Today wasn’t any less ordinary than any other day, but it was a day that caught me off guard in a way I hadn’t expected it to.

I’ve had a box of paperwork sitting in my laundry, calling out to me to be sorted for months now, but it’s one of those monotonous tasks that you continue to put on the backburner until the day you find some energy, nay, desire to tackle it. Today was that day.

As I was sifting through each paper/bill/envelope, I came across an unusually folded piece of paper. As I opened it and shifted my eyes across the page, I noticed it was an ‘imaging request’ for a pregnancy of mine. My pregnancy that had ended in miscarriage in 2022. How this paper found its way into a pile of paperwork from 2024, I’ll never know, but to say it caught me off guard is to put it lightly.

In April 2022, I suffered through my first and (hopefully) only miscarriage. A season in time I haven’t allowed myself to revisit for a while, but today, seeing that ultrasound request threw me off centre and right back into that awful moment in time. It’s funny how quickly the memories come flooding back. Particularly memories involving trauma. It’s as though they’re never fully digested. Moments in time, bubbling under the surface, waiting for something to trigger their existence back into your reality.

I’ll forever remember that day like it was yesterday. It was not at all how you expect a miscarriage to be, or at the very least, how I expected a miscarriage to be.

It’s a reality you never believe is going to be yours, yet it’s the most persistent thought every pregnant woman is consumed with in early pregnancy.

We had tried for 3 months when I fell pregnant with my second baby. I was 36, so I was beyond thrilled and ecstatic that I was able to fall pregnant, let alone that quickly.

I found out when I was barely 4 weeks pregnant. When you’re actively trying for a baby, even before your period is due, you’re peeing on those sticks, praying and hoping for a positive result. I was one of those impatient women peeing on the sticks days before my period was due. You know the sticks, the ones that claim to detect the HCG hormone days before menstruation. And to my elation, I got a positive result. Naturally, I then used another 3 just to make sure. All positive. The things that dreams are made of, literally.

I then used these sticks to announce the pregnancy to my husband by surprising him with them via our eldest baby, while secretly video recording the whole exchange. I’ve never been able to bring myself to watching this video since. Still not ready, almost 3 years later.

For two short, but extremely special and significant weeks I held this baby tight. I savoured every moment we had together and what their presence meant to me and to our little family. I envisioned what they would be like. How they would enrich our lives and complete our family of 3, making us 4. I loved that little life with every fibre of my being. Our two lives were knit together intricately. I was made for them, and they for me.  I had hoped for that baby. I had prayed for that baby. I had needed that baby, as I needed air to breathe.

That desperation for it’s life and for it’s love was not enough to hold it tight. It was not enough to keep it bound to me. And with it’s departure, I was undone. With it’s absence, my heart was destroyed, and it’s never been the same since.

What made the process worse for me, was that the loss was not so crystal clear. So ambiguous was the loss, that even medical practitioners couldn’t give me a definitive answer as to what was happening. I had to wait 3 days to be conclusively told that I had in-fact miscarried.

I can remember those 3 agonising days like they just happened to me.

It started with a few dots of blood on my underwear one Sunday evening. Nothing to draw serious alarm, but enough to have me questioning. You hear stories of women who spot bleed their entire pregnancy and still carry to term a healthy baby. I was hoping that was the case for me. A knew of these women because a friend of mine was one of them, so I called her for affirmation that what I was experiencing was just like hers, that what was happening was perfectly normal and I had no reason to worry. However, our bleeding was different. I was now worried.

During this season of our lives, we were living with my parents as we had just sold our first home, and we were building our next. That night, one of my Aunt’s was visiting my parents, and I knew this aunty of mine had experienced a miscarriage herself. As I was so early in my pregnancy, I hadn’t told anyone I was pregnant. The fear of what was currently happening to me compelled me to ask my aunty about her miscarriage experience and if what was happening to me could be the same. She reassured me it didn’t sound like a miscarriage at all, as hers was very different. Hers was the typical experience of miscarriage. The excessive bleeding that leaves no room for question. This was not at all what I was experiencing. My bleeding couldn’t even fill a panty liner. This filled me with frantic hope, but hope nonetheless.

I put it down to the fact my husband and I had had sex that morning and maybe it triggered a bit of old blood.

I went to sleep that night, full of angst and worry but tried to convince myself, ignoring my intuition, that I was fine, that my baby was fine.

I woke up at 4:45am to a lot more blood. Still, not enough to fill a pantyliner, but definitely more than spotting. I was so full of anxiety and fear, I woke my mum up and asked if she could watch over Ariya for me, so I could take myself to the emergency room. So off I went, alone, to the emergency room at 5:00am on a Monday morning. I didn’t even call Nelson to tell him what I was doing.

Close to where I live we have 2 main hospitals. One is a major public hospital with a large dedicated maternity wing. The other being a small regional hospital, but also boasted its own maternity ward. I chose the latter, to my better judgement. My thought process was that in the larger public hospital, the emergency room would be a lot more congested and busy and I didn’t want to be waiting hours for answers.

After having to explain my situation to a few different nurses on staff, I finally had the on call doctor come see me. He didn’t even look at me. In my most vulnerable, hopeless state, where I needed compassion and recognition, I was met with impatience and indifference. He didn’t ask me any questions, rather addressed the nurse and looked at my notes. Told me very plainly and abruptly there is no way he can help me, that I would need to leave and go get an ultrasound to be able to confirm anything, and if I was still worried, to come back with the radiologists notes and they can go from there. With that, I was dismissed. The doctor didn’t examine me. Didn’t ask my name. Didn’t ask if I was in pain, or if I was ok. I was just dismissed with even more unanswered questions and confusion.

Confusion because I was only 6 weeks pregnant and all doctors (except for this particular one) advise you that at this stage of pregnancy it may still be too early to detect anything via ultrasound, so the fact I was advised that only an ultrasound would tell me if I’ve miscarried was confusing to say the least. But alas, I had nothing else to work with, and I was desperate.

It was barely 8am when I left. I had to wait an excruciating hour until the radiology clinic was open, to call and ask for an urgent ultrasound that morning. Once I was finally able to call and reexplain my situation for what felt like the 100^th time, a compassionate receptionist told me she could squeeze me in at midday.

The tricky thing with having another baby while going through something like this is you can’t stop and focus solely on what is happening to you, even though that’s all you want to do, and all you can manage. But when they say a mother’s job is never over, this was the perfect example of that. Nelson was at work and no one else could be with Ariya, so off she went to the radiology clinic with me. I had my 2 year old sitting in the room with me while I was having my body probed for traces of her sibling. I rocked her in her pram and fed her snacks to keep her from crying, while the radiographer proceeded to give me an internal ultrasound to search for proof of life.

I’ll never not remember that moment and the absurdity of it. That even in your most private moments, as a mum, you’re robbed of your privacy because another life is dependent on you, and you become secondary in your own life, even in your grief.

Again, the radiographer, who was a little more compassionate than the emergency doctor, was unable to give me any answers. He left me with the information that his supervisor would have to write a report and forward it to the hospital, hopefully by end of business day, and they would notify me if there was anything worth knowing, but he wasn’t hopeful he would be able to give me the information I was so franticly needing.

I went home, feeling defeated and deflated, but resigned to the fact I couldn’t allow myself to jump to negative conclusions until I had actual answers. I planned to stay as level headed as I possibly could, despite potentially being in the midst of losing my child. A child I’d planned for and longed for and hoped for and prayed for.

As the day carried on, so to did the very minimal bleeding.  Every time I went to the toilet, it was a reminder of what was happening, despite the fact I didn’t actually ‘know’ what was happening. By that evening, I had clots on my pantyliners. At this point, all attempts at staying level headed were gone. I decided it was time to go back to the emergency room to try and get some answers. This time Nelson was coming with me.

I’ve been through quite a bit of trauma in my life, most of which I’ve gone through alone, so it was no surprise I retreated into myself and wanted to do this alone too, and as lonely and isolating as a miscarriage is, I had to remember my husband was suffering to. He too needed answers and clarity.

It was the longest Monday of my life, and will forever be the longest day I’ve ever lived.

It was after 9pm when I returned to the same emergency room I was at 14 hours prior. Again, the nursing staff weren’t any more helpful than the morning, but this time a lot more compassionate. I was so perplexed how no one could confirm if I was miscarrying or not. That I had to endure the entire day of bleeding, and not knowing if I was losing my baby or not. That’s the trouble with early pregnancy, miscarriage AND periods, so many symptoms are similar which makes it hard to definitively confirm what you’re experiencing without blood tests. I wasn’t made aware of this until later that night.

As we were also in a covid environment when it came to healthcare, Nelson almost wasn’t allowed into triage with me, but thankfully the staff were empathetic enough to allow him to stay with me the entire time so I wasn’t alone to face the potentially life changing news.

A doctor was finally able to see me an hour later, and with him, he had the results of my ultrasound. I remember how kind he was. He saw me not only as a human, but a desperately hopeless mother silently pleading for him to help me. He sat with me. He treated me far more like a human than the previous doctor had. Again though, he had no definitive answers for me. You could imagine my frustration and torment at this point. He confirmed that the ultrasound didn’t show a foetal sac, which doesn’t necessarily confirm a loss of pregnancy. As I was only 6 weeks pregnant, sometimes that’s too soon to see one. He told me the only way I can truly know if I was miscarrying was by a blood test, because if you are, your HCG hormone levels won’t be high, and on subsequent blood tests, a miscarriage would be reflected by decreasing HGG levels. As they weren’t a large hospital, their pathology unit was no longer open at 10pm at night, so with that, I was sent home again with no answers, but advised to call my GP first thing in the morning to arrange blood tests.

We went home, defeated and grieving. I knew what was happening, even though it was yet to be ‘medically’ confirmed. My husband trying his best to comfort me, was being optimistic, but all I could hear though was the deafening sounds of my mothers intuition telling me all was lost.

I spent another sleepless night watching the clock waiting for it to be 8am so I could call the doctors and get this blood test. My GP who is usually impossible to get a hold of, made an exception for me, thankfully. I had to sit through further explanations from my GP confirming what the emergency doctor had told me the night before. He ordered an urgent blood test to be taken 2 days in a row, to give us enough information to confirm or deny my fears. All the while, I continued spot bleeding with the occasional clots.

It’s funny how in the midst of loss, mundane life still goes on. I can remember so clearly in my minds eye hanging the washing after getting the first blood test done, trying my very hardest to remain ‘normal’ in the most abnormal context. I remember holding Ariya’s socks in my hand, while wailing and sobbing knowing what was happening to me. I remember kneeling in that moment, her socks still in my hands, through a torrent of tears, begging God to spare me this loss, begging God to spare me this baby.

I can’t remember what time of day it was when my doctor phoned me, or what I was doing. I do remember though his tone. My doctor who is usually so pragmatic and no nonsense, was gentle and considerate in his tone with me. He advised me that the HCG levels weren’t where they should be for this stage of pregnancy. He advised that I was most likely suffering through a miscarriage, but tomorrows bloods will 100% confirm in the form of lower HCG numbers. He then told me to not get ahead of myself just yet and wait until tomorrow, which, for him, is completely out of character as he always errs on the side of pessimism.

That’s the thing with loss, no one really knows what to say to reassure the person that’s grief stricken. Even while knowing there’s nothing optimistic that can be said to uplift the situation, people will still always try. Even my doctor. Ha.

When you’re grieving a loss, you’re caught in such a thick fog of sorrow that days, minutes, hours are all blurred together. I can’t remember when or what the conversation was with my doctor the following day (day 3 of bleeding), but I do remember it was brief. My second blood test results were in. My numbers were lower. My bleeding was still persisting. The clots were still ensuing. It was undeniable now, I was miscarrying. Apparently, I was one of the “lucky ones” who didn’t need the invasiveness of a D&C to ‘remove’ my baby from my uterus. That my body was ‘dispelling’ the baby naturally. However the invasiveness of what my body was doing felt undervalued & unrecognised. My body continued to bleed for another 2 weeks. For 14 whole days, my body was reminding me of the loss I was suffering. And thus is the cruelty of a miscarriage. It not only tears apart your soul and your hope, it ravages your body. Whether you need a D&C or whether your body does it for you, there’s a physical manifestation of the loss of your baby through your body.

Read that again…there’s a physical manifestation of the loss of your baby through your body. Try as you might to forget for a single moment what is happening, your body is quick to whip you back to your reality.

Many will tell you that “you’re lucky you at least have another child”, as though the loss of any child is softened by the fact you have another. Those people are wrong. There’s nothing lucky about any of this. Although in all of this Ari did serve as a reminder that being blessed with another life that’s my own is an honour and a privilege, and it was a realisation I’ve never taken lightly since. What they don’t tell you though is that already having a child brings with it a whole other layer of grief and guilt, a guilt that you weren’t able to fulfil their joy of having a sibling, a guilt that you now have to be the one to tell them that they won’t in-fact be an older sibling after all. They don’t tell you that you feel like you’ve failed them and broken their hope for a brother or sister. They don’t tell you that you’re not only grieving for yourself, but for the unfulfilled promise to your family. The complexities of this loss are immeasurable, and you only truly understand it if you’ve too been through it. It’s a club you never want to be initiated into, and if you have been, I’m so immensely sorry for you.

If I’m being honest with myself, I don’t think I’ve ever fully sat in my grief for my baby, except for that week it was happening. I fell pregnant with Eva two short months later, with which the blessing of it has never evaded me. Maybe with each anniversary that passes, I’ll turn a new page of grief, and allow myself the time to feel it and sit with it. Sit with the what ifs. Sit with the pain of it. Sit with the dream of who this baby would have been. In time I will find a way that truly honours it’s meaning in this life. A way to represent that’s its short-lived life meant something, and will remain meaning something till I’m no longer in this world.

For now though, I will think of you, I will miss you and I will never stop wanting you.

I wrestled with myself trying to decide whether to share this story or not. Despite how ‘common’ miscarriages are, women still suffer in silence and in shame when they experience one. Despite the fact that 1 in 4 pregnancies in Australia end in miscarriage, women still carry this grief alone. It’s such a solitary loss and I’m not sure why. When I was going through it, I felt as though I was the only person in my world who had experienced this. Not till after I’d gone through it did I find out how many women in my life had experienced this same loss. That’s the thing, no one talks about it until they find out someone else they know has lost and they then share their story.

As much as in the moment I needed to be alone and grieve and process alone, I didn’t want it to be a secret. A secret conveys shame, and I didn’t want to feel shame for this. Although you initially blame yourself, it’s a loss that is completely out of our control. Nothing we could or should or would have done could’ve changed the outcome, and I wish more women at the time had shared that with me.

So I share this for multiple reasons. I share so that anyone who needs to know they’re not alone, knows that. I share so I never forget. I share so this loss has some purpose. And I share so that there’s more awareness on the complexity of these losses. There’s no one way to miscarry, and I wish I knew that then.

This one goes out to all the women who’ve come before me, and those who will come after. It’s a club we never wanted to join, but I’m grateful to share in it with you.

This was Excerpt 19.