me. I told her everything but she didn’t flinch and instead reassured me that it was okay to feel that way. I was signed off work for a month and put in touch with a brilliant therapist.

It reminds me that our babies were real, that I carried them and will always be their mother.

I was hugely lucky to have an incredible network of people who didn’t give up on me, even when I went months without replying to their texts. I was also privileged to be able to access therapy. I started the process of trying to navigate emotions and feelings that I had buried for years, undergoing trauma therapy following a diagnosis of PTSD.

It wasn’t easy and, to an extent, the darkness I have lived with since we lost our first child in 2022 has become a companion. It reminds me that our babies were real, that I carried them and will always be their mother.

I worried about my job, the career I had worked so hard for but my employer and managers were wonderfully understanding, supporting me to attend therapy and helping me return to work at the beginning of this year.

My experiences have brought a new perspective into my career. I could see how good medical care during times of intense trauma is so important. How crucial being kind is in the face of something deeply unfair. I understood the weight of loss, the pain of PTSD and the long-lasting consequences that reach into every aspect of your life.

It is my greatest privilege to be able to support parents who have suffered the loss of a child through working on stillbirth and neonatal death clinical negligence claims. I am often asked how I cope with handling such desperately sad cases. The truth is that it gives me immense purpose to try to find answers for grieving families, to support them at the worst time of their lives and to help them in their journey forward – whatever that looks like.

However, I still personally wish that there was far more support for women experiencing miscarriage and infertility. I understand the pressures that doctors and nurses are under but it costs nothing to be sensitive in that small moment. You may not remember it but I promise you that the patient will.

Amazing progress has been made in campaigning for improvements to obstetric and gynaecology care across the UK, but we still have some way to go. I am optimistic that one day we will understand more about why miscarriages happen and that parents who go through this will not be left in the dark to suffer alone.

For me, it’s one of those ‘laugh so you don’t cry’ situations.

Although my husband and I have been trying to conceive again since December 2023, we are still waiting for our happy ending. I am now facing fertility treatment in the hope we can have a family so I am sure you will see the irony of my situation given that I was never sure about having children and fell pregnant by accident! For me, it’s one of those ‘laugh so you don’t cry’ situations.

To those of you who are going through baby loss or infertility of any kind, I send my utmost love. The grief does not get lighter but you become more equipped to carry it, until one day you realise that it isn’t holding you underwater anymore. You are allowed to feel grief. Moreover, those feelings are entirely valid so do not let anyone, including yourself, convince you otherwise.

Grace has also kindly written as a professional resource on Clinical negligence claims – seeking answers after a loss. To get support and advice you can read her article here.