Below are posts that I transferred from a previous blog that I wrote in 2020 called the Life Undressed Blog (that I have now closed down). These posts are about my experience of three consecutive miscarriages, one round of failed IVF, and severe nausea and vomiting in pregnancy (hyperemesis gravidarum) – which all thankfully ended in a beautiful Rainbow Baby.
<Note that the links in this post may not be working properly – they will be updated soon!>.
The first miscarriage
It was July 2018 when I thought that I was pregnant for the second time in my life. I was 38.
We were semi-sweltering in Dubai (only semi because of air con), on our way back home to Australia after seeing family in the UK. The first time that I was pregnant was with our 3-year-old son. I guess the fact that I have one healthy child might make you immediately feel less sorry for me based on the title of this blog post (a miscarriage after giving birth to a baby is called ‘secondary infertility‘). However, it hasn’t always made me feel less sorry for myself.
I thought that I was pregnant because I had uterus aches and pains that felt somehow different to a period that was on its way. I also had breast twinges that felt different to a usual menstrual cycle. (I have since realised that such symptoms aren’t always a sign of pregnancy). We had only been ‘trying’ (to get pregnant) for a month or so. Seeing as I ‘fell’ (on a penis?) pregnant with our son in the first few months of trying, I had expectations that it wouldn’t take long the second time around, either.
I didn’t do a pregnancy test until we were back in Sydney, partly because it was busy for us while we were getting ready for the imminent DXB-SYD flight; partly because my partner was hesitant to do one in Dubai, when I was only about one day late with my period. I felt annoyed at him, but looking back, I can see that he was just scared of the disappointment that would ensue after any negative test result.
I ‘peed on a stick’ (not from the woods, but as a part of an at-home pregnancy test) the evening after we got home, when I was just a few days late with my period. You’re meant to use your first-morning wee, which may have been the reason why the test didn’t work. I wasn’t too bothered about this, even though I only had one test to hand. Such not-bothered-ness was because I ‘just knew’ that I was pregnant. We ended up having a terrible few nights with our jet-lagged toddler, and so the subsequent days were a bit of a blur. I didn’t get around to buying another test for nearly a week. I did, however, WhatsApp a close friend during that time to say, ‘I can pretty much tell you I’m preggo’.
5 weeks pregnant
When I finally got around to buying another test and doing it at home, again in the evening (oops), it was indeed positive. I felt vindicated, excited, scared, and happy; all at once. A mix of emotions that were mainly pleasant! I completed an online due date calculator, which said: ‘Your baby is expected on Thursday 14th March, 2019. You are currently 5 weeks pregnant’. Result.
My sense of smell had already started to do its pregnancy thing, becoming heightened and averse to certain scents, like dry shampoo. My appetite had also changed, with cravings starting for things like white naan bread, juices, and smoothies. Unfortunately, the cravings were associated with one of the most difficult pregnancy symptoms, the dreaded nausea.
6 weeks
My partner and I had called our first child ‘Roger’ when he was in utero (based on the word rogered). I was discussing a new nickname for this baby with the close friend, “How about Colin? Or Shane?”, she suggested. “Haha, good ones, but we need a unisex name, no?”, I replied. Lots of people give their unborn children names of food, like peanut or something, because foods are often used to imagine the size of an embryo or foetus at a given week of pregnancy. When I got to being 6 weeks pregnant, I apparently had an alien-looking lentil residing in my body. To me, the process of pregnancy has always been seriously magical. I often call it a ‘scientific miracle’, which doesn’t really make any sense, but hopefully you’re picking up what I am putting down.
The debilitating pregnancy fatigue kindly entered my life at around 6 weeks, and the nausea increased. I was fearful of the sickness turning into something truly evil, like it had done during my son’s pregnancy. That time, I didn’t have the worst type of sickness that you can get when pregnant, hyperemesis gravidarum; rather ‘severe nausea and vomiting of pregnancy’. Which is, as it sounds, bad enough! I was on ondansetron anti-nausea medication then until I was about 4-5 months pregnant. But, let’s get back to the current pregnancy.
I remember being in an Uber and finding the driver’s body odour more than unpleasant – it was abhorrent. I had to open the window to put my head outside as covertly as possible, much like a panting dog. I could no longer drink – or even smell – coffee, the slightest aroma of it turning my stomach. I hadn’t started vomiting yet, and the nausea was still manageable enough; so I felt inwardly content and special with the embryo person that was happily growing away inside of me.
7-9 weeks
The nausea ramped up a notch around 7 weeks and became more severe and constant, with the vomiting starting. The only occasional silver lining to the vomiting was that sometimes it temporarily reduced the nausea from a subjective rating of severe to moderate. Feeling so sick made me decide that this was going to be my last pregnancy! And it also brought out the maternity jeans from the depths of my wardrobe to reduce as much pressure as possible on my poor, ailing abdomen. I spoke with my obstetrician on the phone, who is also an old and dear friend, and he sent me a prescription for the ondansetron anti-nausea medication. Thank goodness. However, the medicine didn’t take away the nausea, but rather reduced it (sometimes), and prevented vomiting (sometimes).
I told my work about the pregnancy as I needed to explain that I felt horrendous with sickness and tiredness most of the time. I brought in a duvet and pillow from home for the vital activity of office floor naps so that I could continue to manage work.
The food and drinks that my body instructed me to eat now included salt and vinegar crisps, cheese and tomato toasties, ice blocks (particularly lemonade ones and Frosty Fruits), sorbet, wheat biscuits, Milo, hot chocolate, and weirdly, salads. I could mostly keep food down thanks to the drugs, but the nausea was still pretty constant and depressing. It even reached ‘atrocious’ levels after taking several ondansetron pills on a few occasions. I just wanted to sit on a couch alone all day, every day. I felt isolated, lonely, scared, and angry. I struggled to cope with my badly-sleeping-toddler, partner, and a busy workload. I cried regularly, sometimes wondering if I was weak to do so (more self-compassion needed there). I felt trapped in my nausea prison.
Ondansetron doesn’t come without its side effects. It can be acutely constipating. I was taking measures to try to prevent constipation, but it’s very hard to avoid it, even with laxatives and other medical aids. With my history of ‘benign anorectal disease’ (partly due to struggling with bulimia as a young person), my haemorrhoids and fissures came back with gusto. I dreaded going to the toilet and regularly cried out in pain whilst producing bloody poo.
10 weeks
It was Tuesday the 14th of August, 2018, and I was over 10 weeks pregnant. We were in our first appointment with our obstetrician. We all began with a chat, partly about my awful nausea, and then I proceeded to climb up onto the doctor’s reclining chair thingy for an ultrasound to see how the wee bub was doing in the sicko environment of my poor body!
I remember looking at the ultrasound screen, partly waiting to see two embryos in my uterus. I had always wondered if I would have twins; because my father is a fraternal one, which apparently runs in families.
“Beela (my childhood nickname that only old friends, like our obstetrician, use), I’m so sorry…”.
I waited to hear him say, “It’s twins” (because twins would be HARD). Instead, the words that came out of his mouth were a colossal shock, “You’ve had a miscarriage”.
I stared at him, dumbfounded. I never expected a miscarriage to happen to me – it was something that happened to other people. He proceeded to explain that I had an anembryonic pregnancy – also called a blighted ovum – which is where there is an embryonic sac present, but no embryo. A ‘ghost pregnancy’ that had given me pointless nausea for the last 5 weeks. I started to cry.
Looking back, my response over the coming days to this crippling news was unusually upbeat. I did feel sad, but I also felt grateful for what I already had in my life. I think that I also assumed that there was no way that I would have another miscarriage, and that after I had recovered from this one, we could try again for another baby and everything would be ok.
There was the option to wait to miscarry naturally, or have a d&c (dilatation and curettage). A d&c is where the contents of the uterus are scraped out under general anaesthetic, which for me would include the placenta, embryonic sac, and any remaining ‘products of conception’ that were our failed child. Seeing as I felt so sick, and because I couldn’t bear the thought of just ‘waiting’ until my body recognised that it housed a non-viable pregnancy and started bleeding it out, we opted for a d&c.
11 weeks
Our obstetrician couldn’t fit me in for the d&c for 3 days and 2 nights, during which time I became 11 weeks ‘pregnant’. Those days felt like a lifetime because of the ongoing nausea – and because of the new knowledge that there was a futile poison inside of me. I felt like my body had been tricked, or that it was stupid in failing to recognise that there wasn’t a whole embryo present.
I still went to work on one of those ‘waiting days’ because I had so much work to do. I don’t remember if I cried. I’m sure I did. During that time, I looked into miscarriage, including the statistics. I learned that when a pregnancy reaches 13 weeks, the chance of miscarriage is lower. I also learned that time was not on my side, and that the rate of miscarriage increased greatly with age – could I expect almost a 1/3 chance of miscarrying again?
I had my first d&c in the evening of Friday the 16th of August, 2018. Afterwards, I had sore uterus and mild nausea. I thought that I had to stay overnight in hospital after the ‘procedure’, but apparently I didn’t have to. I chose to stay after all, as this would give me a night off my toddler to rest. Little did I know that the cannula had to stay in my arm overnight, and that the nurses were required to check in on me every 2-4 hours! At least I got to watch The Bachelor in some kind of peace before lights out, and be taken care of.
I took this selfie whilst I was in hospital. I realise that I look pretty perky – which worried my obstetrician. He told me to make sure that I let myself feel the grief of the miscarriage. I am not sure if my overly-bright outlook at that time was due to the d&c medication, the lowered nausea, the assumption that I would never have to experience another miscarriage again, or what. I can tell you that the next two years slowly but surely drained most of my bounce away.
The second miscarriage
After the first miscarriage, my period took about a month to return. Our obstetrician told us that we could ‘try again’ (for a baby) after that first bleed, but I didn’t feel ready then. It took a couple of months for my body and mind to recover enough to re-enter the fertility lottery.
I thought that I was pregnant after the first month of trying. I was estimating the times for ovulation and period arrival using an iPhone app, which of course has its limitations. Again, I had uterus and boob twinges and pains that felt different to a usual menstrual cycle, so I hurriedly did several at-home pregnancy tests before and after my period’s due date. Each time, my heady anticipation was met with a negative result and a crushing wave of disappointment. I was 3 days late with my period when the blood of failure came.
Fortunately, I got pregnant during the second month of trying, in December, 2018. Yet again, I had uterus and breast pangs during that menstrual cycle that ‘felt like pregnancy’. But this time, I managed to wait until I was 3 days late with my period before I did an at-home pregnancy test. Which was victoriously positive. I tried my best to keep my excitement in check, because I knew that I had an increased risk of another miscarriage because of my age and previous miscarriage. But I couldn’t fully contain the feelings of joy and hope. This time I believed that it would all be ok.
5 weeks pregnant
The fatigue and nausea started quickly, as usual. Ugh, it felt so awful. Again. What didn’t feel awful, however, was the weird-but-magical creation flourishing inside my uterus.
6 weeks
It was 6 weeks to the day when the more hardcore nausea and vomiting started, with a vomit occurring in the gutter outside my son’s childcare one morning. I felt bad for leaving vomit where parents park their cars whilst dropping off or collecting their children, and tried to cover it up with street debris as best I could. As with my second pregnancy, I immediately started ondansetron anti-nausea medication to prevent more vomiting. However, the nausea was still constant and made me feel like I was rotting inside. Thankfully, I sometimes managed to experience flickers of the hangover-like enjoyment of some foods – like a beef burger with beetroot and egg (when I am not pregnant, I am more of a vegetarian).
Some kind friends gave me a pregnancy journal to write in – they also obviously thought that this pregnancy would ‘stick’. I didn’t instantly put pen to that paper, because it was hard to feel upbeat when I felt so sick – and I didn’t want to look back at nauseated wailings once this baby was born.
7 weeks
At 7 weeks and 2 days pregnant, on the 25th of January, 2019, we had an appointment with our obstetrician. It was much earlier than the 10-week appointment that we had with the first miscarriage pregnancy, precisely because of that first miscarriage. That is, it was better to know if it was a second miscarriage sooner rather than later. We dropped our son to a friend’s house, with me jokingly saying to her, “It’s best that Angus isn’t with us for this appointment in case it’s another miscarriage!”. I say jokingly, because I never, ever thought that life would be cruel enough to deal me a second miscarriage. Unfortunately, I was wrong.
I confidently climbed onto our obstetrician’s bed-thing, slightly lifting up my top and moving my pants down to expose my lower abdomen, ready for the external ultrasound. As our doctor began to scan, I watched his face intently, before studying the ultrasound screen. Back to his face, then the screen. I could see an embryo! But? My breath caught in my throat. Something wasn’t right. It couldn’t be another miscarriage, could it?
And then those words came, those same old words that I had heard some 5 months previously. “I’m so sorry, you’ve had a miscarriage”.
I was utterly stunned. Surely this couldn’t happen twice! It just wasn’t possible, was it? I started to cry.
Apparently there was indeed an embryo inside my uterus, but it wasn’t looking good. It was too small, and there was no heartbeat. Our doctor said, “Just to be sure, let me send you across the hallway (of the hospital where his consulting room was) to get an internal (vaginal) ultrasound, which is more detailed. If it’s definitely a miscarriage, then we can maybe get you in for another d&c today”. Off I sloped with slumped shoulders and tears running down my face to sit in a waiting room with my partner, alongside several heavily pregnant women – which felt like a cruel joke.
We were kindly placed at the front of the queue, so we didn’t have to wait too long to be seen. A gentle lady ushered us into the ultrasound room, where I proceeded to get ready for what she called ‘the intruder’ to be inserted into my vagina! I managed a small giggle at this funny name for the internal ultrasound probe. My partner and I anxiously watched the ultrasound screen as this intruder gave us amazing images of my uterus and the baby that was inside. She was hopeful, “The baby is measuring small, at 6 weeks and 2 days, but there is the beginning of a heartbeat. It’s not a lost cause yet!”. I felt a surge of hope.
We returned to our obstetrician’s consulting room to discuss the results of the vaginal ultrasound. He said that it was still very likely a miscarriage, but that it would be best to wait another week to find out for sure, as there was a small chance that it was a viable pregnancy.
The following week of waiting was awful. I felt sick, drained, low, alone – in fact, totally screwed up. I tried to hold off on any grief for another lost baby, because it wasn’t certain yet – but that was hard, especially as the loss was apparently very likely. I kept my mind distracted as much as possible with work and home life. One evening, I was hanging out some washing in the garden that we shared with our landlords, who lived above us in a duplex house. One of the landlords came through the garden and asked me how I was. I started crying when I told her what was happening, and she told me not to be sad. She may have meant well, but her words weren’t helpful. It’s so interesting how uncomfortable some people can be with heartache, with bad situations – when it’s normal to be sad.
The nausea that continued in this Waiting Week was still pretty bad. It was so tough to not be able to manage my usual activities around physical activity, eating, sleeping, work, and socialising. The sickness invaded and tarnished every aspect of my life. It was doubly hard to bear because of the uncertainty surrounding the point of it all. Was the nausea in vain? Or wasn’t it?
One day at work, I was feeling very sick and reached into my handbag to get some ondansetron. However, it wasn’t there, and I realised that I had left it at home. I was chatting through this predicament with a good friend on WhatsApp – do I go home now to get the meds and miss a work meeting, or stay at work and risk the nausea getting worse and vomiting? It turned out that this friend was near our house, and so she offered to pick up the drugs (using our hidden house key, ssh) and drop them to me at work. I usually find it very hard to let people do things for me (why is that…?), but this time I accepted her considerate offer. She called me when she had arrived at my work in her car, and I rushed downstairs from my office to meet her. I jumped into the passenger seat. She had just gotten a spray tan and said to me, “Only touch my palms, please!”, which made me laugh. She then gave me my meds, and I started crying because I was so grateful. Then she started crying. Then we realised that her tears would possibly leave white sadness lines on her tanned face, which made us laugh through our tears. I’ll never forget that moment.
8 weeks
I was 8 weeks and 2 days ‘pregnant’ when we returned to our obstetrician to have another external ultrasound on the 31st of January, 2019. Thankfully, I was ‘pencilled in’ for another d&c after the ultrasound, in the likely event of a second miscarriage. We may as well have scheduled the procedure in permanent ink, because it was indeed a miscarriage. The embryo had not grown, and there was no heartbeat.
I told my partner to go to work, because I didn’t mind being alone in the hospital while I waited to have my second d&c. Our obstetrician had recommended a miscarriage support network to us during our appointment with him, The Pink Elephants Support Network, and I spent some time looking at their helpful site. Then I just wanted to forget what was happening and so I watched some Netflix.
I was getting used to being wheeled around the hospital in a gown, as it was now my third time having such a trolley ride. The first was for the emergency caesarean section during my son’s birth, the second during my first d&c. I felt cared for and safe, particularly because our obstetrician was also an old friend – who I loved dearly. I was also glad to be there because I wanted the dead embryo out of my body as soon as possible.
There’s something really enjoyable about the wakeup from the procedure – it’s like being supremely relaxed whilst half asleep. Such positive feelings would, of course, be due to the drugs that are given during the d&c. Unfortunately, there aren’t many other pleasant things associated with it. For example, the uterus pain afterwards can be pretty bad and can last for more than a couple of days. I remember being back at work and having pelvic contractions that were so bad that they made me wince. I also had a bruise from the cannula, but it wasn’t really sore and looks worse than it was (I like it when that happens, because you get more sympathy than you need!).
After the d&c, my dad came to pick me up from the hospital and I went to my parents’ apartment to stay the night. Just like with the first miscarriage, I was feeling unusually sparky that night. Again, due to the drugs. Also maybe due to the much-reduced nausea, and the hope of trying for another baby when I felt ready after my next period – which would surely only be some months away. Little did I know that the next time trying to get pregnant wouldn’t be as easy as it had been the previous 3 times.
The third miscarriage
Two miscarriages was enough, wasn’t it? I felt that life couldn’t deal me a third, that would be just too cruel.
After the second miscarriage, I didn’t feel physically well for quite some time. Once the uterus pain had eventually subsided, I caught a few cold-type viruses – presumably from my toddler. Plus, I was sleep-deprived from said child’s terrible sleeping habits.
About 4 weeks after the second d&c, I had spotting that lasted for 2.5 weeks. Which must have comprised my first period after the procedure. We were ‘allowed’ to ‘try again’ (for a baby) straight away after this bleed – and whether I really felt ready physically or emotionally – I wanted to get going. I wasn’t getting any younger than 39 any time soon. And wasn’t there a high chance that my ‘geriatric’ age was the whole problem here?
The first month of trying
In March, 2019, my breasts were again telling me that I was pregnant (cue an image of comic breasts with talking faces. Would the nipples be the noses?) . I had to consider the cost:benefit of being excited vs. keeping any elation dampened – especially because breast (and uterus) twangs that felt different to a usual period had stopped being reliable indicators of pregnancy for me. Because of this past unreliability, I reduced my pregnancy tenacity from 95% to 90% (I know, a huge drop). I further reduced the number to a low 20% after I did an at-home pregnancy test in the middle of the day that was negative. I refused to go lower until I had done a pregnancy test at the right time of the day (i.e. the morning)! Unfortunately, I didn’t need to do another test, as my period arrived – alongside a pregnancy confidence value of 0%.
The second month
The second month of trying included another cold, and a hangover – the latter of which I felt quite guilty about, because I could have been pregnant at the time (surely I was – it had never taken me more than 2 months to get pregnant in the past?). I did an at-home pregnancy test the evening of the hangover. That particular test involved a second line showing up in the result window to signal pregnancy – and I could see a really faint second line! I was sure that when I did another test the following morning – at the recommended time – the positive line would be confidently bold. Alas, I shouldn’t have been so sure. The faint positive line wasn’t there anymore, no matter how hard I peered at the result window. I felt sad and angry at this tease, but I also clung to some hope that the morning’s test was wrong. Part delusional, part because I hadn’t had my period yet – which had been due a few days earlier. Unfortunately, my period then arrived, and I dejectedly hammered in the final nail on that month’s pregnancy coffin.
The third month
The third month of trying involved us using an at-home ovulation kit for the first time, which is meant to give you a more accurate indication of when you are ovulating – and therefore when it is ideal to have sex (uhm, no pressure). You pee on an ovulation test stick first thing in the morning – much like you wee on a pregnancy test stick – and this particular test window showed flashing smiley faces or solid smiley faces to indicate high or optimal peak fertility, respectively. I peed on 9 sticks over 9 successive mornings, with flashing smiley faces blinking at me inanely each time. Apparently such a pattern meant that I was unlikely to get an ideal solid smiley face that cycle. I didn’t totally understand what that meant, and assumed that I had still ovulated at some stage – especially because I swore that I had felt ovulation happen. So, we tried a few times to get some sperm to meet up with a potential egg. And I was hopeful. Perhaps too hopeful, because I even thought that my period arriving was ‘implantation bleeding‘. When that happened, I realised how badly I wanted to be pregnant, and how out-of-whack my fertility felt.
The fourth month
At the beginning of the fourth month, in June, 2019, I spoke with my obstetrician on the phone about getting pregnant again. When I told him the varying lengths of my menstrual cycle over the previous few years, he said that it would be best to do morning blood tests for ovulation in a fertility clinic, because they are more accurate than the at-home ovulation wee tests. He also suggested considering ovulation induction medication to ensure that I was actually releasing an egg each month. I was unsure what to do about the medication. The more ‘natural’ way generally feels the best, doesn’t it? With pregnancy, anyway – perhaps not with a heart attack! I chatted the options through with my partner, friends, and parents. And settled on the ‘unnatural’, action-based ovulation drug road.
It turned out that it was too late to do the ovulation blood tests that month, but I was just in time to start the ovulation induction meds – which I took for about 5 days. I had an internal vaginal ultrasound just before the estimated date of ovulation to check what the drugs were doing to my ovaries. I cried with relief when I saw that one egg was about to be released from each ovary – meaning that my body was working! I wasn’t broken!
I thought that I felt ovulation pains again in each ovary over the following few days. Imagined or not, who knows. At that point, my partner and I were were pretty sick of the clinical scheduling of sex. But that’s all I will say about that.
About a week later, I smelled a mandarin that someone was peeling on the street, and wondered if I was already experiencing pregnancy’s heightened sense of smell. My life had become so focused on getting pregnant, I didn’t know what was real anymore. About 10 days after the ultrasound, I felt what was either pregnancy twinges or period pains in my uterus. Then I had a bit of bleeding. I clung to the idea that it was implantation bleeding until my period assured me that it was not some 2 days later.
The fifth month
I took ovulation induction drugs again at the beginning of July, our fifth month of trying to get pregnant; as well as going for blood tests to track my ovulation. Both gave me more of a sense of control and action over the whole process, which helped. However, I did wonder if the ovulation drugs made me (extra) angry, and gave me headaches.
My first ovulation tracking blood test was on Monday the 8th of July, 2019. I went to the fertility clinic first thing that morning, and received a phone call later that afternoon telling me that I didn’t need to get another blood test until the Thursday of that week – my hormone blood levels must have indicated that ovulation wasn’t imminent.
Our obstetrician had also recommended that we saw a fertility specialist to discuss our situation, and we had our first appointment with her on Tuesday the 9th of July, 2019. I cried while telling our story, and she listened sympathetically. We came up with the plan to try for pregnancy for 3 more months using blood ovulation tracking – including the current tracking cycle that we were on – and then move onto IVF. She also organised for us to get fertility-related blood and sperm tests, which further helped the sense of forward movement and authority over my fertility fate.
Back to the ovulation tracking. Results from the Thursday’s blood test showed that I needed to get another test the following day. I also had to have another vaginal ultrasound that day because of the ovulation induction drugs, to see what my ovaries were doing. It hurt more than usual, which wasn’t nice, but thankfully it showed that I was about to ovulate one egg (one egg almost felt disappointing after having two the first time!).
Friday’s blood test resulted in the following SMS being sent to me: “Please have intercourse tonight and Sunday and go for a repeat ovulation tracking blood test on Monday morning”. I mean, “Please have intercourse tonight” – this caused some guffawing.
It’s always hard to wait those 2-ish weeks between ovulation and the estimated arrival of your period. You try to keep your pregnancy hopes low, which isn’t always possible. You have this persistent little glow bug flitting around in your chest that makes you smile at what might be. During that time, in the spirit of being open-minded, I tried my first fertility acupuncture session in case it helped my body to become pregnant – either directly, through relaxation, or placebo. It was unusual, but very nurturing and nice.
Then my dreaded period arrived again. Stupid sod. “Hi!”, it said. “I’m heeere!”. I told it to piss off, but it didn’t listen to me.
The sixth month
The ovulation tracking blood tests continued, and we were ‘instructed’ to have ‘intercourse’ over two days on the 7th and 8th of August. It’s like being under command from a stern fertility headmistress who doesn’t see the fun in anything, especially not copulation!
A few days after that, we saw our fertility specialist again, who told me that I only had a meagre 8% chance of getting preggo each month. She also told me that the blood tests that I had gotten done for her showed that my egg/ovarian reserve was low, indicating a poor fertility potential. Sigh. Why did I wait so long to procreate? I felt angry with myself.
We started the IVF paperwork and appointments during the 2-ish week wait for my period to arrive – or not. The whole ‘artificial’ process of IVF scared me, but I was also grateful for it. It gave me even more scientific control and forward propulsion with my fertility, which I liked in many ways. Anyway, I still had hope that we wouldn’t need to go down the IVF route, because we had 2 menstrual cycle chances of falling pregnant naturally – the current cycle and then one more month after that.
On the 23rd of August, I did an at-home pregnancy test, and it was positive. You can see my son’s gorgeous chubby hands holding the test. He had been asking for a baby brother or sister for about a year already, and I felt elated that he might in fact get his wish after all – around the 27th of April, 2020.
5 weeks pregnant
I tried to be tentative in my pregnancy joy until we were further along the pregnancy journey, when chance would be more on our side. However, the glow bug wouldn’t stop happily zipping around in my chest, and so I let him be.
I started to have some mild nausea, but it wasn’t bad at all. That was the first sign that things weren’t right.
Because I had been doing blood ovulation tracking, the fertility clinic required me to have one final blood test, partly to record higher levels of the pregnancy hormone, hCG – just to wrap things up on their end. It was a Friday when I dutifully went in for what I thought was my final blood test at the fertility clinic. When I left afterwards, I breathed a sigh of relief that that appointment-filled part of my fertility journey was over.
That afternoon, I was driving to my son’s daycare for a party there, with him in the backseat. My phone rang from a private number, and I answered it via the car’s speaker system, “Hello?”.
It was the fertility clinic calling with my morning’s blood results. I was surprised – I didn’t think that I needed to hear from them again. I was flabbergasted when the lady on the phone said, “I’m afraid that your blood results indicate a miscarriage”.
I didn’t know what to say. How could she know from my bloods? Apparently my hormone levels weren’t normal for a healthy pregnancy, and indicated a miscarriage or even an ectopic pregnancy. She advised me to watch for bleeding and pain over the weekend, and to get another blood test on Monday and expect bad news. I thanked her, hung up the phone, and burst into tears. Little Angus said, “Mummy, what’s wrong? Why are you crying?”. I parked the car and he and I had a big cuddle. I told him that we didn’t know if his baby brother or sister was sick or not, and that’s why Mummy was upset. He said, “Let’s go to the party now”.
I was so pissed off that life was giving me more waiting. I had had that week of tortuous waiting during the second miscarriage, and now I had a weekend of more of it. What are you meant to think when you have been told that you have likely had a miscarriage, but not definitely? How can you not still hope, but then tell yourself off for hoping – and then repeat that cycle?
I spent the weekend feeling pretty low on and off, especially as my body was reminding me of my pregnancy predicament via my breasts and uterus at regular intervals. However, every time I realised that my nausea was very mild, my pregnancy faith waned.
Monday came around, and there I was, back at the fertility clinic getting another blood test – when I thought that my time there had finished. The nurse who took my blood was the same one from the Friday previously. She asked, “How did you go with your blood test results on Friday?”. I replied, “Not good, it looks like I have had another miscarriage”. The nurse didn’t say anything, which made me feel utterly sick inside. Why the hell would she ask me how things were, if she didn’t want to know the answer, couldn’t cope with it? All she needed to say was, “I’m sorry”. The silence cut me like a knife and I wanted to run as far away from her as possible. I was angry, sad, and vulnerable.
Waiting for the phone call on that Monday afternoon was horrible. I kept watching my phone out of the corner of my eye whilst trying to focus on my work computer screen. There was a certain undercurrent of anxiety in my veins. When my phone did ring from an unknown number, I jumped onto it, fearful I would accidentally hang up, desperate for the results – which still indicated a ‘likely but not definite’ miscarriage. I was to have another blood test on Thursday, and a vaginal ultrasound on Friday. Great! More waiting! What was I meant to do with my little hope glow bug? Temporarily maim him, or just kill him? I couldn’t do either, and so I let myself still hope a little bit that things would be ok.
6 weeks
I had my Thursday blood test with the same emotionally incompetent woman from the previous two tests, and I barely spoke to her. That afternoon, the phone call that I had to sit in toxic anticipation for regarding the results told me that the situation was still inconclusive. I despised the not knowing and the waiting. It poisoned me to the core.
The vaginal ultrasound the following day did not find an ectopic pregnancy and indicated a miscarriage, but the attending doctor at the ultrasound clinic told me that I had, “a nicely-shaped uterus” so I shouldn’t worry about getting pregnant again. I didn’t know what to make of that comment.
I was told to wait to bleed, and also book in to have another ultrasound in a week to re-check that it wasn’t an ectopic pregnancy – if I hadn’t bled by then. My little hope glow bug was murdered that day, evidenced by the fact that I took some cold and flu medication to help ease some cold symptoms – a drug you are meant to avoid when you have a live baby inside of you.
I went away with some friends that weekend, taking sanitary pads with me, ready to bleed. I was told by the doctors that there was still a chance that I was experiencing an ectopic pregnancy, and to be close to a hospital in case I had symptoms of one – like bad abdominal pains. This fact caused me relentless unrest, including in the middle of the night when I did have pain – was it severe enough to wake up my roommate and drive to the nearest hospital, or would it abate soon? Thankfully I fell asleep before I had to decide.
7 weeks
The Tuesday after my weekend way, I had yet another blood test in a general pathology centre. More waiting ensued because the results wouldn’t be ready until the next day. I. Hated. The. Waiting. Even though I had mostly accepted that the pregnancy wasn’t viable, until it was truly over I think I still had some hope. However, even if I hadn’t had any hope, not knowing if you had an ectopic pregnancy or just a ‘plain old miscarriage’ was really hard. But the worst was just not having closure to the ongoing trauma.
The following morning I felt overwhelmed while I waited for a phone call about my failed (?) pregnancy’s future. I was also waiting to experience ectopic pregnancy pain or bleeding at any moment. It was highly distressing. When the phone call eventually arrived, I was told that my blood hormone levels were more and more suggesting that it was an ectopic pregnancy. I didn’t need the ectopic pregnancy drama on top of everything! It meant more risk and possible keyhole surgery. Great, I thought. Lucky me.
Around this time, my partner and I bought our first house. I couldn’t have cared less. All my mind wanted to think about was my fertility fate.
I ended up having another vaginal ultrasound on the Wednesday afternoon. My partner was stuck at work, so I ended up going to the appointment alone. Not for the first time, I was stuck in a waiting room alongside heavily pregnant women whose full bellies taunted me.
The scan showed an embryonic sac that was about 5 weeks in size, which gave me some more bloody hope that maybe I had a viable pregnancy – even though the timing didn’t seem possible based on my mathematics around ovulation and sex. Again, there was no sign of an ectopic pregnancy, but again they couldn’t be sure of that. I was still in Miscarriage No Man’s Land.
My partner, son and I were booked to fly to Noosa on holiday that Friday. I didn’t know if I would bleed and be in too much pain to go, or if my obstetrician would suggest that I have a third d&c before then. I was confused and angry beyond belief about what was happening to me.
I spoke with my obstetrician on the Wednesday night and he said it would be fine for me to go to Noosa – I could have another ultrasound next Friday when I returned, unless I bled before then. And then a likely d&c the following Monday. We all thought that a holiday would be good for me.
8 weeks
I became 8 weeks ‘pregnant’ in Noosa. Which ended up being a shit antithesis of a holiday. I fiercely wanted to have closure on this pregnancy and each day felt like an eternity without it. Our son was sick, grouchy, and tired; with no friends to play with. One morning, after 3 days on our Antithesis Holiday, I escaped alone to cry in a cafe. It was there that I decided that I wanted to go home, partly because doing so meant that I could have a d&c sooner if need be.
The day after we got home, I had yet another vaginal ultrasound, and for the third time there was no sign of an ectopic pregnancy – which was a relief. I was told by the ultrasound staff that it was 99.9%-100% a miscarriage. My obstetrician obviously agreed with those figures, because he kindly managed to fit me in for a d&c the following day. I couldn’t wait.
After nearly 3 weeks of agonising waiting in Miscarriage No Man’s Land, I arrived at the hospital I was beginning to know so well on the morning of Thursday the 19th of September, 2019. I couldn’t believe that I was having a third d&c. It felt so incredibly unfair. I tried my best to be grateful that I didn’t have cancer or something potentially deadly, but it was hard to cultivate any positive feelings at that time.
The procedure went well and the staff were again wonderful. My third, protracted miscarriage was finally over.
IVF
Pre-IVF cycle
After the d&c for the third miscarriage, my uterus pain was more bearable than it had been with the previous two d&c procedures. In contrast, my emotional pain was worse. The trauma, grief, and loss from 3 successive miscarriages had really taken its toll. Having so many miscarriages in a row is called recurrent miscarriage, and only affects about 1% of women. How unlucky was I to be one of those very few?
I had a doctor’s certificate to take 3 days off my job, but I didn’t use it. Focusing on the piles of work that I had to get through actually helped to distract me from my hurt – to some extent. Most of the time, however, I couldn’t escape that dark cloud of inner anguish. I needed as much support as I could get, and so I signed up to The Pink Elephants Support Network Peer Support Program. This involved me having a phone call with someone who had personally experienced a miscarriage – or miscarriages – in the past. A week after my third d&c, I had my initial phone call with an amazing Support Ambassador called Jenny. I realised that nothing could beat that first-hand understanding of miscarriage, because she said and did everything ‘right’. She let me talk and cry for most of our 45 minute conversation, intermittently soothing me with the words, “I am so sorry for your loss”. That phrase that makes me well up with tears when I write it now.
Every month after that for 3 months I had follow-up phone calls of 30 minutes, which flowed in a similar way to the first one – me talking and crying, Jenny soothing. It was an incredible space for me to feel fully understood, accepted, and held. Jenny emphasised how normal it was for me to feel the way that I did, and how important it was for me to prioritise taking care of myself. I am endlessly grateful to this essential ‘stranger’ and to the amazing charity that is Pink Elephants.
Somehow, I still wanted to go ahead with IVF. Ten days after the third d&c, I was back on the time-consuming road of endless medical appointments and tests. I had two initial blood tests that showed that I still had the pregnancy hormone, hCG, hanging around in my body. Which would explain why I still had ongoing ‘pregnancy’ symptoms in my breasts and uterus. The situation was very upsetting, because it meant that there still might be remnants of the third miscarriage in my uterus. Could my horrible miscarriage story finally be over, please? My obstetrician said that if the hCG didn’t go down over the next week, then he would have to look inside my uterus with a camera and take out anything that had been left inside (specifically, ‘retained products of conception‘, i.e. failed baby). Plus, there was a tiny chance again of an ectopic pregnancy! AND, I couldn’t start IVF until the hCG was gone and my period returned. What a joke. I was furious with life.
Luckily, the next blood test on Tuesday the 15th of October, 2019, showed somewhat reduced hCG levels. By that time, it had been nearly 4 weeks since the d&c, and 4 continuing weeks of my body feeling a bit pregnant – every breast and uterus twinge or pain reminding me of my recent loss. A week later, then 5 weeks after the d&c, my uterus was really sore. I started bleeding – presuming it was my period. I passed several large clots the size of small strawberries, which was pretty distressing. However, I hoped that my body had just naturally ejected any remnants of the third, lingering miscarriage.
Unfortunately, a blood test the day after the bleeding had started still found hCG in my body. “No IVF for me this month, then”, I muttered to myself bitterly. To my surprise, I had a phone call in the afternoon to say that I could actually start IVF that month! I felt elated. Apparently my fertility specialist thought that the hCG was low enough to move forward.
IVF cycle
I went to the corporate-looking fertility centre in Sydney city to pick up the medications needed to start IVF on the afternoon of the 25th of October, 2019. Side effects of the initial ovary stimulation drugs included: ‘mood disturbances, sleep disturbances, cramping, bloating, and tiredness’. As well as the possibility of ‘ovarian hyperstimulation‘, symptoms of which included: ‘diarrhoea, vomiting, shortness of breath, and severe painful bloating’. Lovely.
Upon collection of the meds, I realised that I was to start injecting myself in the stomach that afternoon. I was told that I could use a consulting room of the fertility centre to do my first injection – with help from a nurse if I wanted? I decided to try it myself first.
The initial needle was a lot bigger than I had imagined it would be, which only added to the nerve-wracking emotions that come with injecting yourself in the stomach. However, I managed to stab myself in the right place on my abdomen with that needle, but only after I had spent quite some time pouring over the instructions and gearing myself up for the poke. I felt relieved, proud, and excited. Action was happening.
The injections that followed over the subsequent days brought with them some confusion and stress – because there were so many different instructions, medications, needles, timings, amounts, injection methods, notes to take, etc. But, I also felt very empowered. I injected at home, at work, at the fertility centre, and at my parents’ place. Luckily, I didn’t get a badly bruised stomach, like some women do. Here’re some video highlights of the process for you!
On the fourth day of injections, I arrived at work and realised that I had forgotten some of the refrigerated medicine that I needed that day. So, I had to get an Uber to and from home at lunchtime to collect it. That is one example of an IVF project management blip that cost extra time and energy.
On Friday the 1st of November, I had a blood test and a vaginal ultrasound at the fertility centre. The ultrasound was to see how my ovaries were responding to the initial IVF stimulation medications – how many eggs might they produce? The lady doing the ultrasound wouldn’t comment on how many ovarian follicles she could see – presumably because she didn’t know the surrounding details of my situation – but still, it annoyed me. I also didn’t warm to her when she didn’t say anything after she had found out that I had had 3 miscarriages. I didn’t find her silence as upsetting as I had done when something similar happened during my third miscarriage – but I did think that fertility employees could have done with a bit more sensitivity on when to use the simple word, “Sorry”.
A number of blood tests and vaginal ultrasounds later, my body was apparently ready for the egg collection procedure. On the 7th of November, our fertility doctor managed to retrieve 5 eggs from my little ovaries – which for my situation was apparently ok enough, although lower than ideal. The pelvic pain and headache straight after the procedure were worse than I had anticipated, but a heat pack on my lower abdomen and pain relief medication softened their blows. However, I felt physically and mentally lousy for a good few days following. The entire IVF process up until that point had definitely been harder than I had thought that it would be.
Some days after the eggs had been collected and fertilised with some sperm in a lab, we could see some real time photos of our 5 embryo children through a phone app – which was mindblowingly exciting! I had high hopes.
Our individual IVF process involved the testing of the genes of any embryos created, if possible (some embryos wouldn’t survive a gene testing process). This was because of my age and history of miscarriages, both of which increase the likelihood of genetic problems in an embryo and therefore the chance of another miscarriage. This testing process took some weeks, and so you had to wait a menstrual cycle month before you could implant any tested embryos. It was hard to be patient. However, apparently one of our embryo kidlets wouldn’t survive such testing, but still might contain good genetic material. Hence, the fertility doctor didn’t want to ‘waste’ it, and I was booked in to have a possible embryo transfer the same month as the egg collection had taken place, on the 12th of November, 2019. Goody, no need for patience this time, then.
Unfortunately, on the morning of the planned embryo transfer, I received a telephone call saying that the procedure wouldn’t go ahead. This news made me want to cry, because I was restless for some action. I didn’t totally understand what was going on, other than the development of the embryos had changed. One now looked like it would die, 3 were weaker slow-growers, and only 1 seemed to be a strong one – which they didn’t want to implant without genetic testing. Because an embryo transfer could only happen on that particular day, based on my body’s hormones, I had to grudgingly accept that there was no more direct forward movement for me that menstrual month. That is, no chance of trying to grow a baby inside my body just yet.
I think that the IVF hormone injections – as well as the whole tumultuous miscarriage journey and IVF process – resulted in me being very fragile emotionally. I was incredibly sensitive (more than usual!) and would regularly cry. I also found it painful to see pregnant women in the street, feeling sadness and anger that it wasn’t me that had a rounded belly.
On Wednesday the 13th of November, we found out via an initial phone call that 1 embryo was definitely ‘gone’, and 1 was definitely ‘good’. A second phone call later that day brought firmer news: 2 embryos didn’t make it, but 3 did and had been frozen – 2 of which were strong enough to undergo gene testing, while 1 wasn’t. We called this 1 the Runt. I felt pretty happy with the numbers, after initially thinking we only had 1 good embryo.
A week later, on Thursday the 21st of November, I had my first appointment with a specialist fertility counsellor – which was awesome. Counselling sessions were provided free of charge as part of the IVF ‘package’ by the IVF company, which is wonderful. My counsellor was a calm, soft, kind woman; to whom I am infinitely grateful. Just like with the lovely Jenny from The Pink Elephants Support Network Peer Support Program, my fertility counsellor told me how normal my thoughts and feelings were for someone undergoing IVF, and to protect myself as much as possible. It’s so wrong how many of us think we are crazy, weird, or abnormal; for thinking what we do – when so much of the time, our reactions to situations are perfectly understandable and ‘normal’. My counsellor also suggested that I turn my negative reactions to seeing pregnant women in the street into the words, “I hope that I am her one day”. And I did just that.
The following day, I spoke with our caring fertility doctor in the morning about the next steps. I was to have a vaginal ultrasound the coming Monday, to see if there was any blood / ‘retained products of conception’ from the last miscarriage still hanging around inside my uterus. If my somber strawberry-clot bleed hadn’t cleared these products out, then they might get in the way of an embryo implanting. And we couldn’t risk losing an embryo, because I didn’t have many; or the potential for many. I was also to start blood tests to track my menstrual cycle from the Monday, in case we did implant one of our embryos.
I remember exactly where I was standing when I received a phone call from the embryologist regarding the gene results of our 2 tested embryos at 12.50pm that Friday. I was just outside our local post office when he told me that both of the embryos were genetically abnormal. It was crushing news. He said that I had about a 50% chance of another miscarriage if we went ahead and implanted our frozen, untested Runt – which seemed like a high risk in some ways, but not in others. Our fertility doctor had previously said that she’d like to transfer our Runt (she didn’t use that nickname!) in the case of the 2 tested embryos being abnormal. Otherwise, we would have to wait to do another round of IVF in the new year. And you have probably already noticed that I had become a fan of speed.
On Monday the 25th of November, my ten millionth vaginal ultrasound showed that the blood in my uterus had gone – yay! However, it again looked like it still might be an ectopic pregnancy leftover from the third miscarriage (s.e.r.i.o.u.s.l.y?!), or some endometriosis. I had to do a urine pregnancy test in the bathroom after the scan, which was thankfully negative (I wouldn’t usually want a pregnancy test to be negative, of course!).
Over the following week, I had more blood tests and ultrasounds to see if it would be possible to transfer the Runt. I also turned 40, and tried to hide my head in the sand about that as much as possible. My partner and I had been instructed to not have sex, because IVF in Australia does not aim for a multiple pregnancy. However, I had a nice, quiet day; and one thing led to another… with the result of me confessing my indiscretions to the fertility doctor like a naughty schoolgirl. Luckily, she was still ok with going ahead with the embryo transfer, because she said that the chance of multiples was very small. Phew.
Ensuing medical tests showed that my body was playing the IVF game nicely, such that I was able to have the Runt transferred on Monday the 9th of December – after several days of preparatory vaginal hormone cream. The transfer procedure was fine – like a good pap smear – and the staff lovely. I had very high hopes of a pregnancy due to the Runt, plus the small chance from sex. I did an IVF visualisation meditation in case that helped Runt to settle into a lovely, soft uterus lining! At the very least, it relaxed me.
Nearly 2 weeks later, on Friday the 20th of December, 2019, I had the last blood test of my first round of IVF – which had started in October. I was hopeful and wary all at once. I ended up having a bit of a logistical nightmare getting the test done, because the first suburban fertility centre that I went to with my 3-year-old turned out to be closed; meaning I had to rush to the main city testing centre to try to get the blood test done during the morning’s scheduled hours. Thankfully my very helpful Mum helped out with last minute childcare, while I managed to still get a blood test even though I was late. Thank goodness. I would have really struggled waiting even one more day to find out the pregnancy result, when I was mentally prepared to find out that Friday.
At 11am, I received The Phone Call that informed me that I wasn’t pregnant. I felt physically sick with devastation. My emotions were similar to those I had experienced after my miscarriages, and included acute grief. They swirled around inside my head, heart, and stomach for days; giving me a headache and taking away my energy for everyday life. One day when my son was under my sole care, I remember being able to only manage to sit on the couch watching tv with him for hours upon end – when usually we would be out and about. I was a shell of myself.
Post-IVF cycle
I was especially upset that I couldn’t start IVF again straight away due to the Christmas holidays, during which time I cried a lot. My brain felt like it had been poisoned with toxic sludge, and I experienced more physical pain from my sadness – mainly in my chest and throat. I hated myself for feeling so depressed at such a ‘merry’ time, also when I had many things to be grateful for. However, I think that a lot of people end up with negative feelings over Santa Season because there is this societal pressure to feel only joy. I sought help and support from various sources during this time – Jenny from The Pink Elephants Support Network, my psychologist, my psychiatrist, my fertility counsellor, my immediate family, and some friends. I also worked through a wonderful fertility self-help book called Empowered Fertility that my fertility counsellor had kindly given me during one of our sessions. I carved out time to sit in a cafe by myself several times over the Christmas holiday period, gradually working through my thoughts and feelings around my fertility – or rather, more recent infertility – journey so far. I realised so many important things during that process, which I describe here.
Thankfully, the new year brought with it renewed hope and vigour. I even felt up to having sex, which we jokingly called “Ten Thousand Dollar Sex”, in case it produced a viable baby – therefore meaning we didn’t have to do any more expensive IVF. Read what happened next here.
Feelings of infertility
I mentioned in my IVF blog post that I was kindly given a fertility self-help book called Empowered Fertility by my fertility counsellor. I found this book to be incredibly helpful – it enabled me to work through things like how I saw myself relating to (in)fertility, my expectations of motherhood, and why I wanted another baby.
I had always imagined that motherhood would happen easily for me. I used to see myself as a very fertile woman, and initially thought that I would have 3 children with my first boyfriend in my 20s. Unfortunately, moving across the world and mental health struggles derailed this vision, and I ended up chasing inappropriate men in a game of low self-worth for about a decade. I was so angry at myself for making such poor choices for so long, which meant that I didn’t ‘grow up’ and start to love myself again until my early 30s – when I met my current partner. It was shocking to realise how resentful I was at my past 20s self for being so lost.
The negative thoughts that I was having after the failed IVF cycle went further than self-loathing. I also realised that I blamed myself to some extent for the miscarriages and the failed IVF, partly through low self-esteem. Surely they must partially be my fault? Did my depression and anxiety cause them? What was wrong with me? I saw myself as a faulty, weak woman who wasn’t as good as other females – someone of reduced status in the human pack.
It was also interesting to uncover through my workings the fear that I had of being alone in my older age, and how the thought of having several children helped to dampen that emotion. Additionally, I was angry that life felt unfair; as well as guilty for all my negative emotions, when I was lucky enough to already have one child.
The book facilitated the introduction of the following helpful phrases to my life: ‘I am willing to forgive myself and move on’, ‘I accept that life is not fair’, ‘I am enough just as I am’. I can’t recommend it enough for anyone experiencing any aspect of infertility (and no, I don’t know the author!).
The last pregnancy – part 1
2020 was to bring the fifth – and last – pregnancy of my life.
After the first miscarriage, the second miscarriage, the third miscarriage, and the failed IVF cycle; I started to entertain the possibility that we would only have one child. This was partly facilitated by the gentle fertility counsellor that I was seeing, who saw how traumatised I was over several counselling sessions. She suggested that looking after myself first and foremost may have to take priority soon, and I really listened to her. I wouldn’t have taken heed of her comments the year before – any time anyone mentioned just having one child, I would feel a wall of stubborn anger rise up. However, even though I was more open to stopping our (in)fertility journey soon, I wasn’t ready to give up just yet. Somehow, I still had the drive to proceed with 1 – or even 2 – more rounds of IVF.
The funny thing is that I did start to take care of myself a bit more for those first few months of 2020. I regularly took half a day off work to go for a swim, have a massage, get my nails done – ‘self-care’ things like that. My partner and I still had sex sometimes, open to getting pregnant naturally, but there was less focus and pressure on it.
During January, I had some unusual physical reminders of my (in)fertility via regular uterus and ovary twinges and pain, which I found difficult. Didn’t my body know that I was trying to forget about all things fertility for a little while?! On the 12th, the uterus pain increased to the level of a period about to arrive – or not. I was trying to relax into the phrase, ‘It is what it is’, to accept as much as I could the lack of control that I had over aspects of getting pregnant.
But then, my stupid period arrived. Which made me want to start IVF straight away to re-gain some control – not so good at the ‘It is what it is’ stuff after all, was I?! With our fertility specialist, we discussed percentage estimates for different routes to pregnancy. Apparently, there was only a 7% chance of me falling pregnant naturally at my age (40), and a 2-3% chance of a ‘live baby’ through a natural pregnancy (the numbers went down due to miscarriage – and apparently there was up to a 46% chance of me miscarrying again). And with IVF, there was a 25% chance of a live baby with the transfer of an untested (for genetics) embryo, and 45% with a tested normal embryo. We even discussed the option of egg donation, which I don’t think I would have actually ever done. I think that I would have looked into adoption, but nothing else if IVF failed 1 or 2 more times. Anyway, the numbers showed that the natural pregnancy route didn’t look so good, and so we tentatively planned to start IVF the next month – even though that path came with lots of challenges and costs.
Being more open-minded in my older age, I had a hypnotherapy session with my wonderful GP soon after that numbers conversation with our fertility specialist, which was very nurturing. It made me re-consider re-starting IVF, because in many ways, IVF was the antithesis of nurturing to the body and mind. Luckily, it turned out that I didn’t actually have anything to weigh up, because I was already pregnant.
On the 11th of February, I did a pregnancy test that was positive. It was great news, but I was also trying to keep my expectations realistic. It was a shame to contain the hope and joy, but necessary to prepare myself for a possible fourth miscarriage.
5 weeks pregnant
I started to feel nauseous when I was 5 weeks pregnant, but it wasn’t too bad – which worried me! I was very scared, almost expectant, of another miscarriage. So, when I had unusual uterus pains on the 20th of February and some blood in my undies, I assumed that I was having a fourth miscarriage. Which didn’t surprise me one bit, but all the same felt devastating.
Thankfully, the bleeding didn’t become more than spotting, and the following day I had a blood test to see what my pregnancy hormones were doing. Unfortunately, I had to wait a few days for the results, which was hard – the stress of that caused me to experience pain in my chest and throat. I still ‘felt’ pregnant, with nausea, fatigue, and uterus and breast pains and aches; which helped me to nurture some hope – sometimes. At other times, I just felt sad with another ‘as yet unknown’, high risk situation where the numbers were somewhat against me.
More than 2 painstaking days later, I found out from my obstetrician what my hCG levels were: 13,000 mIU/mL. He emphasised that it was important to see what the number did over a few days – did it increase enough? I was to get a repeat blood test the following day to find out more. More waiting, more waiting. More hope, more fear.
6 weeks
On the morning of the 24th of February, I went for another blood test. I was feeling more and more sick and tired, which increased my confidence that the hCG would have gone up from the initial test. However, I was also still aware that even if the levels had increased, it could still be a miscarriage. I found out the following morning that the hCG had increased to 32,000 mIU/mL, which was a good sign, but again I told myself (and others) that it could still be a miscarriage. I had to wait 2 more weeks for an ultrasound scan, which would be a better indication of miscarriage or not – was there a heartbeat at that, was the embryo the right size? More waiting, more waiting. More hope, more fear.
The nausea ramped up in severity and became constant. I started waking up overnight retching into the toilet. I went to see my GP to get some ondansetron anti-nausea medication – which I had taken during my son’s pregnancy and the first 2 miscarriages. The drugs dampened the nausea sometimes, but overall it continued to worsen – ending in bilious vomiting.
Thankfully, increasing the dose of ondansetron to the maximum allowed mostly stopped the vomiting and enabled me to keep down foods and liquids. Which was lucky; as my parents, partner, son and I had to drive from Sydney to Surfers Paradise for a holiday (to try to be more eco-friendly!). I sat in the front seat of our car feeling sick and sorry for myself the whole way, but also hopeful that the nausea would improve. Unfortunately, my hope was misplaced. Surfers was the worst holiday ever because of the nausea, and the beginning of the hardest and sickest few months of my life.
7 weeks and the unwelcome establishment of hyperemesis gravidarum
The day we arrived in Surfers Paradise was the day that I became largely bedridden from the now hideous-level nausea that was unrelentingly constant, and the day that I started to sink into depression because of it – which is apparently common for women experiencing what I learned I had, hyperemesis gravidarum (HG).
During most of that week-long ‘holiday’, I was too sick to look at my phone, too sick to use my laptop for the bit of work that I had to do, too sick to watch tv. I managed to send a few brief emails to pull out of all work – for an indefinite period. I didn’t know how long this new level of nausea hell would go on for. I felt sicker when sitting or standing up, so the majority of the time I lay down in bed or on the couch. I felt like a complete failure – including to my son – and a burden to my partner and parents. I also felt incredibly alone in my nausea because it was just so shockingly severe and no one around me could really understand how it felt.
The maximum dose of ondansetron anti-nausea medication was still largely successful at stopping me from constantly vomiting, but it had awful side effects – namely constipation. I was aware of this issue from taking the drug during previous sick-but-not-HG pregnancies, and so I had been implementing preventive measures for it. That is, stool softeners, laxative suppositories, fibre, and trying to drink enough liquid. Unfortunately, these actions didn’t work well enough. I had several immensely scary and painful poo ‘incidents’ where it took me a good half an hour to wrangle out a concrete poo baby from my rectum. I cried in pain, writhed my body around into all sorts of positions, tried to get the poo out with my fingers, squatted on the floor, you name it. It was hideous. These incidents also ripped my poor rectum and anus into a bleeding mess of haemorrhoids and fissures. Apologies if that was too much information for you, but I’m very honest, and a scientist!
I didn’t leave the holiday apartment except for the early ultrasound that we managed to get (described below ), to the pool downstairs for a gentle swim with my son when the nausea gave me a moderate-level break, and to the beach 10 metres from the apartment to lie down on a towel a few times. They were my highlights. I remember hearing about the COVID-19 situation getting worse at that time, from the tv news that my Dad was watching, but I couldn’t give it any energy. I felt like I was just trying to stay alive (women died from HG before modern medicine, e.g. Charlotte Bronte in 1855).
Food felt like the enemy because I felt too sick to eat, but then I had to force myself to eat because it sometimes helped with the nausea. Imagine how you feel when you have food poisoning, but having to force yourself to eat? That’s how it was. I often sat in the shower and cried uncontrollably, not even able to wash my hair with the fragranced shampoo that we had because my sense of smell was so heightened and averse to certain scents. I was so incredibly sick that my partner and I discussed taking me to hospital a few times. I was desperate for someone to help me, because I honestly felt like I was poisoned and dying. I wasn’t constantly vomiting because of the medication, so that meant I wasn’t dangerously dehydrated. That fact felt so hard in some ways, because it made me feel like my nausea wasn’t bad enough – when in fact it was, it just didn’t end in vomiting all the time when I was on drugs. When my thoughts turned to contemplation of the nausea lasting for more than a few days, I felt utter desperation. Each day was hard enough, let alone days and weeks of the torture.
As the days passed, my resilience wore thin. I started to think about how I could end the misery. I could always ask for a d&c to abort the pregnancy. I could wish for another miscarriage. For me to have such thoughts after 3 miscarriages and 1 failed IVF cycle shows you how distraught I was. Thankfully I read that such thoughts are completely normal for the situation that I was enduring. I joined an online chat forum run by a UK charity called Pregnancy Sickness Support, as I wasn’t aware of the wonderful Australian charity at that stage. My username was Rebecca999 (999 is the emergency number in England) and the title of my initial post was ‘Sick in Australia’. It was really helpful to have responses from women who understood what I was going through. I also read a bit when I could about HG, and the sentence, ‘This condition is not your fault’, really resounded with me. Because I felt like I must have done something wrong, or that I was weak, or imagining my nausea, or something.
We spoke with our obstetrician on the phone about the extreme sickness and organised an earlier scan in Surfers Paradise to see what the embryo was doing. If it turned out to be a fourth miscarriage, then I was to fly back to Sydney asap and get a d&c.
On the 5th of March, I left the apartment with my partner to get an ultrasound, reclining the car’s passenger seat and panting with nausea through the journey. I didn’t even know what I wanted to happen anymore – part of me wanted it to be a miscarriage so that my sickness would end. We had a trainee ultrasound lady take the first look inside my uterus, and she couldn’t find anything – so it was a miscarriage after all? Then her supervisor took a look, both externally and vaginally, and showed us an embryo that measured fine and had a heartbeat. I couldn’t believe it. I was almost disappointed with this good news in my diseased state, which of course gave me immense amounts of guilt and stress.
The severity of the nausea and intermittent vomiting continued to wear me down. I felt like life had been so unfair to me with the 3 miscarriages, the failed IVF, and now this HG. The percentages for HG were similar to those for 3 miscarriages – only about 1%–3% of women experienced either. I couldn’t help have a victim mentality, when I also knew that I had so much to be grateful for (especially a live child). But trying to be grateful when your nausea is a level 10/10 is almost impossible. I think that the HG was the straw that broke my (in)fertility back, and I felt done with all of it – baby or not. I felt crippled. One of the worst things about the nausea was the unknown – when would the sickness end? Would I miscarry and it would end? Would I give in and terminate the pregnancy, and then never forgive myself? Would it end at 12 weeks, 14 weeks, 17 weeks, 20 weeks, at birth? When?
On the 8th of March, I flew back to Sydney alone because I was too sick to endure a car journey over 2 days back from Surfers Paradise. On the way to the airport in our car with my family, I regularly retched into a sick bag. As I walked through airport security, I realised that the massive grimace on my face might make people worry that I had COVID-19. I didn’t care. I found a table, lay my head down on it, and cried until my plane departed.
8 weeks
My nausea didn’t show any signs of improving. It was sometimes the worst in the morning, sometimes the worst at night. It disturbed my sleep daily. It stole my love of food. Sometimes it abated to a moderate severity level and I could watch tv whilst lying down, or send desperate text messages to friends (I often had to have breaks to write a text message that was longer than a few sentences). I couldn’t read books. When I was awake, I mainly just cried and stared at walls.
Each morning I was filled with dread about the poo that I would have to try to get out using a laxative suppository. How constipated would I be? How much pain would I be in? How much would I bleed? It was just awful, and made me want to decrease the amount of ondansetron drugs that I was taking. I did an experiment with the dose of ondansetron, especially because it never got rid of the nausea anyway. The one time I stopped taking it for an afternoon, I vomited violently 3 or 4 times over 20 minutes, urinating on myself with the force of the heaving. It made me realise that I couldn’t stop taking it or I would have to go to hospital for rehydration.
My partner became a single parent during the HG Death Days (a term that people with HG give the sickest days). I slept as much as possible to escape the sickness – mainly in a separate bed to my partner; as I had to groan, pant, and move my legs and feet around to distract myself to get through the severe nausea periods. I felt so sick it was almost unbelievable. Could it please be a terrible dream that I would wake up from soon?
I didn’t know how much more of the sickness I could take, and I am sad to say that I did have a level of suicidal thoughts – again, somewhat ‘normal‘ in HG. The issue of depression and suicide could do with a separate blog post, because it’s very complex, important, and somewhat taboo (if you need help, please contact Lifeline). But, briefly… I wanted to escape myself, my situation. However, I knew that I would never be able to actually kill myself, partly because I wasn’t brave enough! Also because I didn’t want to cause pain to those who loved me – especially my son, partner, and parents. I did think quite a lot about other people suiciding, how they did it, why they did it – and I felt such empathy, understanding, and sadness for them – and for me. I have a history of depression and anxiety, which made me wonder how much worse I was at coping with the HG compared to someone without such (usually well-managed) mental health conditions. Looking back, I wish that I had been more compassionate to myself. Some people would have had similar thoughts and felt similar feelings to me in the same situation.
I wrote some notes on my iPhone during the darkest hours, and they have informed the following italicised text. I feel so lonely, so out of control, so full of hate. A complete mess, a huge burden, a uselesss mother. Hopeless, helpless. Broken, toxic, putrid. The physical and emotional pain that I am in is unbearable and makes me want to escape from myself. I wish that someone could save me.
The nausea makes me scrunch my face so tightly in agony that my forehead skin feels like it has metal bars tightly implanted in it. I feel the nausea in so many places – the back of my throat and neck, my oesophagus, my stomach. When it’s severe it almost feels like a physical pain. I pant like a dog, I cry tears of distress, I move my toes fast to try to distract my brain, I groan like a woman giving birth. It’s a living hell and I don’t know when it will end.
I also took a video of a severe nausea period where panting, groaning, and crying were all I could do to survive. Watching it now makes me want to envelop my past, suffering self in the most giant of hugs.
I made it to an in-person appointment with our obstetrician, where I cried a lot and felt like a giant burden. He gave me some prescriptions for extra medications for the nausea (doxylamine succinate and metoclopramide hydrochloride monohydrate) and for the constipation (lactulose). Then he did an external ultrasound, and there was still an embryo heartbeat. But you know what, my mind still couldn’t accept that there was a baby inside my body – I think because I was trying to protect myself in case of another miscarriage, and also because I just couldn’t think much past my nausea and just wanted to feel alive again.
On a few occasions, the sickness cut me a bit of slack and I had some mild-moderate nausea periods, which were a bit of a break from the moderate-severe ones. I even managed to hang out some washing one day, which felt like a huge, huge achievement. I also survived an Uber ride (with the window open and reclined in my seat) to see my psychologist in person (lying down) for some support.
I kept on sleeping a lot, sleep being my only escape from the nausea, although I also struggled with insomnia at night regularly. My partner kept on single-parenting a sometimes-difficult pre-schooler, e.g. for 3 nights in a row, after long meltdowns, my son was forced into our car to go for a drive to send him to sleep. My son would have been struggling to cope with this new version of his mother – where had the standing-up, smiley one gone?
It was a shit time for all of us.
9 weeks
Sometimes my partner would hear me groaning and panting in the downstairs bedroom with the nausea and he would come and hug me, hold my hand, and tell me that it would be ok. That helped. Sometimes I tried to listen to nausea meditations, but I found pain ones to be more helpful. I still felt so lonely. My partner was being amazing in many ways and was the only one who had truly seen how sick I had been, but even he couldn’t really understand.
I was in the worst place physically than I had ever been, and psychologically for a very long time. My obstetrician and psychiatrist suggested that I increase the dose of my antidepressants to try to help me to cope, and I was by that stage having bi-weekly phone calls with my psychologist.
Now, my psychologist. She was incredible during my HG. She would message me if she hadn’t heard from me for some days. She patiently listened on the phone or through video chat to the repetitive verbalisation of my dark thoughts. She constantly reassured me that I wasn’t a deadweight in her life, and that my struggling was understandable for the situation. She is another professional to whom I extend boundless gratitude and admiration. The same goes for my psychiatrist, who I spoke with on the telephone a handful of times during the Death Days, and who verbally nurtured me to my core. What a wholehearted gem she is, too.
I also found out that there was an Australian charity for HG called Hyperemesis Gravidarum Australia (HGA). I joined their Facebook group and posted this desperate post: screenshot 1, 2, 3. It was wonderful to get some messages of support in response to it from people who truly understood what I was going through.
10-11 weeks
Thankfully, the next few weeks brought small wins for me. On the 24th of March, I didn’t cry myself to sleep because of the nausea. On the 2nd of April, I wrote a ‘love letter’ to myself! I know that sounds very cringe-worthy, but it was amazing. Listen to Elizabeth Gilbert’s podcast about it here. On the 4th of April, I stood up in the shower for the first time in 5 weeks (I had been having long, seated, hot showers as therapy).
However, there were much larger losses. The nausea was still a strong giant in my life, even though at times it was improving. Additionally, COVID-19 had become the icing on my shit cake, and I felt utterly overwhelmed with it on top of the nausea. I had been off work for 5 weeks already, so contemplating virus isolation on top of that was unbearable. I managed to walk a block up the road to the park a few times, to get out of the house, and there I sat on a tree stump under a pine needle canopy and cried.
I made it to have an ultrasound and a baby-genetics blood test in Sydney city and I couldn’t sit up in the chair in the waiting room. I cried from the nausea during the ultrasound – which showed a healthy baby – and barely managed to smile during the blood test. Some time after that test, I got a phone call to say that there were no gene issues, and that we were having a girl. I cried with relief, but also with desperate shame at how little I was engaged with the child in my uterus at that time.
12 weeks
I continued to take the maximum amount of the constipating drug, ondansetron – as well the 2 additional anti-nausea drugs that my obstetrician had prescribed – but thankfully the constipation incidents had reduced to some degree, thanks to the suite of meds that I was using to prevent them.
I had been sick and off work for 6 weeks, and my sick leave pay ended around Easter, with me moving onto leave without pay. The pregnancy hormones and possibly the stress of the sickness had given me an awful acne and dermatitis, which were the candles on my shit cake. Some people feel upset when then get one spot – how would you feel if you had what I had on your face? It didn’t even end there, I also got acne badly on my chest – see here for a photo that doesn’t even show it at its worst. Both added to my misery, and sense of failure and fault.
Luckily, the small wins magically continued, with me managing to cook dinner one night (with several rests); driving myself in the car (with the seat very reclined) to go a shop that was still open under COVID-19 restrictions; and managing to go for a slow, short walk with a friend, at a distance (and with lots of sit-downs). All of these things were incredible tonic.
13 weeks
Most of the time, unfortunately, the small wins paled into the background or became a distant memory because my sickness continued with gusto. My partner and I again had a discussion about terminating the pregnancy – but we came to the same conclusion that we couldn’t do it after all we had been through, and we knew that we would never forgive ourselves. So, I continued to feel trapped in my body hell for what already felt like an eternity and to an unknown end.
At that time, another angel entered my life. Her name was Lou and she had been ‘allocated’ to me as a Peer Support contact through the awesome HGA charity that I’ve already mentioned. Lou had survived HG herself; and she sent me kind, upbeat text messages offering help, advice, and incredible compassion. Like my psychologist, she would contact me if she hadn’t heard from me for a few days, which made me feel valued and cared for. I am unbelievably thankful to Lou and HGA.
I tried to nurture some hope that the nausea would abate soon, and not continue until after birth – like it had done for Lou! I honestly do not know how women cope with HG for an entire pregnancy, and then some. Luckily, I had some more small wins, which fed my hope. I managed to put some washing away, water some indoor plants, visit my parents, pick up my son from preschool once and give him a bath, go for another distance walk with a friend, and go to another shop. The excitement of managing to do some ‘normal’ things – under a slightly loosened grip of nausea – was amazing.
We had another ultrasound in the city and again, everything looked ok. I was surprised, relieved, and still somewhat detached. I was much less of a sick mess that appointment compared to the one some weeks earlier, which our lovely ultrasound lady was happy about!
14-16 weeks
Intermittently, the nausea continued to improve, and I tried to do as many house tasks as I could in those moments – to help me to feel of some value to the world. My mood was generally very low, even when the nausea was temporarily better. I felt very drained and slept a lot. And then I was blessed with a blooming sore throat in times of COVID-19! Which was a big pain in the arse and also very upsetting. I went to our local hospital to get tested, and thankfully it was clear. But the virus blow to my body was hard to cope with, when I had been feeling so crap for so long already.
17 weeks
After 11 weeks off work sick, I experimented with reducing the ondansetron medication and relying only on metoclopramide. And I managed to not vomit. I also managed to sit upright for an hour, which made me deliriously happy.
18-22 weeks
The nausea continued to improve on reduced – and then no – medications, which felt like an absolute miracle. Concurrently, my mood became gradually brighter.
We had another external scan on the 28th of May with our obstetrician, and everything looked normal – I was again semi-surprised that the baby was still alive. Following that was a 20-ish-week morphology scan, where again, our little baby girl looked good. I was slowly starting to let myself believe that this pregnancy really might be a healthy one, that a fourth miscarriage really might not happen.
The nausea didn’t go away, but it was no longer constant. It was also infinitely more manageable than it had been on a severity level, oscillating between mild and moderate. Unfortunately, I started to get reflux and nausea and vomiting associated with that – sometimes waking up choking on my vomit. And I felt extremely fatigued regularly. But, all of that was nothing compared to HG. Nothing compares to HG!
As I sign off on this blog post, I am 22 weeks and 1 day pregnant. I am returning to work next week after what will then be 17 weeks off sick. I am an entirely different person to the poor, suffering one that I was during the Death Days of HG. I am so hopeful that we will really get our Rainbow Baby, who I have grown to embrace and love – but of course I also have some fear that something will go wrong again. Time will tell, and whatever happens, I will eventually accept – never to seek pregnancy again. I am incredibly grateful to be alive, and to be pregnant for the last time in my life. Thank you, fate, for what I have now – from the bottom of my heart.