Pregnant Pause

I won’t do what the clinic did when they rang me and bury the lead. I’m pregnant. A high Beta HCG for 12 days post transfer. Good sign. Good news. Undeniably up the duff. (I am fighting a compulsion to type - for now.)

People keep asking me how I feel?

Good I guess. Braced for impact. Dividing my hope between a desire for a healthy pregnancy or at least a swift miscarriage. I think I’ll be able to handle either of those things.

What I really don’t want, what I really may not be able to handle, is a drawn out miscarriage.

My very first miscarriage was my best one. I went from being perfectly sure that I was pregnant, holding a little blueberry at breakfast to show my husband the size of our little baby, to a bloody show in the middle of the night, to complete confirmation of a miscarriage in less than 24 hours. I was sad, of course, but I was very pragmatic too. I think I said a lot of things about nature just being quite brutal and this being how lots of pregnancies end.

My second was horrible. I re-read the emails between me and my doctor from that time yesterday. I had gotten my period and a positive pregnancy test on the same day, which was also coincidentally when I had my very first consultation with him. He measured my HCG via blood tests in the maternity hospital (which made me feel very pregnant). It limped upwards for a few days, and then disappeared completely. Though it was technically “only a chemical”, it toppled me. My hope limped upwards with the HCG and then disappeared with it into a few weeks of depression and despair. Two in a row must mean something is wrong. For the first time I began to think I might not get a baby.

My third was a bit of a slow motion horror show. It’s what led me to start writing this blog. My doctor, in his goodness, offered us an early scan at 6 weeks. He couldn’t see anything but also said it was probably too early to see anything - queue a ten day wait. The Early Pregnancy Assessment Unit sonographer did see something. No baby yet, but a sac that wasn’t there ten days ago, so I thought surely that meant my embryo was growing. We even got a little print out and my Mam was so excited. The hope leaped through the roof. Then, another ten days later another scan - the ‘I’m so sorry there’s no heartbeat’ scan - and then a D&C. The only good bit of that miscarriage is that we ended up finding out it was Trisomy 16. Never would have become a living human.

I can’t help but wonder what a fourth miscarriage might be like before I even wonder what the baby might be like. It’s just how a normal healthy traumatised brain functions.

Right?