This is going to be a vulnerable post about our experience trying to conceive because I think too often the journey goes unsaid, leaving women to feel totally alone in the process when it’s not as easy as they expected at the start. It’s also long and emotional, because there isn’t anywhere this is all recorded and I want to remember the details. That said, I know a lot of people had far more difficult journeys than us, and we are very lucky to be pregnant.

In April I decided to have my IUD removed so we could start trying, right after COVID struck. Everything went into lockdown and I couldn’t find anyone who would remove it, as it wasn’t an essential service. I called all over the country, tried multiple times to do it myself (I don’t recommend), and finally found a clinic who would do it. Luckily this was right before I was set to start my period, and though I didn’t have much hope for a first month conception, I was so excited to know we were really trying!

I immediately did everything I could to help our chances. I logged my temperature religiously every morning, took OPK tests to monitor ovulation, and timed intercourse pretty constantly through our fertile window.

I didn’t think I’d stress the first few months, and I didn’t. In my head I expected it to take about four months, so that was kind of where I was focusing.

Our First Pregnancy

Right at our fourth cycle, I was convinced I saw a second line on a cheap batch test. My husband couldn’t see it, but I KNEW I could. That night we met up with my friend and there was a double rainbow and I was so sure the next day I’d get confirmation.

And lo, the next day I took a first response and there was a very faint but clear line:

I immediately burst into tears and started planning the next five years of our lives. I called my mom and my best friend, I downloaded pregnancy apps, I registered with the midwife. I very naively thought getting pregnant was the hard part and took that I would stay pregnant as given. This baby was due April 14th, but the pregnancy faded away just a week later. My tests weren’t getting darker so I went in for a private blood test. It came back at only 7 HCG, which is in a weird limbo of pregnant or not (between 5-25 is inconclusive). A few days later I started bleeding, but by then I had realised it wasn’t viable.

Even though I was so early, I had been so naive, and was just completely blown over by grief. I knew miscarriages happened, but I just didn’t think it would happen to me. I was completely unprepared for losing the baby, and while you can never be prepared for that, it just stunned me. I tried to look on the bright side – I had proof I could get pregnant, but that didn’t reassure me (coming soon, a post about things not to say to people experiencing a loss!), because all I could think about were the dozens of causes that weren’t so innocent and could reoccur. Fine I had proof I could get pregnant but zero proof I could stay pregnant.

Our Second Pregnancy

After the loss I was really down. I was absolutely desperate to get pregnant again right away and feel like I was “back on track” and escape the trying to conceive hell of monitoring everything for signs of ovulation/pregnancy. Also because I had googled a million baby things in the week we were pregnant, all my targeted ads were about pregnancy and they were a horrible, constant reminder that I wasn’t anymore. We didn’t get pregnant the next month, and it took so much effort to feel remotely normal again – I forced myself to go running every day, we booked a last minute trip to Italy even though the thought of a trip exhausted me and I was sure I’d be miserable the whole time. Instead we had a lovely trip, I didn’t worry about tracking ovulation, and a week or so after we got home I was stunned to see another positive test.

This time I was much more guarded and a bit manic. I was JUST feeling happy again and of course I wanted to be pregnant but I knew I couldn’t handle another loss. I was mostly terrified but also super happy. I obsessively tracked my tests and was relieved to see them getting darker. This time I didn’t register with the midwife (and was still getting letters about my first pregnancy), didn’t do any of the apps, and was trying to be more careful.

I was a bit of a psycho however, arranging the tests out of order and making my husband put them back in order of darkness, so someone with more perspective could confirm they were progressing. Things went along normally for a few weeks, but I couldn’t stop feeling anxious. In the UK you don’t see anyone until a 12 week scan, so I decided to go in for another private hcg test for some reassurance. It came back fine, but the true test was if it would double in 48 hours, which is an important indicator for a healthy pregnancy, so I went back two days later. I sat at home, during the busiest period of work we have all year, obsessively refreshing my email. It finally came, I called my husband to open it on the phone with him. I opened it and saw that it had only gone up by like 10%, not anywhere near doubling. I was shocked – not in the sense that I was surprised but in the sense that I was too stunned to feel anything really. I didn’t cry right away – I went back to work for a few days, and just kind of turned off my feelings and tried to pretend none of it was happening.

I called my GP and she arranged for an early scan – I went in a few days later and while I was there I started spotting. My appointment hadn’t been registered correctly, and the receptionist was extremely rude, refused to let Gareth in with me even though everyone else had their partners (and I was in for a suspected miscarriage). I waited for 3 hours for her to fit me in, surrounded by happy pregnant people the entire time, before she told me they weren’t going to be able to see me and sent me home. It was one of the scariest, loneliest times. It took days to get this “appointment” and I was desperate to know what was happening and begin to move on. She told me she’d try to get me in “sometime that week,” though I never heard from her again. We called a different hospital who got me in that day. By then I was in a lot of pain and bleeding heavily and they were able to confirm an empty sac. That baby was due June 2nd.

This time I tried to keep it together more. I was so angry it was happening again, when I had just started feeling better after the first time. I didn’t feel I had the energy to pull myself back up again so was terrified to feel too much or let myself get too low. My GP wouldn’t run any tests until I’d had three losses, which added to my anger. And though I was surviving and trying to bottle it in, there were times the grief would hit like a wave out of nowhere and I would literally fall to the ground and sob. It was a primal ache, I can’t explain it, but I never wanted to experience it again.

I was sure we would however, and didn’t feel like just waiting around to lose another before anyone would do anything, so we went to a private clinic. They were really encouraging and felt positive with just a few interventions we’d be pregnant with one that stayed.

This was one of the most isolating times in my life, because I found that there are exceptionally few people who know how to talk about miscarriage unless they’ve had one themselves. People think they aren’t talked about because the women having them want to maintain privacy but every single woman I know who’s had one didn’t talk about it because the few times she did other people were the problem. They were too uncomfortable, they responded with toxic positivity (at least you got pregnant, at least you weren’t further along, at least, at least, at least). No one who is grieving needs their pain minimised, they need someone to offer sympathy and listen and not try to downplay how they are feeling. I digress.

This has gotten insanely long, so I’m going to stop here and save the rest for a part two.