1-15 mei 2018 sterretjesgroep

Ik denk dat ik deze vraag het beste kan beantwoorden door mijn facebook profiel te citeren, waar ik vorige maand uitgebreid stil heb gestaan bij "Pregnancy Loss and Stillbirth Awareness month". De dagen na de feitelijke miskraam, toen ik zo zwakjes was dat ik amper mijn telefoon vast kon houden, heb ik zelfs nog met plaatjes, links en citaten aandacht besteed aan dit thema. Kort voor mijn verjaardag besloot ik er een eind aan te breien en mij voorlopig weer meer te richten op andere dingen. Ik deed dat met het volgende door mij geschreven bericht (edited: Mijn naam en die van mijn dochter even veranderd in mijn gebruikersnaam):

As October is entering its last week, I would like to wrap up my posts about “Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month” by sharing some thoughts with you. This is probably going to be long, so bear with me (or scroll on if it’s too much, zero judgement if you do).

In the first half of June this year, I lost a pregnancy at 7½ weeks. When October rolled around, I decided to seize the opportunity to “come out in public” about my loss, about an embryo who is now in our family called “Rainbow” . What happened was beyond anything I expected. The messages of support were heartwarming, but the most remarkable were the replies in which people said “This happened to me too.” I have people in my circle of family and friends who experienced pregnancy loss without me even knowing that this life altering event had happened. And by the way, so do you. I knew that the official number is 1 in 4, but what that meant in my own circle of family and friends almost took my breath away. Pregnancy loss is often a silent, hidden grief. Why is that so?

I turned out to be a person who grieves loudly (heck, I’m a singer, so I do almost everything loudly, unless a p for piano is explicitly required). Perhaps some people can draw learning and/or inspiration from my loudness. Not everybody grieves loudly. Some people feel most comfortable keeping this specific type of grief more silent, to only share it with close family and perhaps a few friends. Everybody has their own style and comfort zone, and that is how it should be.

But too often, it is still, in this time and age, perceived inappropriate to talk about pregnancy loss, and people far too often feel like they have to keep their pregnancy loss a secret. Because society expects it. Because it’s supposed to be no big deal. Because we don’t want to make other people uncomfortable. Now there’s the part I am not fine with, and that is why I went on a journey this month to create some awareness on the topic of “Pregnancy and Infant Loss”. The journey was interesting, cathartic, and unfortunately also a lot different than I was hoping.

On October 12, a week after an emergency ultrasound that revealed that this outcome was inevitable, I lost another pregnancy at almost 11 weeks. This time around, it was physically a lot more difficult, and recovery took quite a while. I am, in fact, still in the middle of it. After talking to my husband, I decided to continue to share, and to make “Lunababy” , as this embryo was named in our family, known to my circle of family and friends. I continued to try and find inspiring, insightful articles and images, despite barely being able to hold up my phone for more than 5 minutes during those first few days. I was determined.

The outpour of support was heartwarming. My Dutch friend who was staying with us for a few days when we received the bad news cooked, did dishes, and vacuumed when we felt too numb to think. A great friend of ours, who is a doula, stayed with us while the miscarriage was in progress, offering support, insight and encouragement. Others brought in no-effort meals, took over Raketje for a couple of hours, or sometimes an entire day. My awesome in-law family sent us a bouquet of flowers with a lovely card attached. Others wrote words of support in emails, text messages, post cards… We felt wrapped in love as we went through one of the most difficult events in our lives, and that is something we will never forget and are incredibly grateful for.

There are some details about miscarriage that are often unknown until you experience them, and it is different for everyone.
It is not nearly always “like a heavy period”. It can be. Neither of mine was. Mine were much more intense, messy and labour-like than that.
Hormones often crash and you can go through some pretty startling mental experiences. At night, what kept me awake was the intrusive and unrealistic worry that our house would split in two and would swallow what remained of my little family into a sinkhole, no matter how much my conscious brain (which was thank goodness also still present) told me that the odds of that are almost as small as the odds of winning the lottery without buying a ticket. I thought I was going crazy. I wasn’t going crazy. It was hormone and grief induced anxiety.
There is the fact that it feels like all of a sudden we have 3 children, yet at the same time, we have only one. Both these truths now exist for us in our lives, and it is hard to describe how that feels. When I became a parent, I made a promise to accept my children exactly the way they are. Two of my children were unable to make it past the embryonic stage. I have to accept that. I am also still their parent.
And then there is what I saw, heard and smelled when I managed to poke a little peephole through the cloud of grief and pain for the first time. I smelled garbage and dirty cat litter, and I saw fruit flies and dying plants. It’s what happens when all you can do is throw dirty dishes and food scraps on the counter for days on end. The cleanup is still ongoing. Most of the plants survived, at least there is that.
Then there is the first time I smiled again. It was like a thousand needles poking through my chest. Grief is complicated like that. The first time I went outside. Surreal. Sunshine on my skin, rain. Light and dark. The painful beauty of Autumn.

My hunger for “things that don’t feel bad” was, and still is, enormous. Yesterday I went back to choir and rarely, or never, have I been happier to be singing again. It was beautiful and healing. I am typing this message while eating chocolate at 7 AM. Why? Because I wanted chocolate at 7 AM. I lie on the softest sheets, I pull out the good dishes (partially because the normal dishes are still waiting to be washed), I light the special-occasions-candle, I watch all the animated Disney movies with my family, and I eat the gourmet foods. If you see me walk around next week wearing the best clothes and catch me on a rare day where I wear make-up for no apparent reason at all, you’ll know why.

Life is slowly moving on to a new normal in my family, and we have things we can now look forward to, like my birthday and Halloween. I am starting to embrace normal things again. It’s a process though. I will stumble and fall, and get up again and move forward. At some point, I may become pregnant again. I may tell you as soon as I see two lines on a test, or later, or very late, or after a live birth, or after a loss, or maybe not until the kid goes off to college (“In hindsight, I admit I was pregnant 18 years ago”). I don’t know yet. I do know that I will most likely be going though challenging times of worry and hope. I also do know I can count on the incredibly supportive people around me, and that warms my heart in ways you cannot imagine. Thank you.

-Raket78, October 24, 2017.

 

Wat spannend, die tuurstreepjes! Ik ben benieuwd.

De afspraak met de gynaecoloog vandaag was een aanfluiting. We kwamen binnen, en ik kreeg onmiddellijk een potje in mijn handen gedrukt om in te piesen. Geen probleem op zich, maar wel wat vreemd. We waren vrij snel aan de beurt. Dokter komt binnen, schudt de hand en vraagt hoe oud ik ben (reageert enigszins vreemd op mijn antwoord) of dit mijn eerste zwangerschap is... Ik zeg dat ik niet zwanger ben, hij mompelt dat hij zo terug is en rent de deur van de spreekkamer uit om de doorverwijzing te halen, die hij vervolgens even leest. Dan vraagt hij wat hij voor me kan doen. Ik leg uit: 1 dochter uit 2013, 2 miskramen in 2017, beide gestopt 6w4d, nog steeds kinderwens, en dat ik makkelijk zwanger raak maar we ons afvragen of er een oorzaak voor de miskramen is. Hij zegt dat hij een schildkliertest aanraadt en een of andere procedure waarbij ze vloeistof in mijn baarmoeder pompen en dan een röntgenfoto en echo maken. Ik uit mijn twijfels over de echo, hij wuift ze weg, maar zegt wel dat ik altijd kan weigeren als ik dat wil, en dat hij meestal pas iets doet na 3 miskramen.
Binnen 2 minuten nadat de dokter binnen kwam, stonden we weer buiten.
De test blijkt een algemene bloedtest (rode en witte bloedlichaampjes en zo) te zijn plus TSH, FSH, LH en prolactine. Ik heb het eens opgezocht, en zo te zien zijn deze testen eerstelijns testen om te achterhalen waarom een vrouw niet ovuleert/zwanger wordt, dan wel of ze (bijna) in de menopauze zit. Hallo, ik ovuleer EN raak zwanger, dat is het probleem niet. Er is geen reden om aan te nemen dat ik tegen menopauze aan zit. Ik verwachtte niets van de resultaten. Inmiddels heb ik de uitslag (je kunt hier online inloggen op de website van het lab om je resultaten te bekijken) en inderdaad staat er niets interessants in. Met uitzondering van de algemene bloedtest, want mijn hemoglobine is nog steeds te laag, en een paar andere resultaten zijn als gevolg daarvan ook nog niet helemaal normaal. Dat is het enige wat nog enigszins boeiend is.

Deze man luisterde niet, negeerde mijn man, schreef de verkeerde bloedtesten voor en veegde ons letterlijk binnen 2 miinuten de deur weer uit. We denken er sterk over om het hier voor nu bij te laten en hopen op meer geluk in de nabije toekomst, maar we hebben wel even wat recensies van gynaecologen opgezocht voor het geval we er ooit weer een nodig hebben. Bij deze gyn ga ik niet terug.