[Trigger Warning] Why having a miscarriage changed my opinion on the life I thought I would have.

This post contains discussions and thoughts around pregnancy and miscarriage. Please protect your heart if this is difficult subject for you.

Photo by Daiga Ellaby on Unsplash

If you would have asked me in May 2024 if I would have wanted to have another baby, my answer would have been a resounding no. It’s funny because we always planned just one child, in those days where you are parent to none, have no idea what you’re talking about, but think you have it all figured out.

Now the eager readers amongst you will know that I have two children, so stopping at one is not quite what occurred and you would be right. Less than 18 months of being parents to our wonderful daughter I dropped the bombshell on my husband: I didn’t think our family was complete. It’s something that caught me unawares because I felt very comfortable with being ‘one and done’ until I wasn’t.

I don’t know whether it was the uncertainty of a global pandemic, lockdowns, or something else altogether, but I couldn’t shake this nagging feeling that I wasn’t done. I thought it might go away, but it didn’t, so I bought it up with my husband, and together we decided that we would try for another child.

And since our wonderful boy arrived in the late spring of 2021 we have never felt more like our family is complete.

Until now.

In June 2024, while wandering around Sainsbury’s with my 3 year old, while we waited for my 5 year old to finish her ballet class I felt a strangely familiar feeling: heart palpitations and a touch of nausea.

“Weird” I thought “I haven’t had heart palpitations since I was pregnant.

…

As someone who tracks their cycle and is very in tune with their body, I won’t do you the disservice of telling you I wasn’t aware it was a possibility, however, I was still beyond surprised.

I went home, I mulled for a bit and then I went upstairs and took a pregnancy test.

Positive. Shit.

The actual words I uttered were “Shit shit shit shit shit”.

I plodded down the stairs, my husband at the sink washing something, completely unaware I was about to turn his world upside down.

“I have something that you’re not going to like” I uttered, “I just took a pregnancy test”.

He knew what that meant. And it wasn’t that he doesn’t love children or anything like that, he’s the most wonderful father to our two children and they idolise him. But we were done. Really done. Life had got to a point where things were just leveling out after back-to-back baby years (my daughter was 18 months old when I got pregnant with my son and there are just two years between them).

We pondered, we discussed, we chatted, and we decided.

For some reason this had been placed in our path and so we settled on the idea of having a third child. Our fears were soon discussed a way (We’d have to get another car but we’d make it work), we’d manage with three children, and we’d never regret having another child.

A couple of weeks passed and just as quickly as our third baby stumbled into our lives, they left. A Sunday morning, the day of a family wedding, I woke up and I started bleeding.

I knew it would happen. I had a feeling all along that something wasn’t right. My initial pregnancy test wasn’t strong but it’s just early I told myself. My test a few days later showed no improvement. My test was a few days after a minor improvement. I told myself to stop testing to stop myself from going crazy. I would remind myself every day that today I was pregnant and that was enough.

By on the 16th of June, my worst fears were realised, as I started to miscarry our third baby. I felt like it had been such a shock and took some time to get used to the idea of having a third baby, and then they were gone, almost without a trace. Exactly on my 6th week of pregnancy.

The process was as the process is. Uncomfortable, painful, draining and mentally hard. But I healed physically well and mentally I did ok too. And that’s all I could hope for.

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And here I am, over a month on, and I feel in this strange place.

A few months ago I would have scoffed at the idea of another baby, and now I just don’t know. If I had never got pregnant again I know I would have been fine and never thought about more children. But I did get pregnant, for a short time I did have my third baby with me, and now I don’t know how I feel about more children.

If anything I feel like it’s opened my heart and mind to the possibility of a different life.

And I frequently ask myself this: Maybe our third baby was sent to us, not to stay, but to open our hearts and minds to the possibility of something else.

I don’t have any of the answers right now and I guess truly only time will tell.