10th May 2013 | by MFC Team
Losing our baby: The pain of a miscarriage
My name is Grace. I’ve been reading the personal stories on this site since last year, and when my partner Cara and I started IUI treatments with donor sperm 10 months ago, I thought I’d be writing in to share the news of my pregnancy. Sadly, the story that I am sharing is a different one.
After dealing with the ups and downs and costs of 3 failed treatment cycles, I finally got pregnant on our fourth cycle. Cara and I were over the moon excited! We started talking names for the baby and planning our work schedules around one of us always being home during our son or daughter’s first year. But a few weeks ago I started bleeding. My doctor immediately sent me to the hospital. Cara held my hand while the doctor told us that I was having a miscarriage. Our hearts broke when we heard the news. How could this possibly be happening? After all, we had made it to the 12 week mark when things are supposed to be OK. When the doctor spoke the dreaded word miscarriage I could barely believe the words. How could this be happening to us? I wracked my brain for something I must have done to cause it – was it because I’ve been really stressed at work lately? Or was it because I ate a hamburger and fries the other day even though I usually eat pretty healthy?
The doctor reassured me that losing the baby was not because of anything I did. He said these things sometimes just happen – that nature has a way of taking care of itself – and that they would do some tests on the fetal tissue to determine if there was something abnormal. Are you kidding me – “fetal tissue” – that was our baby he was talking about. He then went on to say that we should wait at least 3 months before trying again to get pregnant – as if losing this baby was no big deal and we could just hop back in the stirrups and try again! I couldn’t believe he could be so insensitive.
It’s been a few weeks now since we lost the baby. Despite the doctor’s assurances, I can’t help feeling like my body has failed me! I’m worried that Cara blames me too, and that she may not want to start treatment again. I’m not even sure we can afford – financially or emotionally – to do more donor IUI cycles. I know I should just talk to Cara and we’ll work through things as we always do, but losing this baby has devastated us both. The hard part is that only Cara and I know that we were pregnant. We were going to tell our parents after we made it to the 12 week mark. So we’re pretty alone in our pain. It seems kind of strange to tell my family now – “oh by the way, we were pregnant, but now we’re not.”
Although the loss feels pretty intense right now, I love Cara and know she’ll make a great mother. When we’re both ready, and it doesn’t hurt so much, I’m sure we’ll try again. Maybe we’ll get luckier next time.
Share your thoughts on Grace’s story in the comments section below, or submit your own fertility story here.
Hi Grace,
Thanks for having the courage to share your story. Like you, I have a female partner/wife and I also went through a miscarriage at 7weeks. I was also devastated and incredibly sad. I also found that I started telling people and suddenly I found out about a lot of people I knew who had miscarriages but didn’t talk about it. This is not your fault. I found it was really important to grieve the loss of my baby as well. Don’t keep it inside. Talk about it to people especially if you can find other women who have been through it. It also might be useful to talk to someone like a therapist. Write about it. You are going through a major loss. And most of all, I hope you can hear that this is not your fault.