Pinch, punch, it's the 1st day of a shit month

Last night I received a text: "Hey! Have you had your 8wk scan yet???x" This coming from one of my (several) pregnant friends. I decided to ignore it, but I can only ignore it for so long. Even my husband doesn't understand our baby is gone so how can I tell a friend before I "tell" him? I'm probably going to have to say something like "Next week. Anyway, how are you?" It's just sods law that this particular friend has probably only text me 3 times in 5 years to ask how I am, I just wish that this week wasn't one of those rare occasions. Today my BFF called. I was supposed to be meeting her for coffee and was planning on telling her what is happening, but because her daughter (my goddaughter) has a sickness bug we had to cancel. She called to see how I was, and my goddaughter wanted to say hello as I haven't seen them for a few weeks. My BFF then went on a long ramble "How are you? How's baby? Oooh, I'm so excited and trying not to be but I can't help it! But as long as everything's ok I can't wait! Gutted about today though, but you will have it soon, bloody kids ruin your life you know!" What was I supposed to say. My 9 years old goddaughter was on the phone too. I just laughed (that's the biggest joke of the day) and kept trying to change the subject. It was hard. I ended the call as soon as I could. And then I cried. I haven't cried much for the last few days, I think I'm getting used to the feeling of despair, but today I just let myself sink. Telling people we were pregnant was lovely, and scary, but exciting. I know so many people like to keep it a secret until their 12 week scan, but in the event of bad news I didn't want the first time we told people we were pregnant to be when we were telling them we weren't pregnant anymore. This happened to my friend and I swore I wouldn't let it happen to me. Plus, by the time you get to cycle three your friends and loved ones start to get a basic understanding of the process, its not easy to hide treatment when its been going on for a year, and you run out of excuses. There is nothing worse than people saying "You aren't drinking? OMG, you are pregnant! I thought you had a bump!" when the reality is just that you are in the second month of down reg injections. Besides, I always thought if the worst was to happen I would need my friends - it turns out I was wrong. I don't want them, I don't want anyone. I just want a baby, not just any baby, my little black hole baby. I have a moment everyday where I think "maybe things will be ok" but then that's stupid. I'm stupid. I feel stupid for being hopeful. I feel stupid for telling people we were pregnant. I feel stupid telling people I'm not pregnant. I feel stupid for even believing I could ever be pregnant. Now not only do we have to go through this crappy miscarriage, but I have to go through it over and over and over again when I tell people. I have to go through knowing they are thinking "well, she did tell everyone too early." I have to go through people sending me flowers and pot plants. I have to go through people saying things like "well, it worked once...you can do it again...loads of people have miscarriages and go on to have children...maybe you should give up now...at least you got pregnant." I don't want sympathy, I don't want comments, judegments, or pot plants. I just want to be left alone to grieve in solitude. I just want to be allowed to grieve my beautiful little black hole. However small, and however filled with nothing my little black hole is, it's still MY little black hole.

Pressure Cooker

When I was a kid Sunday dinner would take my parents hours. There were always a million pots and pans, a pressure cooker, electric knife, veg being chopped from 9am onwards, stuffing made from scratch, Yorkshire puds made from scratch (with one spare to have with some jam for pudding!) Today, for the first time in 32 years the roles were reversed and I (I mean we) cooked my parents dinner. Sadly I hate cooking, I don't see it as pleasurable, it just makes a mess of my nice clean kitchen. In all honesty Mr P does the cooking and I clean up around him. For me GBBO stands for "Great British Bore Off" and fortunately everything we have is always the easy option: the freezer is my friend, and other than the chicken and a few carrots everything else was pretty much pre-done! Throughout this process of "cooking" my husband and I spoke more than we have all week. Most of it was nasty snapping, but it's better than silence. This afternoon, after a few more little digs we eventually talked. Proper talk. Honest, brutal, difficult, but very very welcome. Last night I honestly felt like I might run away and leave him. Today i love him and would fight to the death for him. Things may be crap but as long as we have each other I know there will be someone to dry my tears...eventually.

Volcano

I'm angry. I'm angry that a giant spider tried to attack my arm when I was trying to relax on the sofa. I'm angry that my car voice recognition doesn't understand me: though to be fair, "fuck off" probably isn't in it's pre-programmed vocabulary. I'm angry that my husband called me mardy: for those that don't know what mardy means, it is a bit like miserable, but worse. I'm angry that my fertile (pregnant-first-month) pregnant for the second time Sister In Law is "excited" for our scan next week. I'm angry my husband had told people when the scan was - I purposely didn't want anyone to know so whatever happened we could have time to process it, and that was the "joint decision" we made BEFORE Day Zero!!! I'm angry my two close friends, who are both as pregnant as I would have been if transfer #2 had worked, have their baby showers in the next two weeks. I'm angry that I briefly contemplated what I would do for my baby shower. I'm angry that my husband has been out since lunch at the pub (not wanting to waste his day off staying in with me apparently) and didn't get in until 9pm when he was clearly drunk and out of money. I'm angry that he is now here and snoring and not giving a shit how I feel, not even asking if I'm ok or texting to see how I am. Im angry that we even got a positive pregnancy test - if it had been negative I would be drunk on frozen cocktails right now instead of sober, lying on the sofa in the dark, hating the world. I'm angry I don't know how to put paragraphs in my fecking blog. I'm angry I keep getting mildly optimistic for three seconds that we will get a miracle a week today. I'm angry that I can't be more optimistic. I'm just angry.

Alone in the dark

I had an early start today and it's not over yet. At 2.30am I woke and immediately remembered what had happened. I thought I might have those few minutes of oblivious confusion, but no. For two hours my eyes stayed open and I just lay in bed saying "don't cry, don't cry, don't cry...." until I finally gave up and went downstairs to watch TV. Instead of watching trash I dug out and old journal and started to write. I say write, I mean scrawl. My good pens are all dead (oh, the irony) and there is something a bit weird about writing about completely heartbreaking misery in pink and purple sharpie. It helped. I felt empty. A bit like a Dalek - mostly just a tough impenetrable empty shell with a tiny little voice hidden away deep within saying "help". Mr P went to work, slightly late, a little hungover, but still oblivious: telling me to rest up and saying he hoped Bubba and me would have a nice day. I heard his car start and cried. I thought that my "telling my mum and dad" drama from the previous day (I don't think I blogged it - I don't need to, other than to say Im their only child, we are very close, it was beyond hard) 3 hours of tears, TV, google, tears, pleading, angry words, tears, sad words, promises. In a more rational moment I thought I had probably better see a Doctor. By some miracle the Wife of Satan was not on reception and it was a nice lady who managed to interpreted my hysterical sobbing and said "So you need to be seen today?" The GP also managed to comprehend some kind of meaning from my garbled "it's just...I don't know...I can't...I'm sorry..." so after a few "um...yes..." and that weird wincey eye thing that people do when they see a three legged dog struggling to do a dump she sent me on my merry way with a diazepam and a sick note. I didn't think the day could get worse. It did. Mr P was so depressed when he got in - turns out it was because he fell out with his work friend, he nicked his ruler or something equally not important in the grand scheme of shit. After dinner he said "Why haven't you mentioned Bubba? Why are you talking about holidays? You seem really depressed. What was up with your Dad, he looked a right miserable bastard tonight!" I always thought I was strong. Now as I sit with a packet of diazepam, Im not so sure.

Day Zero

Life changes, fast. One minute you have a head full of "ooh the garden needs weeding" and "Stupid drunk Big Tim has blocked our car in again" and the next it's "my baby has died." Tuesday nights pessary was like any other: and hour (ok, maybe an hour and a half) in bed with Cruise TV and an ice lolly. Then, going for my post-pessary wee I did my usual over-zealous wipe and scrutinisation to be confronted with pink. Tiny pink dots I checked the pad, and found a few more tiny pink dots. My rational brain whispered "it's fine, you just scratched your bits - chillax woman," but the pregnant part of my brain screamed "it's over - your baby is dead." After a melt down I managed to calm myself and called the clinic. They did the usual "it's absolutely nothing to worry about, we will call you tomorrow, just relax." I did as I was told and relaxed, and it worked. The next morning I felt loads better but they offered us a scan at 11.30 and who was I to refuse such an offer. Mr P was white as a sheet, I was cool as a cucumber. All I could think was about the statistics of people who get to keep their baby after seeing the heartbeat at 7 weeks and I couldn't wait to see my baby. In fact I felt lucky being able to see Him so early: he has a name - Bubba. The transvaginal scan was like a million others I have had: the silence, then the bad news. Normally it's about a cyst, fibroid, fluid. This time it was about a very tiny black circle. No heartbeat. No fetal pole. No yolk. No baby. At 6w6d there should be something, but there is nothing. Just a black hole that has sucked in everything around it and destroyed life. Mr P just things Bubba is being lazy and when we have our "proper" scan next week everything will be fine. But Mr P hasn't got a PHD in Dr Google. He hasn't spent the last five years obsessively reading about infertility. Thirteen years ago on September the 17th I lost a baby: I thought it was a late miscarriage at the time, but I now realise it was probably a chemical pregnancy. It doesn't mean it hurts less.