Seven years ago I had a miscarriage at 9 weeks. No, technically I had a curette. An amniotic sac had formed but there was no foetus inside. I was devastated. I could wait for the inevitable miscarriage, which may might not happen for another 6 weeks or so, or choose to have a curette and terminate what my body thought was a pregnancy. I chose to terminate.
I felt a silly mourning a baby that was never really there. I was grieving over an idea. Of a want. I felt self conscious talking about it so I didn’t. I felt very lonely. My partner was so wonderful throughout the ordeal but in the end it was me alone being wheeled in to the operating theatre, me being emptied out (sounds a bit dramatic but at the time that’s how I felt) and me feeling ridiculous and foolish because there was never anything there to begin with.
It took me quite a while, but when I did begin to talk about it (thank goodness!) I was stunned by the amount of people that opened up to say they had experienced a miscarriage themselves, knew some one who had and friends who had decided to terminate their pregnancy. Each story told helped piece me back together and make sense of my experience. It was almost like I was being wrapped in some kind of magical healing blanket each time I was told ‘I understand, that happened to me too’.
Still it seems no one talks about miscarriage or termination. Why don’t we? I wish we would. I wish, when I was going through my experience I had known how many of my friends had gone through something similar. I hope we can start talking about miscarriage and termination before, during and after so that there is no suffering in silence and no stigma attached to our right to make difficult decisions about what’s best for us.