At last! What every woman needs to know to recover from miscarriage and go on to have a healthy and happy full term pregnancy.
*I have changed our names in our story to protect our privacy and that of our children, especially our son.*
If you’re like me you probably never expected to have a miscarriage. I know I didn’t…having a baby was my lifelong dream and I thought it would be easy.
Like most girls I spent my childhood playing families and looking after my younger siblings and cousins. I loved children and couldn’t wait to have my own.
Things didn’t turn out to be as easy as I anticipated but finally, after years of trying, we fell pregnant! And then….
My name is Louise Gadsby and I’d like to share my story with you. It’s a story of loss, despair, grief, loneliness, sadness and finally hope, joy and fulfillment.
It is my hope that in sharing my story it will help you to heal and give you the knowledge, courage and inspiration to try again and have the family you desire.
Despite the numerous miscarriages, fertility treatments and emotional highs & lows I have experienced I would do it all again in a heartbeat. Especially now that I know how I could have avoided the loss and the heartache. Motherhood is such a wonderful experience.
When my husband and I got married we couldn’t wait to start our family. After years of working hard establishing our careers, traveling and saving so that we could be financially secure we were finally ready to have children.
Neither of us envisaged that it would be so challenging. It seemed so easy for everyone else around us. But for some reason it was difficult for us even though we were young and healthy.
We tried naturally, then sought assistance from Chinese medicine, acupuncture and naturopathic treatments.
Initially it seemed this was to no avail, although my cycle was certainly more regular from these treatments we still had no success. So finally we took the step of undertaking fertility treatment during which I discovered I had PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome).
We were undertaking our final round of using drugs to stimulate the ovaries and IUI (before up stepping to full IVF) when I finally fell pregnant.
My ovaries weren’t particularly responsive and I needed a high dosage of drugs to get just one egg. At first only one blue line appeared and I resolved that we would be moving onto full IVF but when I checked the test later on that evening there a was a faint 2nd line which became more prominent over the week as I undertook many more tests to confirm my pregnancy.
I couldn’t believe that after years of trying it was finally happening and we would become parents. We did it! We were ecstatic. We were thrilled beyond words. We hugged and kissed like newly-weds. Like the Jerry Maguire movie this little tiny baby growing inside me had me at hello.
We calculated the due date and discovered that it would be the same birthdate as my grandmother….it was obviously meant to be. And we were even more elated when we discovered, at seven weeks, that we were expecting twins.
I knew people who had had them and I knew it was more prominent in the first trimester but it wasn’t going to happen to me. My sisters had fallen pregnant easily and given birth to numerous children without even a hint of miscarriage.
Our good friends who also undertook fertility treatment had never miscarried. My pregnancy symptoms were strong and I didn’t even begin to imagine that something was wrong. The nausea was overwhelming, my breasts were so tender and doubled in size overnight. I had to purchase new bras and finally got to spend the $500 pumpkin patch baby clothes voucher that I had won.
I could hardly contain my excitement when I went in for my first scan. Seeing my babies on the screen was to be the highlight of my day. But when I saw the look on my specialist’s face my heart sank. The smaller baby was being squashed by his/her larger sibling. He was concerned about the smaller twin.
At nine weeks we came back from holiday to have another scan. Mentally I had prepared myself that we might lose one of the babies. I knew what the risks were but had never envisaged losing both.
I anticipated that we would be either told only one of the babies would be viable or that everything was okay and we would be expecting twins – we were both deeply shocked to learn that neither embryo had a heartbeat and I was carrying two dead babies. My specialist pulled the curtain to give us some privacy but at that point I couldn’t cry.
In my mind I was convinced that if I’d had a miscarriage there would be some sign – bleeding or loss of pregnancy symptoms. I was sure that I would know the moment my baby died.
I didn’t realize babies could die without any immediate change to your pregnancy symptoms and felt terrible to think that I had been carrying dead babies inside me and didn’t know. What type of mother was I?
It wasn’t until I was being wheeled into surgery, for a d & c the next morning, that the tears started to stream down my face.
The physical healing process was quick and painless. But the emotional pain was overwhelming and long lasting.
When I went home later that day I just sat in the room that was to be my babies’. There were some newborn outfits that I had purchased and so I sat on the bed and sobbed into the clothes.
I couldn’t believe that my much longed-for babies were gone and I would never get to hold them in my arms. My much wanted dream of being a mother was being shattered. Read more…
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