Miscarriage
All the time I was pregnant with you, I had insomnia. It’s as though my body knew something was wrong, and was working to find a solution.
The solution came on a Tuesday morning, just after I got to work. We’d had warning that something ominous was happening the day before when we went for the seven-week scan. The sonographer said you were too little for a seven-week-old embryo, you looked more like a five-week-old. Except we were certain of the dates because we’d been doing cycle tracking with the IVF clinic and knew when I’d ovulated.
“Does it not look viable?” I asked, guessing that something wasn’t quite right.
“Oh no, it’s hard to tell this early. Let’s do a follow-up scan in another two weeks and we will know more then.”
I wasn’t as worried as I should have been. In my head, I came up with reasons why we might have got the dates wrong and you really were just a healthy five-week-old embryo. I longed to meet you again in a fortnight and watch your little heart beating like we watched Monty’s two years earlier. I’d been so excited that morning to meet my little girl — I’d decided you were a girl — and to continue on the path towards happily welcoming you into this world.
But on Tuesday morning, the pains began and when I went to the bathroom I realised it wasn’t merely spotting but bright, red blood flowing out of…