a common woman’s health experience
For Nicole and Shirley, there was certainty about the pregnancy ending, but this isn’t always the case. For some women, a diagnosis of miscarriage may be more drawn out.
Grace went to an Early Pregnancy Assessment Unit when she experienced pain during early pregnancy. She had not experienced any bleeding, but had a feeling that things “weren’t quite right”. An ultrasound was unable to locate the pregnancy. She was told her dates might be out and it might be too early to identify the pregnancy, or that it might be a miscarriage. She explained what happened next:
I had a [hormone] test and the levels [indicated] that I was lower in weeks than my actual dates … I had to go back two days [later] and have another test done.
The second blood test revealed that her pregnancy was not continuing, and Grace later miscarried.
Physical impact
Miscarriages are often understood to involve cramping and bleeding followed by the spontaneous expulsion of the foetus or pregnancy tissue. But this scenario rarely, if ever, happened to the women I interviewed. Indeed, miscarriages are often drawn out over days, weeks or even months.
When Miranda first contacted me, she said:
My missed miscarriage was identified quite early, at approximately seven to eight weeks … [but] the process has taken nearly three months.
When I first interviewed Miranda, she was still undergoing her miscarriage and did so for six months in total. While her experience is unusual, it illustrates how varied miscarriages can be.
a common woman’s health experience
Women are often told a miscarriage “will be like a heavy period”, yet most of the women I interviewed said that this is woefully inaccurate. Grace said:
This whole idea of a heavy period was not my experience. I was having contractions [and] passing a lot of blood.
‘I blame myself’
Many of the women I spoke with felt responsible for their miscarriage, as Liv described:
I still blame myself … I’ve had doctors, nurses, family, friends and everyone tell me not to blame myself, but I think I [always] will.
Anxieties about fertility and future reproduction were common, as was apprehension during subsequent pregnancies. Marianne told me:
I felt really anxious, especially between finding out I was pregnant at ten weeks and feeling the baby kick for the first time.
