*Note may contain triggers

I really didn’t ever think I would find myself in this situation, writing about the topic of a miscarriage with it having happened to me. I genuinely – and naively – thought that this is something that happens to “other women”, and I utterly empathised with them, while thinking “God, it must just be the worst thing to happen”.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I am well aware of the reality that miscarriages are incredibly common. I think as a woman one would have to be living under a rock, to not be aware that it can happen to *anyone* or to not know someone that it has happened too. Without any malice I just, naively, did not think that it would be part of my journey in motherhood.

I am not saying that the thought didn’t pop into my head, especially considering we were doing IVF and the risks are always spoken of and emphasised. I thought about it more when we were doing IVF for the first time, but then again that entire period was a whirlwind with such an overload of information and new terminology. This time, I quelled any echo of a voice with “everything was fine the first time around”  followed by “it can’t happen to me, because, well I’d be devastated”. Maybe being incredibly familiar and intimate with the grieving process, my mind just couldn’t fathom it and it was a protective mechanism rather than being naïve.

And yet, here I am, still coming to terms with various aspects of what happened with my miscarriage. All I can say at this stage of it, a few weeks after it has happened, is that there is no normal. There is no guidebook, despite googling and reading up on it and sharing. It is beyond anything I’ve experienced, even grief, that is so unique in its entirety.

To backtrack, It is a strange sort of bubble that one is in when doing IVF. There is an endless amount of planning, scheduling, timing, and prepping that goes into it, mentally, physically and emotionally. You have so much more say and “choice” (I use that word loosely) in the “where”, “when” and to a degree “how”, and that gives the illusion of being in control, and it is exactly that. An illusion.

IVF also sort of elongates the process and the waiting time. I find the waiting time excruciating. If there was a random Harry Potter curse that one could cast on an enemy, to make them feel, not pain per se, but this long, drawn out, waiting feeling of impatience and frustration and mind-numbingly annoying “argh” that wells up inside, then they should simple capture that feeling; mix it together with the dreaded “Two Week Wait”; lump it on top of the waiting that comes from each stage of an IVF journey; and THEN advise them not to tell anyone about it and go on and (pretend) to live their normal, every day lives! Now, that would push a lot of good people over the edge!

And that is how I feel about IVF.

For our second journey, there were a lot of things that were done differently and in a way, I do believe that general sort of vibe (or maybe it was in my head) was that we were now ‘seasoned experts’ and knew what it entailed and what was to come. And while in a way, we knew of the medications and the processes and most of the terminology, the irony was we had never done it this way before – a second time and with a toddler in tow. It was very different to our first rodeo, and in some way, mentally, I was wholly underprepared for that aspect.

The thought of baby no. 2 had been on our minds for a while. We had started back to talk about actually doing it in June 2023. However, in the midst of moving house, with a toddler in the height of summer, I dreaded the first trimester with the nausea that comes with it. I am not a fan of long, unending days of 40C weather and as such we postponed until the early autumn. August came around and it was on the table again and we said “let’s wait until September” as we then spoke about “due dates” and “it’ll be cooler” and “she’ll be in daycare” and all those tiny, inconsequential things that gives you the feeling of control during IVF but you sort of end up putting waaaay too much focus on (like due dates, does it coincide with your friends wedding and can I really give up coffee again?). I personally feel, but I could be wrong, that if we were getting pregnant naturally, this really wouldn’t be on the table as much, and bottom line, we’d definitely have a lot more fun with it somehow!

As such, I will also openly admit that I really was not looking forward to all the preparation on my side, and I was dragging my heels a little bit because of that. The blood tests, the check ups, the running around, scheduling appoints and so on. I had to source new GPs and OBGYNs because we had moved out of the city to our new house and it was just a minefield and a lot to sort while my daughter was around 24/7. So then we agreed that once she started “Baby Kindergarten” (for under 2.5 year olds), we would pull the trigger on the next round.

Murphy’s Law – the kindergarten plan did not go as intended. The process in Austria is that you do kind of an integration process which takes a few weeks – for us it took almost 8 weeks! I was losing my damn mind and about to give up when miracle of miracles something clicked and she started staying there without screaming and crying and the intense separation anxiety that sometimes resulted in me sitting in the car, in tears, questioning every single parenting thing I knew and my own traumas and how I was now inflicting them on her. Parenting, eh?

And so, we pushed it out again until October/November-ish. I had a quick trip to Ireland to sort some things out at the family home and while there I met my cousin who was pregnant with her second child. And seeing her just sparked something in me. I realised that all these “excuses” or “reasons” we were finding seemed pretty damn small and almost insignificant, because the bottom line was I really, really wanted a second child. I looked at my daughter and while parenting is one of the hardest things I have ever done, I absolutely loved her unconditionally. I have always wanted three children and before knowing about IVF I had always said I would leave the door open for a “surprise 4th” (now a surprise 4th would probably signify the end of my marriage!)

So on my return, we decided together, that we would contact the clinic and we would start the process for December. The only issue we could see, was that the clinic closed for two weeks around Christmas, but somehow the stars seemed to align, my cycle was on track for us to get in a transfer early December before the clinic closed (including check ups etc). I worked on finding a OBGYN as soon as possible, and as we were going to try and do this first attempt with my natural cycle, there were no medications that I needed to take. I started getting really excited about finding out at Christmas that we would be expecting Baby no. 2 and I could just feel this new potential baby on the horizon – smell its baby head, see the baby onesies and imagine showing my daughter her new brother or sister. I allowed myself to feel that it would all be okay. It all seemed like it was going to plan… until it wasn’t.