Little Bean lets go

Hi all, I hope you've had a good week. I must admit that I've been feeling pretty low for the past week or so, among other things that I won't go into here I had a negative pregnancy test and I'm still waiting for my period to come. I'm on day 35 and although I've been getting period pains there's absolutely no sign of AF. I want to get it over and done with now so we can try again in my next cycle but I can tell that isn't going to happen for some time. I've also been having pain in the area where Passenger was, I'm not sure what to do. However, one positive thing has happened this week, I got one half of my remembrance tattoo done in honour of our Little Bean. It's a feather in a sort of yin yang style black meaning feminine, representing me and Little Bean as the bright blue heart inside.

I'm super chuffed with the result, just waiting for the swelling to go down now! I'm getting the other half done on my other foot on Tuesday - white feather for masculine meaning Rob with Little Passenger inside as a bright pink heart. 

My last post took us to the end of 2015, on Jan 5th 2016 we moved into our current home in Peterborough nearby to Rob's parents and friends. It was (and still is actually) an old fashioned bungalow needing some decorative TLC but everything structurally solid and in working order. Rob started his new job literally the day after in Cambridge so I was left to unpack and clean the place up. I continued to bleed throughout those days leading up to this point, nothing so bad as the first night mind you, much more like a normal period but it dragged on and on. I was on the verge of tears continuously, I didn't sleep much. I became gradually withdrawn, sitting staring into space trying to process everything that had happened. I couldn't get my head around it all, so much had happened. I'd left a job I really liked for the past five years, I'd left the people I loved there, they were my support network through anything and I'd left when I needed them most. A miscarriage is truly awful at the best of times never mind when we were buying our first home, moving in and starting new jobs each. I've often thought whether it was that stress of the house that caused the miscarriage, is there anything I could have done differently? Should I have exercised more or less? Should I have changed my diet? All these unanswered questions spun around in my head from the moment I woke up until I finally got to sleep at night. 

I tried meditation to calm myself down, every night before bedtime I would sit in the dark and try so hard to clear my mind. I think it did help in some way, it helped me get to sleep faster but I don't know if that was my body shutting myself down. Unfortunately it didn't keep me asleep, I'd wake two, three, four times each night at least and struggle to get back to sleep again. When I was asleep I had vivid dreams, not nightmares as such where I'd wake up covered in a sheen of sweat but disturbing dreams where I would go through the miscarriage all over again. In other dreams I would be judged and spat at for miscarrying, like I had a choice. I would try explaining to the crowds of people surrounding me while I caught the clots in my trembling hands that this isn't what I wanted, I never ever wanted to lose this baby, it was snatched from me cruelly, unfairly and I couldn't help what was happening to me. There was another dream where I went though the miscarriage again then the next second I was looking at tiny feet in my hands, they were almost translucent, pink and wrinkly little things, unmoving and clammy. 

A couple of days later I went to our new local hospital for another scan to check the medical management had expelled all of the pregnancy tissue. Rob was at work, I know he would have come but with him starting a new job he didn't want to start on the wrong foot so his mum came with me. We waited in another early pregnancy unit waiting room, everyone had anxious faces. I don't know how anyone could work there, I couldn't drag myself out of bed everyday to see so much pain. Finally we were called in, there was a consultant and a sonographer in the room and they scanned me internally, I laid on the bed, I craned my neck round once again, Bean was gone. Tears rolled from the corners of my eyes and gathered in my hair and ears. Our Little Bean had let go of me. My mother-in-law held my hand tight, I had no words, just tremendous sadness knotted in my throat I could scarcely breathe. The miscarriage was over, it had taken four weeks. We were led into an office room, a different nurse came in with my paperwork and explained my uterus lining was still a little thickened. Again they gave me my options, wait two weeks, medical management or surgery. I couldn't take it anymore! I said surgery but the nurse was reluctant, she said it wouldn't normally be done that way for a thickened lining. I pushed further, I didn't want medical management again and I'd waited too long, I needed this to be over so I could start gathering my life back together again. She left the room and I went to do another pregnancy test, I noticed as I was walking back there was a heated discussion going on in the scanning room but I didn't think much of it and took my seat to wait for the nurse. A few minutes later she appeared and immediately said "I'm sorry but forget everything I just said ten minutes ago." The notes were wrong, Bean's gestational sac had been retained in my womb, the medical management had failed to a degree. Bean was still gone, he had let go and was now at peace but my body was desperately trying to keep hold of whatever was left of him. I really believe my grief had affected how my body reacted to the medication, I wasn't ready to let go, so I didn't. 

I broke down again, one minute I was being told that only a layer of uterine lining remained now I was told the medical management had only partially worked. I couldn't take this roller coaster of information. I couldn't take those medical management pills again. The nurse was horrified that a mistake had been made hence the heated discussion I had accidentally overheard. She told us that the consultant was able to perform surgery on me after seeing how emotional I was in the scanning room. It was by chance she was in there otherwise I may not have been given the choice of surgery. I was booked in to have the procedure the following morning and I went home feeling I'd been battered. My head throbbed, my eyes were puffy and bloodshot from crying, the darkness surrounding me slowly closed in. My soul dissolved a little further into nothingness.

I can't remember talking to Rob that night, I was numb, grief had enveloped me I guess as a coping mechanism, a sort of grief coma. My brain only contained thoughts of Bean and of surgery.