‘Nothing prepares you’: mother-to-be shares the heartbreak of two miscarriages to encourage others to speak out and end the ‘taboo of loss’

I’ve spent most of my adult life loving other people’s children, as their dutiful nanny or their doting auntie. Godmother to two beautiful boys, bonus mum to an incredible bonus daughter, but biological mother to none. And for a long while, it felt like that would always be the case.

With Carol, I realised I was living out my maternal dream through other people’s families, bestowing on them the love I had for my longed-for babies. I understood then that this longing would never go away.

It was still possible to become a mother. Yet I worried whether I would be like mine, doomed to repeat history.

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After years of therapy I came to understand that my mother does not define me. I could be the mother that I had always aspired to be.

When I met André, my insecurities melted away. His trust in me stoked my determination to be the best version of myself. He was the man I wanted to father my children. I was 32 and he was 43, so we didn’t waste any time.

And so we began trying to conceive in 2021. Six months later, I was pregnant. Excited, we told our families and closest friends immediately. But just days shy of the 12-week scan, I had a miscarriage.

We were devastated. We had already started buying trinkets, thinking about our baby’s future. I had foolishly believed this couldn’t happen to us.

I learned that most women I know have experienced loss, through miscarriage or stillbirth. But loss is loss. The hope of that life you lose cuts the deepest. Nothing can prepare you for such blinding sadness.

Since getting our first periods, women are programmed to withstand discomfort. We internalise from a young age that our bodies are vessels, built to endure all sorts to produce life.

By the time you’re pregnant, you are well versed in pain, and are ready to navigate nine months of new aches, not to mention the torture of labour, the silent pain of breastfeeding.

I felt that the lead-up to my pregnancy of more than two decades was a kind of ceremonial getting ready for the inevitable: to endure agony, which would be worth it when I had a baby to hold.

I sought counselling, but a Hong Kong-based charity said that my loss was not ‘great enough’ to join their support group

But nothing prepares for the trauma of birthing a loss. I had a missed miscarriage, in which the fetus dies but the mother’s hormones mask the symptoms. You can go weeks before discovering that the fetus had stopped growing.

I felt an irrational guilt for carrying my baby for three weeks without knowing this. Shouldn’t I have been able to feel it?

We opted for the less invasive option of a home procedure, thinking it would be more peaceful. How wrong I was: it was traumatic, physically and emotionally.

I sought counselling, but a Hong Kong-based charity said that my loss was not “great enough” to join their support group. It was only open to women who had a pregnancy loss after 20 weeks. I felt unworthy of my trauma, unseen, and unheard, in a sea of grief.

I felt so alone. I tried talking to friends, though it made them uncomfortable. Women averted their eyes, their male partners often stammering excuses before leaving the room.

We are taught to keep this hurt to ourselves, that it’s a private pain. I learned that at least one in five pregnancies end in miscarriage. That figure could be much higher, as so many are silent, and research continues to be severely underfunded.

One in 20 couples will have two losses, and one in 100 will have three in a row – referred to as recurrent losses.

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We started trying again, and six months after our first loss, I fell pregnant. We found out in Europe, days before getting engaged. While my busy mind logged every worrying symptom, I outwardly tried to enjoy the love our families showered on us. But the day after our engagement party, I miscarried at only 5½ weeks.

We reassured ourselves with statistics, but a suspicion haunted me: “This must be my fault.” Still, we kept trying.

Medical bills mounted. Appointments stacked up. I started seeing a traditional Chinese medicine doctor who told me my heart chakra was blocked. I began humming and gargling manically to stimulate my vagus nerve, after learning it might hold the key to my fertility success.

Monthly acupuncture and reflexology sessions carried me down a path of spirituality that didn’t fit with my Western sensibilities.

Then, during a long-awaited public health appointment, I was denied a simple request to have my hormones checked.

I burst into tears, wailing about my losses. Typing up the details, the doctor explained that to be considered for miscarriage intervention, you must have experienced three miscarriages – in Hong Kong. Because my second happened in the UK, it didn’t count.

I became inconsolable. I screamed at the doctor. I threw my handbag on the floor. I had a tantrum. The doctor called in a non-verbal nurse, who patted me on the head while holding me still in her vice-like grip. The doctor promised to recommend me for gynaecological treatment at the hospital, but made no guarantees.

After I calmed down (and apologised profusely), she coaxed me onto the examining table, and gave me the only thing she could: a Pap smear and breast exam.

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André and I decided to take a break from trying to conceive. My obsession with daily temperatures and whether chakras were real was taking a toll. And of course, within a month – six months since our last conception – I fell pregnant for a third time in one year.

Now we are fast approaching the third trimester and, while there have been no issues, not a day goes by that I don’t question whether we’re still OK.

Inevitably, I cry at every appointment. The first time was when we heard our baby’s heartbeat, loud and clear and very much alive. Each time the tears come, a nurse demands, “Why are you crying? No more crying!”, and I am stunned into silence.

I should be happy, shouldn’t I? I should shut up and be grateful. But the fear that grips me, and the overwhelming joy at hearing her heartbeat, fills me with a kind of sadness – a melancholy – I find difficult to hide.

In these moments, I think of my mother, now a distant memory. Did she feel this same melancholy when her adult daughters finally untangled themselves from the metaphorical umbilical cord that had strangled us for so long?

I wonder whether the bodily rejection of my unborn babies was connected to my rejection of my mother, my past.

We never found out what caused our losses. It was probably chromosomal abnormalities, but who can afford the high fees to confirm this? It is an all-too-common outcome: to be left in the dark aftermath of miscarriage with nothing but a shrug, and encouragement to blindly keep trying.

“It just wasn’t meant to be,” is a phrase I have heard too many times, from medical professionals, well-meaning friends, and fellow miscarriage survivors who have been forced to cling to this empty adage. We need more research, more support, but mostly, we need more discussion of this unacknowledged part of reproductive health.

I am overjoyed to be expecting a baby, but I also reflect on our journey. I am grateful I can share it, to help others feel braver to endure theirs, too.

Let’s end the taboo of loss, as it might aid research, improve understanding, and help the countless couples suffering from unspoken hardships to become parents.