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Bitterness After Baby Loss
I don’t think anything really prepares you for the bitterness that comes part and parcel with baby loss.
Let’s take it back to 2009. I think I was around 14/15 years old and halfway through secondary school. I had a long term boyfriend, but I couldn’t picture a future together. I think it was trendy to be infatuated with tall, white boys back then. Admittedly, I much preferred burying my head in a Biology book than snogging on the field behind school.
Even though this relationship was relatively long term, it was never a forever feeling to me. I knew it was going to end with secondary school, because, quite frankly I needed someone with intellectual fibres running through them. This boy had none (sorry).
I had, however, thought about having children. A lot. Not with anyone in particular, but I would think about how I would love to marry someone and start a family.
It took me years to unravel this and to realise that what I was so desperately craving was a secure family unit. I had grown up with a broken family, been exposed to violent and volatile romantic relationships. I was technically homeless as a child and living through Women’s Refuges for around a while when I was just 7 years old. I have two older half-brothers who I have no relationship with. My whole perception of “family” was warped and I felt disoriented in my feelings.
I craved those babies so badly because I wanted to build my own secure family. I was denied that right of a stable family home, and I wanted to take off and do it all for myself.
It wasn’t until I met my current partner, that I started to reconsider these strong child-bearing urges. His family immediately took me in as their own. I had never felt this level of love and sheer appreciation and sense of 'family' before and it changed my outlook completely. I no longer craved that family environment, because I was welcomed straight into it.
The family I had selfishly been wanting was right in front of me. I realised I didn’t need to bring another life into this world to feel complete. I was enough and I was whole; he made me understand that.
Years go by in a flash and suddenly I’m about to move in with the annoyingly handsome guy from Psychology class. I think it was 2017. We had known each other for 6 years and been together for 5. Pretty solid going. I was having surgery for my tumours and I was also on the pill. I was absolutely meticulous and never missed a single day- it became part of my morning routine: shower, skincare, brush teeth, take the pill.
I ended up having an ectopic pregnancy in summer 2017. At the time, I was also having treatment and surgery for other health issues. It was a truly testing time and I was thoroughly broken by the end of it.
Night after night, waking up in pools of blood, in pain, hoping that I would just hurry up and miscarry quickly like my friend had. It went on for around 2 weeks and I never really dealt with the emotional pain of it all.
Shortly before all of this, 2 close friends (not a couple, 2 separate situations) had announced that they would be having children. These people were very close to us, and I couldn’t help but feel like a failure of a woman.
I took myself back to those younger years, a time when I wanted nothing more than to be a parent, yet I was a failure. I failed to carry a life into this world, the sole purpose of being a living human being.
I distanced myself from friends who were having children and essentially broke down a few friendships with people who had kids. It sounds horrible, but I just couldn’t stand the sight of a child.
I would get angry at crying children in supermarkets. I would cry in coffee shops when I saw mothers sit down with their pushchairs. I couldn’t even bring myself to say congratulations when someone I knew had given birth.
The bitterness was well and truly abundant. It manifested itself as jokes eventually; chatting about how inconvenient and annoying it would be to have children. How lives are “ruined” and the fun spark in relationships are lost after kids. Honestly, it was an awful headspace and I can’t imagine what it looked like from the outside.
Fast forward a bit more. 7 years together and we’re as happy as can be. I still have that feeling of bitterness and thoughts of failure hidden deep down; I don't know how to get rid of them. I have tried counselling and therapy, none of which I've been able to stick to long enough. For the moment, antidepressants seem to suppress the emotion, but it's not the emotion that's the problem- it's the lack of emotion. It's the detachment, the overwhelming feeling of paranoia that people with children are 'rubbing it in my face' on purpose. The feeling that I will never be able to be a successful woman. The feeling of being defined by my reproductive system. The feeling of being emotionally unavailable for my friends' and relatives' children.
This isn't the only time I've been through this, and statistically speaking, it probably won't be the last.
This isn't the only time I've been through this, and statistically speaking, it probably won't be the last.
I don’t know where this state of mind will take me, but I hope it’s to a place of healing and healthy, relationships with my loved ones’ children. I hope this never happens again, but the realist in me is looking at the statistics and feeling hopeless.
I wish I had a conclusive parting word to leave you with; I’m sorry that I don't.
*P.S. I'm in no way suggesting that not being able to carry a child makes you less of a woman, I'm merely expressing my own personal feelings towards myself.
*P.S. I'm in no way suggesting that not being able to carry a child makes you less of a woman, I'm merely expressing my own personal feelings towards myself.
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