As the dust settles...

I suppose I owe one or two people beyond Grace an explanation, although this is going to be monumentally hard to do.  When you’ve lived with a secret as long as I’ve lived with this one, the idea of speaking out on the subject seems impossible.  I remember reading Meghan Markle’s NYT article last year, and feeling such incredible admiration for her, for being able to write so publicly about something I could barely even acknowledge in my own head.  I never thought I’d be sitting down to do the same, so I apologise if this is incoherent and rambling and without much of a point. I just need to get it out there, once and for all.

So, 29 years ago, I was a final year medical student with the world at my feet.  I was feeling confident about finals, clinical placements were going well, and I had an amazing boyfriend as part of the package.  He was older than me, kept me grounded, and as he was conveniently a doctor, he was there to help and support me professionally as well as personally. It’s fair to say, I was in a very good place.

And then I missed a period.  

To this day, P and I have no idea how or why it happened.  We weren’t trying for a baby, and were taking all the precautions so I guess it was just a freak accident, but it was a freak accident that changed everything.  

I’m not going to lie.  I panicked.  Some simple maths indicated that I’d be nearly 8 months pregnant by my last exam, which was a long way from ideal, and any plans I’d had for a glamorous foreign elective went right out the window.  Plus, I was just so young. I didn’t know if I was capable of raising a child. 

I knew what my options were, and I was ready to take them.  Convinced myself I could go through with a termination and move on, but when it came to the crunch, I couldn’t do it.  I couldn’t take that step.

And that was when I told Paul.  

He was amazing.  He totally glossed over the fact I’d nearly made the decision without him, and instead concentrated on how we could make it work.  As a family.  There were long conversations with the med school and the deanery and eventually we carved out a plan, and I was finally in a place where I could be excited about our future, as a three.

But it wasn’t to be.  

I still don’t feel strong enough to talk about the night I lost the baby in any detail.  Maybe one day, but not yet.  But it turned my life upside down.  Completely.  Nothing was ever the same after that.  I was never the same. From the moment I came round in the recovery room post op, the shutters came down. My relationship with Paul imploded (although he continues to be my rock) and I made a whole series of dubious life choices influenced by the loss of my child.  Some of those quite recently.  

But I’ve never really talked about it.  A handful of people knew, either because they were in the original loop, knew because they had to, or because they were on the receiving end of a drunken confession, but it still wasn’t really up for discussion.  It was my secret. My burden.  

Every October when Miscarriage Awareness week rocked around, I wanted to add a ribbon to my socials.  Wanted to light a candle to remember what I lost.  But I couldn’t allow myself to do it.  I didn’t feel I deserved to grieve that publicly.   Didn’t feel that I could let the wider world know what happened to me and what P and I went through.

Who knows, maybe this year will be my year.

I know this will come as a shock to a lot of people, not just the story, but I’m the fact I’m telling it.  The big confessional bit isn’t my style, and never has been, but I realise now that I need to be more of an open book, not just to rebuild my relationship with Grace, but to allow myself the opportunity to be truly happy. 

After all, a little emotional availability can go a long way...