Baby Loss Awareness Week 2019

I am exhausted, able to act out the entire Peppa Pig back catalogue, trying to figure out how to entertain them for another day. I’m one of the lucky ones.

I remember being in high school and Mr A telling us periods are like losing a child once a month, so it’s no wonder Mrs A goes a bit crazy around that time. 5 years later, *cough* 15 years later *cough*, looking at my own children, thinking of the pregnancies I lost, I can categorically say that statement was bollocks.

For starters, a male quickly approaching retirement possibly wasn’t the appropriate authority to teach on the subject. PMS is a bitch, as am I when I have PMS. However, it affects half the population every, single, month, so if you’re not the one bleeding, bloated and sweaty for 7 days, just pipe down.

True, a period can feel like a kick to the stomach if you’re trying to conceive, but a period is not comparable to pregnancy loss. Sitting on the toilet, crying, while your longed for child pours out of you is not comparable to changing a tampon. Panic calling doctors, waiting days for scans, explaining to your employers that you’re pregnant but probably not anymore is not comparable to a period. Wondering if you can tell the friends that didn’t know you were pregnant, or if that would be seen as looking for attention because it’s gone before it even really began. Feeling the need to cry at Dog’s Trust adverts once a month doesn’t come close to the brutality of internal bleeding, emergency surgeries and an emptiness inside. The experience lingers, if you’re lucky enough to conceive again there is a dread of going to the toilet and finding blood again.

Comparing the two both downplays the significance of a miscarriage and paints the emotional response as hysterical. A stigma that should no longer exist.

I am one of the lucky ones. I went on to have two children and can honestly say I no longer grieve for the two I lost early on. But others are trapped in this shitty cycle. If you’re in that group I haven’t got any words that will do justice to how you feel. It’s not your fault and I wish it didn’t happen.

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The 9th to 15th is Baby Loss Awareness Week and it’s expected there will be a debate in parliament shortly around the psychological support available after a pregnancy loss; http://www.miscarriageassociation.org.uk/2019/10/baby-loss-awareness-week-coming-to-westminster-a-day-early/