I'd like to start this post off by telling you that this one will not be a happy story by any means. There are little bursts of joy but overall its about some of the worst moments of the last year that have happened to myself and my little family.
We'll go back around a year. I was not in a good place at all, I was still in recovery from a mental breakdown and I wasn't as well as I was pretending to be. Because of this my relationship was in trouble, we weren't talking anymore, both of us in limbo not knowing what the other was thinking. It was awful thinking every day might be the end of everything we'd built together. Fortunately we eventually worked through it and we're back on track now.
In summer I lost a friend to depression. I was heartbroken. I knew things were bad for him at that time but I assumed that like every other time he'd come out the other side. I spoke to him the night before he passed, he told me that he was taking a break from everyone for a while but he'd see me soon (not unusual behaviour from him at all) and I told him that I loved him and I'd be waiting when he came back, always. I found out the day after that he was gone but that he'd left this life with his family by his side. He left letters for his friends telling us how sorry he was to go but that he loved us all and would be waiting, always. Just like that someone I'd known for over 10 years, someone I confided in, who confided in me was just gone. I will forever miss that crazy motherfucker!
The next few months were not too bad. My daughter left to go to college to do a course she absolutely loves (more on that another time I think) and my relationship was only getting better. Then after a great Christmas my beloved cat started going downhill very fast. On New Years day we woke to find she had died, not long before we found her as she was still warm. She was 14 years old.
January wasn't too bad, I went to the final tour of my favorite band with my best friend and met up with an old friend for drinks while we were in Glasgow. Now, the week before this my fiance had insisted on me doing a pregnancy test. I was late but thats not unusual (yay PCOS) for me. It was negative (the test strip was out of date) and I'd had absolutely no symptoms of being knocked up so off I went and spent the majority of 3 days drunk off my ass. I came home with another friend (who ended up living with us for a couple of months) and went back to my normal boring behaviour.
In February I still hadn't had a period and I got a letter inviting me to a smear test. After talking to my fiance it was decided that I'd go and buy another test and spend the next morning peeing on a stick. On friday 5th of Feb I discovered that I was indeed pregnant! We were so happy that we couldn't keep it secret even though we didn't know how far along I was or anything because we'd actually given up on it happening (My daughter has a different arsehole... I mean father!). I made a doctors appointment for the next week and just enjoyed it, I even started getting morning sickness and I loved it!
On the monday I had a bit of a sore throat and a headache but I didn't think anything of it. By the tuesday I was worse again, felt like the start of flu. The wednesday was worse again, I was finding it hard to breathe when going upstairs to the bathroom (thanks fuck my friend was living here, he looked after me while my fiance was at work), I joked with my neighbour that evening that I had considered calling an ambulance because of it.
That night I went to bed early as I felt so awful and my fiance decided to sleep on the sofa so he lessened his chances of catching it. At 4am I woke up desperate for the toilet, its not far from my bedroom to the loo but by the time I got there I felt like I couldn't breathe, by the time I got back to the bedroom I really couldn't breathe well. There was no way I could make it downstairs to wake my fiance so I had to call his phone from mine to get him to come upstairs. He called an ambulance and helped me get downstairs to the sofa, woke my friend to let him know what was going on and held my hand so tight. The ambulance came and whisked me off to a+e on a nebulizer to help me breathe, my blood oxygen at that point was around 80% (maybe lower, I don't remember) and refusing to climb. I was dehydrated too so I was pumped full of liquid and antibiotics (I had told them about the baby but their main concern was my life) and kept on the nebulizer/oxygen.
My fiance was kicked out of the hospital for vomiting (hes sick when he has a headache or is stressed but after vomiting once he's usually fine) and my neighbour arrived with things for me (clean pjs/underwear/book etc etc) while I was still in the er. Shortly after she and my fiance went home I had to pee, when I wiped there was blood (sorry for the graphic mental image there) and I panicked.
The nurse was great, she sat with me and reassured me that it could be nothing, just to relax and let the doctors do their job.
I was taken to a ward and put into isolation as they suspected I had contracted H1N1, I was on constant oxygen and antibiotics (drips and pills! no fun painkillers though) and my blood oxygen was still not rising. I had bloods taken and had a choice to make, the consultant was concerned about how quickly I'd gone from healthy to almost dead and suspected a clot on my lung. I could have a scan and risk the baby or possibly die from a clot. I chose the scan, the doctors did everything possible to protect the baby by covering my abdomen with lead lined vests and thankfully there was no clot found. (I have to say it was fun being wheeled through the hospital by people wearing hazmat gear, it freaks the other patients out!)
When I returned to my isolation there was a midwife waiting with a mobile scan machine, she told me my blood results looked good for the time being despite the spotting of blood I'd been having all day and that by my hcg levels I was around 8 weeks gone. She gave me the scan and I was measuring 7 weeks and 4 days, my baby looked perfect but because of the way it was sitting in my womb it was difficult to find the heartbeat. As it was a mobile scanner I couldn't get a picture (that kills me, not just for me but for my fiance as he wasn't there to see). She told me not to worry and to rest just to be safe.
In the night the pains started. Mild cramping to start with but gradually getting worse. The bleeding became heavier and the nurses came in and held my hand (with gloves on) as I wept. They cried with me. My baby died on friday 12th Feb. One whole week we got to have as the happiest people on earth. Devastated doesn't even come close to describing how we felt (still feel). When my fiance came to visit he couldn't even hold me, I think that made it worse for both of us. That night it was confirmed by blood test that I had miscarried (Like I didn't realise that when I passed the sac and saw my baby). I was kept in for a few more days to make sure my oxygen levels went back to normal (my eventual diagnosis was pneumonia) and was given amazing care by everyone. I was given another scan on the day I went home to check that I wasn't going to bleed out and it was confirmed that I'd passed everything. I was also told that the probable cause was my low oxygen forcing my body to keep me alive over the baby. I accept that as the cause, my baby was alive on the thursday but it was too late to reverse the damage done. I have to believe that otherwise I will start blaming myself and thats a road I don't want to go down.
Its 3 months on, my physical health is still not great but I've been told that it will take a while to recover from that. Mentally I'm probably going to need help with that but I'm not ready yet (sitting here writing this has helped a little though, just going through it methodically lends some clarity) but I will seek it out soon.
Thank you if you've actually read this. It was hard to write and probably just as hard to read. So many people reached out to me at that time to offer condolences and I can't thank them enough for that. Miscarriage is still a bit of a taboo subject with some people as its not pleasant to think about and difficult to understand if you haven't experienced it yourself.
Gigglesnort.
ps. I promise the next one will be a much lighter subject!
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