I love what I do online, I gain great satisfaction from being able to reach out and help so many others but there is a downside to what I do. I can not help everyone and sometimes there never seems to be the words to say.
What do you say to a grieving mother who suffered a miscarriage and blames herself?
The words “You were not to blame” are meaningless, they will not change the way she is beating herself up.
Please meet a mother today on the blog who feels so desperate and alone. I hope you as readers can offer some support.
A Mothers Heartache;
I found out I was pregnant on Friday 22nd of September 2012. I honestly can’t remember how I felt when I found out, I remember my partner not being too pleased.
We already had a 2 year old and a 6 month old and I was going through very bad depression and he didn’t want another baby in case it made me worse but I don’t know how I felt then.
I know that over that weekend I started getting really excited at the thought of another baby I love kids and I have always wanted loads of kids but on the Monday i started bleeding heavily with crippling stomach and back pain and I knew straight away my baby was gone.
You’d think that I’d be heart broken and just break down but instead I just kind of felt numb zombie like.
I couldn’t get an appointment for the doctor any earlier than Wednesday and I was glad. I didn’t want to have to face someone confirming what I already knew.
The doctor I saw was heartless and cold
I explained everything to her and her exact words where “well you’ve lost the baby then” she made a quick phone call to the hospital to get me an appointment with the early pregnancy clinic for the Friday and then sent me home.
The whole appointment took 5 minutes, she just seemed to want me out as soon as she could and I now had to wait another two days before I knew what was going on.
When I got back to my mother in laws (where we were living at the time) and told her all she could say was “she was probably wrong it’s probably just a bad period” that’s all she ever said when it was mentioned I got no help or support from anyone.
At home Steven seemed to pretend nothing was happening and kept going out with St John or out with friends seemed to be just about anything to get away from me.
I still had to run after the two kids and keep mother in laws flat clean despite bleeding that heavily I had to change my pad every hour and being in that much pain I felt like crying.
Friday morning I felt sick to my stomach with nerves, my mother in law watched the kids for me and Steven took me up to the hospital. Even there they are seemed very cold.
We were kept waiting for an hour and half past our appointment time with no explanation and when we were eventually seen the midwife didn’t really seem to care.
I had to explain everything to her again and get an internal scan. There was nothing on the internal scan apart from a tiny bit of thickening to the lining of my womb so they still couldn’t tell me if I was even pregnant in the first place.
I needed blood tests, they said i would get one set of blood tests that day and another on the Sunday and they would compare the levels of the pregnancy hormone in it and see what was happening.
That was it no support, no advice, nothing.
Before I even got to the hospital on the Sunday I got a phone call to say that my hormone levels came back at a negative result, but where on the high end of negative which meant that I had miscarried but it had been too long for them to detect it.
Their guess was that I miscarried around the day I found out which was why it was a faint positive and because the doctors took so long everything including my baby had already came away.
The only thing I was offered from them was a few leaflets out in the post.
My baby was dead and gone and they wanted to give me leaflets
I wanted to scream at her and say “that’s what I get in exchange for losing my baby a leaflet” but I didn’t have the strength.
My partner and I decided to name our baby and we chose “Nemo” because our angel was very hard to find.
My father in law said was it because the baby was flushed down the toilet
I’m so glad I wasn’t there when he said that, I would have either punched him or broke down if i was.
The thought of that haunts me knowing that without even realising it i flushed my own baby, my flesh and blood down the toilet without a second thought kills me and I know it always will.
Everyone kept telling me it was for the best, that I wouldn’t have coped with another baby just yet. Eventually I believed that too.
No one not even my partner seemed to care that my baby was dead so i had to pretend too.
I squashed all my feelings down and just carried on.
About a week after the phone call my two year old asked why mummy was sad, so I sat down on the bed with her and her brother who was 6 months and told them;
“Mummy was sad because she had a baby in her tummy, but now the baby had gone to live in the stars and watch down over you both and keep you safe forever. Mummy and Daddy called the baby “Nemo” so if you ever felt sad or scared just ask Nemo to help you”.
Even at two years old she understood and still every night goes outside and looks up to the stars and says “night night Nemo love you” and blows a kiss.
She’s the only person that seemed to care.
I cried for the first time on Christmas Eve when I saw all my kids presents sitting out and I knew I could never do the same for Nemo.
I can never give Nemo any of the things i give my other two.
I try my hardest to involve Nemo in our family, I buy little things for Nemo and we let off a lantern on Christmas Eve.
Nothing is ever going to be enough for me to be content that I’m being a mum to Nemo but I’m going try my hardest.
For three months I have coped with this on my own
For three months I have squashed down every bit of my grief but now it feels like the flood gates are open and everything is just flowing out confusing and distressing me.
Every tiny thing is making me want to cry
I’m angry at everything and everyone for no reason. I feel like smashing everything up, I’m even struggling not to self-harm, something I’ve been struggling with since my son was born but haven’t acted on in months, its becoming so hard not to.
I started writing this to distract me from the fact that my partners lighter is beside me and all i want to do is burn my arm, anything to make me feel pain to be punished for failing my own baby for being a horrible mother.
All i had to do was keep my baby safe and warm for 9 months but I couldn’t even do that.
I’m a failure as a mother and Nemo is better off without me that much I know and I know everyone else is too but I don’t want my kids growing up thinking I didn’t love them enough to keep fighting so I have too.
Anonymously sent into the blog.