Faces of Loss, Faces of Hope

Scarlett

Mom to Ayamé Ulloriaq, D&C at 17 weeks on April 5^th 2010

Brighton/Southampton, England

This wasn't the first child I lost but things weren't any easier to face. I've blogged about this many times before, and I still don't know how to start.

In the winter of 2009 I fell completely in love with somebody on my university course. Completely. We weren't even together at that point but I adored absolutely everything about who he was. I thought I'd been in love before in my life, but compared to this, I realised I really hadn't. It wasn't long before we were together. I was having a difficult time after he'd gone home for the holidays because I needed his support to get me through something. I'd also been getting ill for a while, which I didn't know how to tell him about. I have problems with my kidneys, stomach, liver, blood (such as aplastic anaemia), bone marrow. At the time they told me that my kidney failure was terminal and I shouldn't expect to live beyond the next December. Although I should state here that my last biopsy appeared quite positive.

I'd had some odd uterine bleeding before he left, and a doctor suggested that it could have been caused by a fertilised egg settling into the lining of the womb. I was too terrified to have it confirmed. Before I first slept with my boyfriend I sat and talked with him about pregnancy being a possible outcome and contraception not always being effective. But he was petrified at the idea of being a father nonetheless. I didn't want further biological children myself. I couldn't bring myself to tell him for a long time. He found out I was ill a few days after he was back in town for university, and that was an emotional rollercoaster in itself.

At some point I had a urinalysis to investigate the blood and tissue being lost in my urine due to kidney problems. They told me I was pregnant.

Things took their toll on our relationship. I honestly wanted to spend the rest of my life with him but that idea was snatched away from me. I was irritable a lot as I contemplated how short my life would be and I'm sure there were other things I did. People I thought were friends said a few things. He didn't give me all the details. But in February it got to the point where he broke my heart.

He didn't take news of the baby well. He broke down and talked about killing himself. By this time I was unable to live with my mother as she had racial issues with him being Malaysian and said I was “tainting the family genes” by dating him (she didn't know about the baby though). I'd been living in his cramped student room with him since the new year and I can understand the stress of that. But we still slept next to each other in that bed. I was so worried about him that I sat up at night and just looked at him. I had horrible nightmares about his funeral that really shook me up.

I had appointments and check-ups that he chose not to attend. I didn't want to force him to be a father but I did need emotional support and I hated doing things alone. But I don't want you to think he's a bad person because of that, I understand how terrifying it was for him to acknowledge the reality.

I was told that being pregnant put my health at risk and may kill me, which I expected. But I wanted to risk that in favour of my child's life. I was told I was having a girl. This meant a lot to me as I'd previously miscarried a baby I strongly believed to be female while the male sibling survived. Things were messed-up but I thought they'd be somewhat OK.

We went to Caerdydd together over the weekend of February 13^th-14^th. I found out I was bleeding quite profusely in the hotel, it even seeped through my jeans. Unfortunately I didn't have access to pads for a while and the hotel had oddly just decided to stop stocking them, but one of the ladies at reception was kind enough to give me one of hers.

This was later diagnosed as a placental haemorrhage. In March I was allowed back to live with my parents so I gave my ex his space. One night I was in a garden socialising with friends on the grass. I experienced horrible intense cramping that was agony. I'd felt it before when I still lived with my ex, I couldn't even move. My friends took me to the hospital for an emergency scan. When I had said scan, they told me they couldn't find a heartbeat. And I just cried.

My placenta was just horrible, it's erratic growth had crushed my baby. My hormone levels went back and forward between being shockingly high to totally not emitted at all. A diagnosis of mola hydatidosa can only officially be made once the extracted tissue has been sent off for tests. But we pretty much knew.

I fought so hard to preserve what remained of the friendship between me and my ex. People stirred things and I really don't know why. Even if they didn't think I was right for him or vice versa, I really cared about him with everything in me and he maintained that I made him genuinely happy when we were together. They destroyed that. I lost my friends too because I obviously couldn't continue to see these people after they'd torn everything down for me. I was left with nothing.

He didn't even believe me by the end of it all. Accused me of fabricating the ultrasounds of his own child. I try to comfort myself with the notion that he can't actually believe that. I don't even have a standard printer in here, never mind the equipment required for that.

He told me he hated me, was pulling out of university and never coming back, that he would forget about me. It was soul-destroying.

My baby was genetically abnormal and being born was impossible for her, but that doesn't mean I wasn't conflicted. I was repulsed by the idea of terminating her. I wanted her so badly. I wanted to carry her until she completely died on her own. But before long it got to the point where I had to have a D&C. I left my ex a voicemail telling him I was having the procedure and where. He didn't come. We did speak afterwards and he said he never had one from me, but even if he did I doubt he would have wanted to listen to it.

I hated being put-under. I was a complete and utter wreck because he wasn't there. I had this dream that still haunts me now. The sun was high in the sky and we were sat on the grass in a field. He had his arm wrapped around my back and we were watching her play, trees in the distance. She must have been around ten years old.

The first thing that hit me afterwards was the immense feeling of emptiness. The guilt and the pain. I know it would have hurt her but carrying her for any longer would have dragged-out the agony. Not all of the tissue was successfully removed and the remains developed into Gestational Trophoblastic Disease. This eventually spread to my lungs and I was warned it could go to my brain.

My ex and myself were meant to be getting a student house together. Obviously he didn't want to go through with this, I had to find another place to live and lose a £400 deposit.

I didn't hand in any of my final assignments at university. I was too much of a wreck to sit still and type them up. All I did was cry, pace, collapse and repeat. I now have serious mental health difficulties. I've been ill since February at least, probably longer considering how oddly attached I was to my then-boyfriend.

I have been doing gruesome things to myself all summer in attempts to end my life. Recently developed the habit of swallowing broken glass, although it never causes quite enough internal bleeding to kill me. It's kind of like I'm split in two. There's a part of me that knows I shouldn't want to do things like that to myself, and there's another more dominant part that wants to die. I am constantly warring with myself and causing a great deal of damage along the way. Due to periodic overdoses I have given myself a great deal of organ damage.

I've had auditory and visual hallucinations. A recent notable manifestation involved wasps. I was finding dead ones on the carpet, so I kept the windows shut, but still they appeared. I got myself convinced that there was a nest and I heard buzzing all the time. Then, the place seemed to be filled with living wasps and I barely left my room. They were smacking themselves on the glass of my window and making clunking sounds as they tried to get in. But, all of them vanished into thin air one day and haven't returned, so I'm wondering if they were ever really there at all.

I can't think properly or judge anything. I've lost a lot of memories of the past academic year. I got my resit assignments in the post and was totally baffled. I'm starting to lose basic memories of my ex and I'm terrified there may be a day when I don't remember him at all.

I'm still in love with him. Completely and utterly. It kills me from the inside-out. I can't let him go, I don't think I was ever meant to. I still feel as raw as I did in the moment he broke my heart. I can't describe the devastation.

I recently had troublesome tissue removed from my womb in a very painful procedure that I was awake for. I had an IUS put in which should stop anything growing back due to the way it prevents thickening of the uterine lining. Despite what he told me, I've seen the class list and my ex is coming back to university. I don't know why he decided to do that. We're not in the same group any more and I'll probably never see him again.

This, believe it or not, it the short version. It's not something I can move past. I'm still so tearful all of the time even though it's been so long. My due date had been August 31^st, now that this day has passed I feel like I can't fulfil the purpose I was meant to have for the rest of my life. I felt her life passionately burning within me, and I'll always miss that.

I named my daughter Ayamé. I first heard the name when I was about eight years old and knew I wanted it for a girl. It means “Iris” in Japanese. For a middle name I chose Ulloriaq, meaning “Star” in Kalaallisut (Greenlandic).

Scarlett blogs at http://www.all-hail-the-rope-light.blogspot.com