Rosy C, UK

The first pregnancy

Clint and I got married at a young age as we decided from the start we wanted children from a young age, so that we could grow up with our children.

We were married for 5 months when we decided that I should go off the pill which I had been on for 7 years prior so we can start getting ourselves ready to start having a baby.  It’s said that if you have been on a contraceptive for a long time, you need at least 3 months to get your body back to normal which in our case we did.  We fell pregnant in June 1998. Naturally Clint and I were ecstatic for our first baby and everyone was excited as this would be the first grandchild on my side of the family. I was experiencing no symptoms except for tender breasts, but Clint was!  He nauseous in the mornings.

When things started going wrong

One evening while visiting my parents I got a terrible pain across my stomach and went to the loo.  There was some blood and we immediately went to the hospital.  They checked it over and said all seemed fine, but if the bleeding got any worse I should come back immediately. As the evening progressed, the pain increased and so did the bleeding.  Next morning we were back at the hospital where they did an HCG test and sent us home.

I no sooner got home when I had a cramp and as I sat down on the loo a little thing ‘plopped out’ into the toilet. It fell onto some toilet paper, it was no bigger than my thumb nail, and it was a sac with a tiny little spot in it. I called Clint to have a look; he hugged me and flushed the toilet. The phone rang and it was our doctor, he had confirmed that I was indeed in the process of miscarrying. I was to come into the hospital the next morning so he could do a scan to have a look at what was still left.  I told him what had happened and he said it could have been the baby that came out. I had to go to the loo again and when I wiped this time there was a small piece of pink tissue.

What happened after the miscarriage

We left to go to the hospital where our doctor did the scan and confirmed that I had indeed miscarried and that everything had expelled itself naturally, my uterus was back to 2cm and there was no need for me to have a D&C, he told me that I was to try and fall pregnant again in 6 months. It really hit us when we got home.  Clint and I couldn’t stop crying, Clint felt it was his fault and almost finished a bottle of brandy!  My father came over to try and comfort me.  Everyone told me not to give up, I was the first of my friends to be pregnant so I could not go to anyone for ‘support and understanding’, and this was a strange situation for Clint and me to be in. Our first thoughts were “This was our little person, what is wrong with us that we couldn’t keep our baby?” We could only find comfort in each other.

The second pregnancy – and live birth

Towards the end of July 1998, I had not gotten my regular period so I went to my normal GP, who said its natural after having a miscarriage as the bodies hormones need to get back to normal again, but if I hadn’t started by early August I was to come back to him. By the second week of August I had not started, I contacted my GP who advised me to come over at once. Upon getting there he did a pregnancy test and it was positive, he wasn’t taking any chances and did a blood test and requested it to be done urgently so that I could make an appointment as soon as possible.

On 11 August 1998 he advised me that I was 6 and half weeks pregnant, my first visit showed I was about 7 weeks pregnant. Clint and I weren’t sure about this one and decided not to tell anyone except our parents, just in case. My next check up told me I was close to 12 weeks and there on the scan we got to see our baby, my stomach was already starting to bulge and people were asking questions. My pregnancy went well without and hitch and I gave birth to healthy little girl, 3.54kg on the 31 March 1999, but due to some complications during the birth we decided that we were not going to go through it again and chose there and then not to have anymore children.

The third pregnancy

Kelsey was 3 years old when she started asking for a brother or sister, Clint and I thought long and hard about it and decided oh well, what are the chances that our miscarriages and birthing complications would happen again. So we decided to give it a try.

August 2002 we were elated with the news of being pregnant and Kelsey was as excited as we explained it to her and she was ready for this baby brother or sister that was on the way.

When things started going wrong

A few weeks into finding out we were pregnant, I was at work when I went to the loo, and there once again was some blood. I nearly fainted, my heart started banging in my chest, my legs felt like jelly, I panicked, thinking “Oh no not again, Kelsey is going to be disappointed”. I immediately phoned my doctor who told me to come in immediately, I then phoned Clint and told him, he said he would meet me at the hospital as my boss was taking me. The doctor did a scan and confirmed that I had a blighted ovum, the sac and everything was there, but the baby didn’t develop, he scheduled a D&C for me for the next day.

After the miscarriage

We were crushed as we now had to break the news to Kelsey, we understood there wasn’t a baby and had been through a miscarriage before, it was easier for us, but Kelsey was very upset.  She cried and wanted to know why Gentle Jesus was taking our baby, so I told her that Gentle Jesus feels this is not the special brother or sister he had planned for her, I then explained that I would be going into hospital to have my tummy cleaned out.

Over the next few months my doctor conducted tests, I went every 20 days to have my blood tested because he had an idea of what could be the cause of my miscarriages.  In December he phoned me to tell I was not ovulating correctly, instead of ovulating every 14 days of my cycle I was ovulating every 20 days and he said that Clint was being superman by still fertilising the egg. That was why I wasn’t going past 8 weeks of the pregnancy. He prescribed that I go on fertility tablets to correct my ovulation and to try and fall pregnant. I had to wait to get my next period in order to start the fertility tablets.

The fourth pregnancy – and miscarriage

I waited for my period to start only to find out I was already pregnant. This time we weren’t excited, we did not tell anyone, not even Kelsey. I had a tiny ray of hope that maybe this will be the one, just maybe. But no, January 2003 I started bleeding, the physical pain I experienced with this miscarriage was the worst by far, it was excruciating, I could barely walk. Clint phoned the doctors who told us to come in straight away. Kelsey wanted to know “Why is mommy crying and holding her tummy?”  Clint explained that mommy had a baby in her tummy and it seemed that it was coming out again.

Kelsey came into my room, hugged me, kissed me, rubbed my back and said “Don’t worry mommy, Gentle Jesus is making space for our special baby, don’t worry, it will be fine.”  I cried my eyes out with my 4 year old child holding me and comforting me telling me everything is going to be fine.  The 3 of us went to the hospital and did a scan to confirm I was miscarrying, gave an injection for the pain and a sedative, kept me overnight and did the D&C first thing in the morning. Clint and Kelsey helped me to the bathroom to get changed and change my pad.  As I looked into pad there was a big piece of, well the only way I can describe it was a big piece of pink liver, with a transparent sac attached on the side. Kelsey asked what that was and we told her it was the baby, she quickly helped me as did Clint and we got rid of it in the toilet. We cried a lot that evening, until the sedative kicked in and I fell asleep with Kelsey crying for me.

After the miscarriage

Next morning I went in for my D&C. Our world felt crushed, I didn’t want to be pregnant again, the problem was clearly with me, I could not conceive properly. Our doctor encouraged us not to give up, gave me fertility tablets and told me when to use it etc. My first course of tablets started March 2003, but nothing happened.  The next month I took the tablets again but Clint and I didn’t even worry if it took or not. We were both exhausted from trying and from disappointment, not to mention Kelsey’s face when we explained that it wasn’t happening.

The fifth pregnancy – how we coped

Early May 2003, we were in the process of moving and I hadn’t started my periods yet again. This time I thought, “I am not even going to worry about it!”  We moved house, I picked up heavy furniture, moved things, which one is not supposed to do when pregnant.  I thought, “If God wants me to have this baby it will stay put, if not, well then it’s just another miscarriage.”  But in the back of my mind I thought I couldn’t deal with another miscarriage. I was becoming emotional, I used to be outgoing but started becoming introverted, didn’t go out, didn’t want to do anything, I just wanted to be with my husband and child. If someone raised their voice at me it would bring the tears on.

On the 20^th May 2003, I was officially 20 days late with my period, so I decided to phone my doctor and let him know. He immediately prescribe Cyclogest Pessaries which I had to start taking immediately, they looked like suppositories but you insert them in the vagina.  They contain progesterone, essential to establish a pregnancy following IVF, and are to be taken until 10 weeks gestation, but it doesn’t prevent a miscarriage.

A scan confirmed I was 6 and half weeks pregnant. We were very nervous, anxious and worried whether I was going to make it passed the treacherous 8 week mark. I had to go back in 3 weeks time for another check up due to my past miscarriages. Clint and I monitored everything!  I was too scared to do anything, just in case. Kelsey checked up on me all the time to make sure all was fine. We were only a few days away from 8 weeks, words can not describe how scared we were, regularly checking while at the loo. We made the 8 week mark and…nothing, I was getting all day sickness, not just morning, but the whole day, I couldn’t drink water, tea or coffee it came back out. My taste buds changed, I couldn’t eat fish, chicken or pork, I was hugging the toilet more than I ever did.

Our next check up marked our 9 week achievement. My doctor was happy for us. But he was honest and said we weren’t out of danger, 12 weeks would be better. Once again we had not told anyone, only Kelsey knew because she wanted to know why I was getting sick all the time, and my mom knew.

Once again we were counting the days, each day thinking that with this little toughie inside there one day longer is a more chance we are going to have a baby. Clint had become very distant during this time, almost like he didn’t want to acknowledge the pregnancy, like if he could pretend it wasn’t happening it would go away. His fears were of him and us being disappointed again of it ending up in a miscarriage.

The second live birth

We reached 12 weeks and this time my doctor was excited for us, he was so happy he could not stop smiling – you swear it was his own baby he saw kicking around inside my belly on that scan.  He was convinced this was it: we are going to have a baby. Clint showed excitement, but as soon as he walked out of the doctors rooms he became distant once again. He never spoke about the baby; he went about as if the pregnancy didn’t exist. I was getting further and further into the pregnancy, I shared it all with Kelsey, she felt the baby kick for the first time, she felt the baby move for the first time, felt the hiccups, and Clint was just waiting for the loss to happen again but he was suffering with cravings!

My due date was 8 January 2004. By September we had confirmed that we were expecting a baby girl and she was growing quite rapidly, I was getting excited and so was Kelsey, Clint still kept his distance when we were not with people, in front of people he pretended to be the excited expectant father. By November we had not bought our baby girl anything. I told Clint that God has given us this baby otherwise we would have lost her a long time ago and we need to get over what has happened and enjoy our little girl.

We bought baby things which made it feel a little bit more real to Clint, he started coming out of his shell and started looking forward to the baby coming. We then started deciding on names and came up with the name of Jessica as a remembrance of my father (Jeff) who died 2 and half weeks after Kelsey was born. Due to the complications of Kelsey’s birth my doctor said I had to have a c-section.

Jessica was born 4 January 2004, exactly on my late father’s birthday, a healthy 3.9kg.  When Clint saw her it was like everything else just disappeared. Because of all the miscarriages I asked my doctor to sterilise me because I did not want any more children, he was initially against it (I was only 27 years old) but understood what we had been through and agreed to go ahead.

How we coped with everything in the end

We still speak about our lost babies today. Our girls know that I have lost babies, and understand what happened, but we always tell them it’s because God knew that there were two special girls out there for us and he was just testing to see if we were the perfect parents for them.

Kelsey is now 11 and Jessica is 6, they still ask if we would consider having anymore babies and we have told them that with the two of them we have everything we need.