I want to start my story by being completely honest, I wasn’t happy when I found out that I was pregnant, in fact I would almost go as far as saying I was devastated. It was mid-December 2019, I had been legally married for all of about two weeks having decided to do the ‘legal bit’ ahead of time, and we were in the midst of planning our dream destination wedding in Zanzibar for the following July. At the time, I attributed a lot of the unhappiness that I felt about being pregnant to the fact that I wasn’t going to be able to have the aforementioned dream wedding, but looking back, I think I just didn’t feel ready to be a mother. I’m a planner, and while kids are very much in my plan, they weren’t in my plan right then.

But sometimes things don’t go according to plan - it was happening, I was pregnant, we were going to have a baby. So, after I had finished crying, I rallied. I went for check-ups, I took my vitamins and put my first ultrasound on the fridge, and I redirected my wedding planning energy into baby names and designing the nursery. I started to get excited.

I’ll never forget the look on my gynecologist’s face when I told her that I hadn’t had any morning sickness yet, she knew something was wrong. I should have been seven weeks pregnant and we had gone to hear our baby’s heartbeat for the first time. Instead, we were being rushed downstairs for a detailed scan to confirm what she already knew - there wasn’t going to be a baby anymore.

I had had what’s called a missed miscarriage, a term I had never even heard until it happened, essentially the embryo had just stopped developing, no one knows why. No pain, no bleeding, just no heartbeat.

People don’t talk about it very often, but the sad truth is that around one in four pregnancies end in miscarriage, with the majority occurring in the first 12 weeks. I’m in my (ahem… mid) 30s and it wasn’t until I had lost the baby and started talking about it that I really realized how many of my friends, or friends of my friends, had had at least one miscarriage too. Why is that? We’re cautioned not to talk about our pregnancies until we hit that magical 12-week mark, ‘just in case’, but in my experience, being able to talk about what had happened, with people who already knew that I had been pregnant was absolutely invaluable. Food for thought.

To say the mix of emotions that I experienced during that time was complex would be a massive understatement. It's hands down the most confusing and conflicting thing that has ever happened to me. The grief of the miscarriage combined with the guilt of the feelings that I had had early on, then relief that I was going to be able to have my wedding after all (side note, the wedding didn’t happen anyway, thanks COVID), then more guilt and fear that this will happen again...

It was a horrendous and deeply personal experience, one that I believe is unique for everyone who goes through it. It’s also inescapable, nothing could have prepared me for the sadness that I would feel at the never-ending motherhood related pins on my Pinterest feed, or the anger that I would feel towards someone who asked me to help plan a mutual friend’s baby shower. It wasn’t her fault; she had never even known that I was pregnant.

There are no rules for how to feel when you experience trauma like this, and no ‘right’ way to react. The only advice I can give to someone going through it is to lean on your partner and the people closest to you, accept that whatever you’re feeling is valid and a necessary part of your healing process, and ask for help if you need it.

Finally, while it may be easier said than done, if and when you decide its time for you to try again, try and hold on to the fact that the vast majority of women who have had a miscarriage, go on to have successful pregnancies and healthy babies.

Personally, I’m still working on that last one.

Project bYouty sends love to anyone who’s gone through this or is going through this, we hope some of the below resources may offer at least a little help when you’re ready x

Upon a Star, www.smallandmightybabies.com
Lighthouse Arabia, www.lighthousearabia.com, (04 380 9298).
Little Angels Support Group Dubai, facebook/littleangelssupport.
Footprints in the Sand, Abu Dhabi, facebook/footprintsinthesandUAE.