"Anger was the first reaction that I really remember about my miscarriage. I couldn’t believe that my body had let me down. I had 24/7 vomiting for 3 months - all for nothing! Was it the vomiting that caused the miscarriage? Was it something else I did or didn’t do? Should I berate myself? Why had it happened? Why did I feel so guilty? My partner was just sad and didn’t really understand my response.

I had arrived in hospital about 12am after suddenly losing what seemed like everything into the toilet at home, but there was still pain along with feeling upset and helplessly angry. I was seen briefly by a doctor in A&E and he said we needed to wait and see what was going to happen, no hint, and promptly left me in the middle of a room, on my own in a high bed, with no bell nearby and my partner dismissed. I had no idea he was waiting just outside the room. I lay there getting past the anger, feeling isolated and tearful, and also fearful and nervous of what to expect. Alone there in that dimly lit, unfriendly antiseptic white room I faced the fact that my baby was dead. Nothing seemed real and I felt part of me had disappeared too.

After a while the increasing agony of my body and the discomfort of the hard narrow bed took over. Still not knowing what I was waiting for and too exhausted to do anything about it, I lay there for several hours. When the doctor finally came back he asked me a couple of questions and immediately called a nurse to prepare me for surgery.

The following morning he came and saw me on his rounds, this time with plenty of staff, all young trainee doctors. They were positioned right around my bed and the doctor remarked that they were interested to see how I was feeling and was sure I wouldn’t mind as they had been present at my D&C in the early hours of the morning. I couldn’t speak, thinking of what angle they had been looking at me. I could feel the colour rising embarrassingly in my cheeks and ducked my head, mumbling answers to his questions. I couldn’t believe how thoughtless his remarks were and later became very angry again.

This was not helped at a check-up a fortnight later at a surgery where I was not known (we had not long arrived in town) and the doctor questioned me about things that did not seem relevant but I still answered. My partner and I were waiting for my divorce which was pending and I had unexpectedly become pregnant but it wasn’t a worry as he particularly wanted children and neither of us was concerned about the paper work. I had begun to come to terms with our loss but was still feeling pretty fragile and sad having mainly got past the anger stage.

This doctor’s reaction to our marital status was to immediately accuse me of aborting myself. He said he was a practicing Catholic and my actions were unforgivable in the eyes of God. I was so shocked that he would even consider I would do that I just sat there as he ranted at me. Part of my mind was on the paperweight knife that I could see in front of me and I kept looking at it thinking ‘I should pick it up and do something with it’. All the anger had come rushing back.

I didn’t move my hand though. I just walked out with-out another word or getting my check-up. It took me years to recover from that experience and grieve properly with acceptance for our lost baby. I had confided in no-one at the time. My future husband and I hardly spoke of the miscarriage and it wasn’t until I was talking to other women about their own miscarriage experiences years afterwards, I finally realized how much pain I was still carrying myself. It might have been a long time ago but I had lost my baby too. I wanted suddenly to scream that out at them but didn’t. I later went down to an empty beach on a stormy day and yelled it out to the crashing waves. I felt better and they easily absorbed the last of my angry energy".

By Ellanore.