The First Trimester

Making it through the pregnancy loss danger zone

It’s official. I have made it through the first trimester, through all the most common times for miscarriage, past the dates of previous losses and into experiences I had only dreamed about.

I ‘graduate’ from my miscarriage clinic in a few weeks time and am currently weaning off of the drugs that have allowed this baby to thrive. It’s taken this long for the fog of early pregnancy to lift and allow me to even contemplate putting fingers to keyboard, with any structured thought.

The past months have been a blur of joy, anxiety, belief and doubt. My internal world shifting from concern to carefree on a loop; the serpent eating its tail. I had to learn how to balance the opposite thoughts of everything being over at my next scan, with everything being fine. Unfortunately most of my lived evidence was for the worst outcome — a few days before a scan I would sink into a low mood, playing what the sonographer would say to me over in my head. I’d start to feel into the physicality of receiving the news of a pregnancy loss, the drop of your heart, the panic trapped in your chest, the omnipresent question: “How will I survive this?”

But I learnt to quickly redirect my thoughts to facts. What did I know? I knew that I wasn’t bleeding (because every wipe of tissue was, and still is, inspected). I knew that I wasn’t in pain. I knew that I did have some pregnancy symptoms (a little trickier to convince myself of as the plethora of drugs I was taking cause such symptoms) but, my main marker of good was how fatigued I felt, how different it was to my other pregnancies.

Finally holding a scan photo at 6 weeks

Two weeks after the positive test I had my first scan and thankfully a scan every two weeks after that. Fourteen days is about the limit of loss anxiety, at which point you just HAVE to know. Before each of these scans the sonographer understanding my personal situation, would pause before scanning and ask “Are you ready?”—knowing that within seconds of inserting the probe the answer to ‘dead or alive?’ would be obvious. I didn’t get the ‘are you ready (to see your baby!)’ tone of question, more ‘are you ready (for the possibility of bad news)?’.

With each scan I grew a little more in belief and confidence. Alongside getting bigger and starting to actually look pregnant, each hurdle cleared moved me further into the good statistics. I remember getting ready for the first scan, deciding about what clothes to wear, based on the fact I may always remember that outfit as the one I was told I had lost another pregnancy in. I also didn’t put on mascara and brought sunglasses for the train back home, incase I would be freshly grieving on the 14:35 from Euston. By my 12 week scan I actually entered with 99% excitement to see my baby, I’m not sure the 1% ever goes away but to get to that mental state has been such a relief.

I also surprised myself by doing something so often avoided by those of us who have suffered pregnancy or baby loss.

I bought things.

The first purchase was the day after the positive test. Sheer adrenaline, I’m sure! I was on my way between my two clinics and saw the Jellycat toys I’ve always wanted to buy in the window of a shop and clearly remember thinking “Screw it I’m buying that damn peach!”. So I did. After my 6 week scan I bought my first ever babygrows. After my 8 week scan I decided to book my pregnancy with the midwives, to be handed that set of notes, hoping they wouldn’t end up in the recycling at a later date.

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At 11 weeks we found out that we are having a boy.

Getting to know this was so important to me, having never known the gender of my other babies. But it was an overwhelming moment. I dove dramatically from the high of finding out into the depths of an unexpected reactivated grief for my miscarriages. It was also now so real, the idea of anything happening from this point became a different monster. I wouldn’t just be losing a pregnancy, I’d be losing my son.

Now at 13 weeks, I’m working on allowing myself to connect to my boy. I tend to talk about him, not to him. I have been distant, protecting myself but also still mystified that this is actually happening. I think when I start to feel movements this should get easier, but of course I feel guilty that so far I haven’t embraced it all as I imagined I would.

I read a fantastic piece by Jennie Agg on her substack Life, Almost recently, that addresses this complex curiosity. She talks of how only now, three years into motherhood after multiple miscarriages, she is finally feeling settled into her matrescence. How there was so much guilt about having a successful pregnancy when you are all to aware of how others still suffer at the hands of conception difficulties.

Elsewhere, I made decisions for my new life, my new mother-self, as if with one eye half-shut, peering through my fingers; too afraid to give it my full attention or to commit too hard to the delicious, cringey-ness of new parenthood (especially as a person who is somewhat online). I was a lottery winner who didn’t know what to do with their newfound wealth.  

I can relate to Jennie’s experience and am now determined to embrace being the guilt-free lottery winner, spraying champagne and having a Harrod’s spree followed by ALL the holidays. I want to enjoy my pregnancy as much as possible as it’s highly likely to be my last one.

Like a rare flower set to bloom I want to focus on the beauty of this short, magical time — to trust implicitly that petals will unfurl, a sweet heady scent will release, that my eyes will view a beautiful sight. To just simply live this experience without a sense of demise.

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Jennie Agg is also the author of the book Life, Almost — a must-read about miscarriage and the search for answers as to why we still know so little about something so devastatingly common. I’d recommend it to all humans.