Ten to fifteen percent of all clinically recognised pregnancies end in miscarriage. I know this because I've done the reading, and asked our gynaecologist so many questions that he printed out a copy of
this report for me to read, in order to reassure myself that we were doing everything possible to understand and solve the problem.
Ten to fifteen percent is a lot of miscarriages - it's more than one in ten pregnancies. The actual incidence is thought to be higher, because that statistic only counts the miscarriages that doctors know about. Some women miscarry so early that they don't even realise, while others just never bother going to see a doctor. But in the end what it all boils down to is that you almost certainly know someone who has miscarried, or have even done so yourself.
We've spoken to family, friends and others who know what it feels like to have a miscarriage. They all told us that it's a pain which never really goes away, and that nobody else really understands what it's like. But most people who miscarry go on to have children - it's not something which dominates their life, and not something they generally choose as a topic of conversation.
We've now had multiple consecutive failed pregnancies, the last two within six months of each other. We've had every available test performed, and all that anybody can tell us is that we don't fit into any category of known causes for miscarriage. We're able to conceive and we're both still fairly young, so we're told that the prognosis is good.
We want children. We want it more now than either of us probably realised when we met. We want to have children with each other, we want to recombine and spread our own genes, we want to do our best to add to the population of the world people who can love, laugh, play, think for themselves and try to make the world a better place.
But now we have to at least entertain the possibility that it's something that will never happen.
We're a very long way from giving up, even if it's still hurting too much to think about exactly what we'll do next. But it's in my nature to explore all possible paths to their logical conclusions, and the thought we may never get to have the family we so desperately want is just terrible.
It terrifies me to even consider it - what will it do to Louise? To me? To us? We've coped so far, and each time we've seemed to cope a little better, but then again each time it's like a little piece of us dies. We cope now because we can still hope for a future in which this is just a painful memory on the path to our family. How will we cope if that hope dies?
I don't know if it's true for everybody else, but I often seen the world differently after a new experience. When we've bought a new car I suddenly notice all of the other identical cars on the road, and all of the variants (same model but different colour, same colour but the 3-door model).
Right now I see every child, every parent with a baby, every pregnant woman. They stand out from the rest of the world as though they've been underlined and highlighted, a constant reminder of what I've lost. I'm so happy for every parent I see smiling, or just being a parent to their children. I'm furious every time I see someone scream at their kids in a supermarket, or smoke a cigarette while pushing a stroller.
It's a bigger problem in some ways for Louise than it is for me, because the unfairness of it all is like an added insult. It's slightly easier for me in that I have no expectation that the world will be fair to me or anybody else - in fact past performance seems a pretty clear indicator that fairness is the last thing any of us can expect.
This probably makes us a bit difficult to deal with at the moment. I'm so pleased for all of our friends and family who have children, but sitting next to one of my best mates as he bounces his baby boy on his knees while they both laugh at each other is pretty hard. I can't think when else I've been so happy for somebody else and yet sad for myself at the same time.
I usually hide my sadness pretty well, in fact too well sometimes. Happiness and anger I have no trouble showing, but sadness is something I try to keep to myself. I know it's helped Louise to see me upset, to know that she's not the only one going through this, but it's not something I let my friends see on purpose.
Louise can't manage to hold it all in though, even though she tries. Sometimes it just spills over, and lately it seems to be happening more often. People don't know what to say, or sometimes even know there's nothing they can say but don't know how else to help. I don't know what to tell them if they ask - usually "thanks, but there's really nothing you can do". I don't know how to help myself, I just do everything I can to be there for her. I know that, as bad as I feel, she must feel ten times worse. To have the added indignity of the physical process of miscarriage on top of the emotional stress, it's something I can't imagine enduring. It's nasty stuff, not something that just happens one morning and then it's over.
Here's an image permanently burned into my brain which I wish I could forget - to have seen the sac, the products of conception, the blood and placental tissue. To understand miscarriage as a real and physical thing, not a terrible but abstract idea. We've been reassured by doctors that there was not, as yet, anything that could have been called a baby - but this time not only did I get to see a heartbeat, I saw exactly where that baby would have come from, the home it should have had for the next seven and a half months.
I looked away, sickened - me, who has no problem seeing blood, cuts or watching surgical procedures. If one of my arms wasn't stuffed there's a pretty decent chance I'd have studied to be a surgeon, but this was a little bit too real and too personal. Louise apologised and I quickly told her not to be sorry. I'm glad I saw it, that for a brief moment I experienced what she had to go through for almost a week.
That's why we're difficult to be around at the moment. It's not something you can discuss around the table with friends, over a couple of beers and nibbles. It's not something I can ever effectively communicate to another person, it's just something that we'll have to deal with somehow before getting on with our lives.
For now though I'll just take it a day at a time. I have plenty to keep me busy at the moment, to distract myself from thinking about it a little bit longer until I can face the question of "what next?".
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