An excerpt on pregnancy loss from Australian writer Isabelle Oderberg’s book, ‘Hard to Bear’

“I clearly didn’t have a problem getting pregnant, everyone tried to reassure me. But all I remember was more scans, more disappointment, more blood, more clots, more cramps, more pain.”

Each morning of each pregnancy I had a routine. Wake up, check my underwear for blood. Go to the toilet. Check the toilet paper for blood. Catch some urine, grab a cheap pregnancy test (you can order a hundred on Amazon for about $20), dip the stick. Take out the notepad. Use sticky tape to secure the stick to the paper, right below the others, note the date and time of the test and hop in the shower.

By the time I’d get out of the shower, the test would be complete. I’d look at the shade of the line. If the hCG in my body was increasing, so too would the darkness of the line. If the line was lighter than the day before it’s an indicator that all might not be well. This process involved a lot of squinting and significant lighting control. It was terrifically imprecise and unreliable.

It was not recommended by any doctor. They would have been horrified if they’d known I was doing it. But any crumb of comfort, no matter how small, was one I wolfed down hungrily. Every morning, the same ridiculous test, day after day, designed to ease the anxiety and help me survive one more morning, one more afternoon, one more evening, before I had to wake up and do it all again. Each day was a year.

The crawl towards the seemingly all-important twelve-week mark continued at a pace so slow it felt like my life was barely inching forward. And as I limped into bed each night as darkness fell, I would congratulate myself on one more day without bleeding. One more day, closer to the twelve-week watershed moment. One day closer to meeting my second living child.

 

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Loss number five came just six weeks after the fourth; I clearly didn’t have a problem getting pregnant, everyone tried to reassure me. But all I remember was more scans, more disappointment, more blood, more clots, more cramps, more pain. More hushed meetings in my boss’s office to explain why I needed to go home and why I wouldn’t be in tomorrow.

More of my son asking me why I was crying. More of my husband’s loud sighs of frustration. More of my mum’s sad eyes searching my face, looking for any indication that there was something she could do to help. The whole period is a blur. But I remember with precision the growing awkwardness between me and every single person in my life. People ran out of words, ran out of comfort.

In my mind they had run out of sympathy and patience. Of course no one wanted to be around me. No matter how upbeat I tried to be, I was the embodiment of grief and sadness. What do you say to someone whose life has become a constant cycle of death and loss?

I climbed the steps into the house. Alli and Carmen were already there. The latest miscarriage had been confirmed that morning. I walked into the room. I cracked jokes. Asked them how they were. But they wanted to know how I was. And as I looked at them, in a rare show of weakness, I let my guard down.

Just for a minute, but all the way down it came. Once the gate was open, it was a flood and I couldn’t stop the grief from escaping me, just like I couldn’t save the baby that was bleeding out of me. I remember repeating one line over and over as I tried to gulp down air and not choke on the tears streaming down my face.

“What am I going to do?” I looked up. Carmen and Alli were looking at each other. They looked scared. More than scared. They looked utterly panic-stricken. They had no idea what to say to me or how to react. Who can blame them?

I took three deep breaths and with a strength inside me that I didn’t know I had, I reigned in the tidal-wave of emotion I was surfing just moments before. I wiped my eyes and I gave them a soggy smile. “Sorry, no idea where that came from! I’m fine really.” I loved these women like sisters and I am still blessed enough to call them my friends. But they had run out of words. And so had I.

This excerpt is from Hard to Bear by Isabelle Oderberg, published by Ultimo Press on April 5 2023, RRP $36.99. You can get a copy here.