Of course it was still very scary and stressful. I can imagine it must be for any woman who is expecting a baby. It was difficult to understand the huge range of emotions I was experiencing; I was utterly terrified but also incredibley excited. My feelings towards my pregnancy varied from day to day. The following was taken from my diary and shows my thought pattern on one of my less positive days:
"I love babies so much but I don't want one right now, just yet. I want to live first and see the world and have great adventures so I have amazing stories to tell my kids that I have when I am older. But I can't do any of that if I have a baby now."
I became very stressed; I was having trouble at school and also with friendships. Not to mention the fact that home had turned into hell; my family and I were not getting on. For a long while I was convinced that my parents would throw me out when they found out I was pregnant. They never did find out though. I would have had to be four and a half months pregnant before I couldn't have an abortion, but I didn't get that far. I only reached 13 weeks.
But then I wasn't pregnant. I remember it as a painful blur and not much else. I went on holiday with my family to the Lake District. The previous Friday my parents had had a meeting at school with the head of year about me. I had to attend it too. She told my parents about the cutting and they were upset. They thoguht that a week away was just what we needed. In my worst nightmares I could not have forseen the hell that would await me.
This is the hard part now, trying to remember, trying to put it all into words...
I was ill for that whole week. My whole body hurt and I was too weak to carry on with normal life. I slept several times each day and opted out of any physical tasks. I bled heavily, there was no way that my child could have survived it. My womb was stripped of everything. I can't remember actual dates but this was around the 29th May 2003. I felt awful and weighed down with so much force. I couldn't see anything apart from the blur of pain coming at me from every side. I wanted to die. I now had nothing to live for, my child was dead! I couldn't see as far as tomorrow. Everytime I went to bed it'd take forever for me to get to sleep, then when I finally would I'd dream of him. He was there, and real in my dream. It hurt so much to wake up to blood stained sheets as a harsh reminder that he was gone. It was very hard to except that I had to carry on living without my child.
This is around where the denial set in. I tried to kid myself that I wasn't even pregnant in the first place and so I couldn't have miscarried. I didn't want to believe that my baby had died so I decided not to belive that there had ever been a baby. This caused less pain in the short term, but in the long term it just extended my suffering. This lasted almost the week but a few days before we left for home it hit me again, and hard.
I had lost my child. This really was my worst nightmare. How was I meant to go on knowing that everything was meant to be so different? The only person I could blame was myself. I blamed myself and believed that I was a failier. I had failed my child by being unable to carry, grow and nurture him, and I'd failed myself as a young woman, being unable to forfill my purpose. I could feel the end drawing nearer for me.
Time was passing so slowly and so painfully. I drifted along struggling by myself. No one else knew that he'd ever existed, so this loss affected no one else. I wanted to tell someone just so I wouldn't have to grieve alone, but there was no one. And how could they understand anyway? Particulary coming from me, they'd just tell me it was for the best, something I should be thankful for.
I was far from thankful. I was truley alone.
