Charlie's Story (Ghostwriter)
TW: Miscarriage and baby loss
I have two beautiful little girls turning 5 and 2 this fall. They are incredible. My pregnancies with them were wonderful and relatively complication free, and I have never felt so beautiful as I have when I was expecting them. They are just light. I don’t know how else to describe my experiences with them, from their pregnancies to today except like that. They are light.
The other part of the story is that I have experienced three miscarriages and one known chemical pregnancy, as well.
My husband and I started trying to start out about two months after we got married. We both come from big families and knew we wanted a ton of kids. Cut to a year or so later, and we’re going into a fertility specialist on the recommendation of my GP. We started some very basic testing and blood work, and the only outlier was slightly low progesterone. I got on clomid soon after, with progesterone as soon as we had a positive test. Started out the very first cycle. We were over the moon. Happy tears - tell everyone as soon as possible, kind of happy. At this point we had been trying for just over a year and a half. Regular pregnancy, and then at ten weeks I woke up in the middle of the night to blood. When I went in that morning, there was no heartbeat. The fetus had stopped developing. About a week after that, I delivered the baby. I say delivered, because it was exactly like labour. This one was rough - the first time I’d ever experienced full-on grief personally.
Three months later, I started taking clomid again and started out the first cycle. Got on progesterone right away and carried to term. My eldest daughter was born in the hospital with a few delivery complications and a minor NICU stay.
Pregnancy number 3 just happened. My daughter was almost a year old, and we had just started trying that cycle (no clomid this time). I miscarried at seven weeks. Took a little break after that one. It takes courage to keep going when you know it could end so quickly.
Pregnancy number 4 came around eight months after we started trying again, with another clomid pregnancy. Got on progesterone again. Miscarried at 6 weeks, 4 days. This one broke me. My husband was out of town when I started bleeding and couldn’t get back for a few days. It can feel so alienating, but this time especially because he couldn’t get back. I still had my best friend with me and my mum, but I don’t know if I’ve ever felt so alone. I don’t think he has either. Those moments of being apart were so hard for both of us.
We started trying again after 1 normal cycle and I cracked down on my health. (For reference, I was fairly healthy and right on the edge of normal BMI. I started exercising more (specifically yoga) and eating better. Three months later I started out without clomid. That first trimester I was an anxious wreck. But that fall, I had my little girl at home. Such a beautiful birth and it was full cloud nine for the first two weeks after.
Cut to November 2020, pregnancy number 6. We decided to start trying again. I was in the best shape I’d ever been in. I decided to test early and got a positive. Tested again 2 days later, but the line was lighter. I start to panic a little and a couple days after my missed period start bleeding and have a negative test.
So, I went in again. Had a whole host of hormonal blood work done. I’m a good weight, I’m young, I’m healthy and exercise regularly. I’m a pinnacle of health with the only indicator being slightly low progesterone. So now I’m on a progesterone supplement and if I miscarry again after this, back to the drawing board and getting a lot more intense with the testing.
I can’t quite describe what it’s like to experience death within your own body. I know it’s an experience so many women know, but even four times in, it is such a physically hollowing experience. Outside of the emotional grief, your body itself is in mourning and labor and healing all at the same time. And you watch as life literally drains out of you.
And even here, there is hope. There is so much information, and so many options at our disposal. There is so much joy in my marriage and it is so much stronger because we weathered these storms together. There are downs, oh my, there are downs. But I hope I can still find the ups, as I keep going towards baby number 3. I genuinely love being pregnant and hope so much that everyone looking at this journey finds the same joy I have found in my pregnancies (all 6 of them) as I have. And if you experience some of the same depths I have, please know you are not alone. I know. I promise I know that it feels that way. But I promise there is light. If you could meet my girls, I know you’d agree.
WRITTEN BY CHARLIE - GHOSTWRITER
*Please note the names of our writers in this section have been changed to ensure their privacy*
Are you at the beginning of your TTC journey? Looking for some expert-led educational sessions and a supportive community to be there for the questions you don’t want to ask?…..
