Chemical pregnancies, coffee and cake: In search of pregnancy

Gustav Klimt [Public domain]

What on earth are chemical pregnancies? Oh you don’t know? Clearly you're some kind of normal person who doesn’t live on IVF and recurrent miscarriage sites. A chemical pregnancy is an early stage miscarriage. It’s a term dreamt up by some nasty person who’s never had a “chemical pregnancy”. We didn’t need a term to dismiss an already difficult experience.

The first one was a shock. We barely had time to celebrate. We didn’t know what normal was. Cramping and spotting? The internet says it must be implantation bleeding. Wait till the morning and off to hospital at 6am. Waiting, waiting, waiting while the intensity of the cramps increase till you know for certain; it’s over. But still in A&E waiting, waiting, waiting. I had my vitals taken three times and three hours later we finally saw a doctor. I don’t remember what they said. Just being sent down winding corridors at Lewisham hospital. Following the orange line. Laughing with my husband about the strange treasure hunt that we were on.

After a few hours I told my husband to go to work. We had already messaged my boss. Unsure what the etiquette for an early stage loss was. What could I say that didn’t seem like I was pulling a sickie? We settled on “bad stomach”. I could still WFH when I got back. It was just a “chemical pregnancy”. I still had important things to do. Important to keep doing the “important” things.

I sat there patiently waiting my turn to be scanned. My first visit to the Early Pregnancy Centre. Surrounded by happy people excited about their first scans.

“There’s a lot of blood” the ultra sound scanner lady said. Incredulous that I thought I might still be pregnant. I’ve been here for hours I wanted to scream. I was pregnant when I got here… Fed up she says I’m just looking for the “pregnancy”. I’d made a noise as she violently pushed and pulled the vaginal scanner inside me.

I came out quietly into the car park. The world that I didn’t know about, because I was normally at work at 11am, was carrying on as normal. After ten minutes of edging the car back and forth in a cradle of the world’s tiniest spot in the NHS car park. I headed home.

I’ll go get coffee and cake, I decided, as I drove past a small quirky cafe. Slightly on the other side of our usual stomping ground. It’s since been homogenised with sleek blonde wood surfaces, dark bluey grey walls and edging with just the right pop of colour coming from yellow mugs, sugar bowls and mini milk jugs.

They have kept the original giant Klimt print “Portrait of Adele Blouch-Bauer I”. Plastered over a wall from the ceiling down. Gold like the picture is timeless and goes with everything. The old cafe was haphazard and infinitely charming. I sat by the window; on a small metal garden chair at a small round garden table with heavy inset tiles on its top; counting my blessings. I was drinking tea from a castle teapot and eating a heavy peanut butter cake with over sweet icing. I felt nauseous. I really could have done with something more nutritious. Maybe scrambled eggs with wholemeal toast. But I was here to give myself a treat. To process, and allow myself a moment to take stock.

I didn’t really know what to do with myself. I tried to relax and sip my tea. Then I got in the car. Drove home. Climbed two flights of stairs to the study at the top of the house. Logged in and proceeded to be useful.

The second time I had a chemical pregnancy, I had been pregnant two days. We had waited for my period to come back and then done the deed every other day within the week’s ovulation window and hey presto. We were getting good at this.

I tested on the morning of a hot July Saturday. We were trying to stay out of the shambolic building site of our home. We were mid a loft conversion and remodelling of the downstairs. We decided to go chill in the park. I played with my phone in the shade. Joined Mumsnet and downloaded a pregnancy tracking app. When do we need to let the doctor know? I asked my husband. Let’s call now he said. Strangely the doctor had availability that day. So we went over had a chat and put appointments in with the midwife.

When the pains started on Monday night we both rolled our eyes and said what’s the point. We didn’t go to A&E. And I didn’t get my coffee and cake.

We waited for my next period and then tried again, but some how we missed the dates this time. Another month and another set of scheduled sex. And another positive test. By this stage (due to my advanced maternal age) we had visited a clinic and were all poised for IVF. My husband always convinced me to wait till the weekend to test and we had out third positive pregnancy test on a Saturday as normal.We crossed our fingers.

Three miscarriages didn’t happen. People didn’t have three miscarriages. We stayed calm, we stayed quiet, we stayed hopeful. This was our time. I left the cocoon of the quiet weekend that we were having, to meet a friend who had had IVF successfully. I was distracted, I didn’t know what to ask. I didn’t know where I was on the journey.

When the pains started on Tuesday night, the practical heads were gone. There was confusion and shouting. There’s no point wasting time going to A&E. I don’t want to waste my time. But we need to log it. You get all sorts of help after three losses. Three losses, that’s the threshold of pain that you need to pass before you rise above the tipping point on the cost benefit analysis and they start taking your abortive uterus seriously.

At four in the morning we piled into the car, hoping to avoid the rush. A&E is a strange place at night and even stranger in the early hours. You slip into a world where desperate people have given up pretending to be normal and thrown off the cloaks covering their pain. We sat there absorbing the world of drunks and homeless people sitting in A&E to avoid sitting on the streets in October. Singing meaningless ditties to each other to encourage themselves to keep clinging on to their lives, however lonely and lacking in happiness they were. It reminded us of sitting around spaced after an all nighter with friends talking garbage. But with a more sinister tone.

I had to keep getting up and walking around to help the sharp cramps ease. Slowly, quietly, discreetly to avoid being drawn into the world of the regulars.

Finally at five they brought us in to the main waiting area. They put an IV in my arm ready for any medication the doctor might prescribe. The nurse absently forgot to put the cover on the tube and for five seconds blood squirted randomly out of my arm and around the room. No apology. Oh you’re a bleeder was his only comment. At seven the doctor saw us and did nothing. Told us nothing useful and sent me to the Early Pregnancy Centre.

I had sent A home with the car this time. And after my visit to the Centre, I walked through the park and stopped at the cafe on my way home. I sat downstairs this time; listening in on two women who had clearly been friends for many years. Pragmatic and thoughtful. I remember hoping to have their poise and outlooks when I got to their ages.

My most recent miscarriage visit to the O’s cafe was unusually before I visited A&E. And I was not alone. A was with me.

This was a new sort of miscarriage. It was a missed miscarriage which means the baby was inside me; but had stopped growing. This wasn’t a natural pregnancy. This was our second round of IVF. I had had two “top” quality embryos transferred. Transferred with A watching and our doctor chatting jovially about meeting the queen at a garden party. We have one picture of our “twins”. Two clean clumps of cells with very little fragmentation. Beautiful according to the doctor and embryologist?

It was a Tuesday again, when we discovered that our babies weren’t growing. It was a seven week scan. We were late. I’m terrible with time and the Jubilee line was delayed.

Quick strip waist down behind the screen. I’ve probably had twenty vaginal ultra sounds to date after numerous fertility appointments and over the course of two IVF cycles. On the bed. Pop legs up: little pop as the ultra sound goes in. And then a small silence that’s too long. A and I look at each other and we know. There’s a sack but it’s the wrong shape. There’s only one foetal pole. It’s too small. It stopped growing two weeks ago.

We go home but stop in the street to call Lewisham hospital to see if we can go to the Early Pregnancy Unit for management of the missed miscarriage that day. But they can’t see us till, the next morning.

Next morning we stop for coffee and an almond croissant on our way in. I’ve been on a strict diet for four months and again, the treat doesn’t make me feel great. It’s too sweet. The cafe’s now been revamped and we sit on high chairs with wooden seats that mould ergonomically around our bottoms. We’re drinking out of yellow mugs and it feels like we’re playing hooky together.

We finish our flat whites and walk through the park to Lewisham hospital and follow the orange line back to the Early Pregnancy Centre.