I Was the Girl Who Falsely Cried 'Miscarriage'
When you can no longer count your miscarriages on one hand, it’s a matter of time before you think you’re having one even when you’re not. This happened to me, in an Airbus 380–800, thirty-five thousand feet over the Atlantic. I’m writing this partly to clear my conscience (I’d like to apologise to everyone involved), but also to show it doesn’t always need to be sad. Sometimes, at least, there is comedy to be found even in the darkest moments of this conception journey. Anyone going through the same may recognise this…
August, 4.30am GMT
My mouth is dry, my eyes sticky. I push the tangled blankets off my knees and pull my earphones out. The lights in the plane are on and the air hostesses are shoving coffee into sleepy hands. I climb over my husband and stumble to the bathroom, feeling something wet on my trousers. Did I spill something? I keep my back carefully to the bulkhead as I wait in line, then slip inside the bathroom, lock the door and turn on the light.
Blood. All over my knickers, and, horror of horrors, down my white trousers, staining them front and back. God knows where else. I yank them off and stand, knickerless, jet-lagged and confused, naked from the waist down in the tiny airplane bathroom. Not again. Not again.
My first miscarriage was almost three years ago. All six have all bled into one, dazed haze of grief, but the memory of that first one, that first sight of blood, and the deep, gut knowledge that all was not right within me, is as bright today as it was in the restaurant bathroom on York Way in London, October 2016.
Back at thirty-five thousand feet, I’m trapped. How on earth am I to get out of this bathroom? My knickers and trousers are now unusable. I have only a tiny leather handbag with which to retain my modesty. Do I clean myself up and sprint bare-bottomed down the aisle of the plane? No. I’ll text my husband. No, that won’t work, we’re in a plane over the Atlantic and his phone will be off. I’ll get hold of an air hostess, that’s what I’ll do. Wait. How do I do that without leaving the bathroom? My eyes land on the no smoking sign. Perfect. I’ll light up a cigarette and when they arrive angry with me I’ll explain it was all a ruse and I’m really having a miscarriage.
Except I have no cigarettes. I don’t smoke. Right. Wake up, girl. Then, like a the beam of a lighthouse in a storm, I see the comforting glow of an air hostess call button thoughtfully placed in the bathroom. I push it.
“Yes?” There’s a tap at the door and I open it a crack. Brown hair. Scottish. Suddenly, she’s in the bathroom with me and the tears come flowing out. “I think I’m having a miscarriage,” I say, and the tears won’t stop coming. My stupid, white, bloody trousers slung over the sink, and my stupid, useless womb, unable to nuture or keep anything, and my poor, poor, poor bunch of cells never getting a chance. I feel as ashamed as a soiled puppy and an even deeper, insidious shame as a woman.
This air hostess is wonderful. In soothing, Scottish tones, she explains she can get me a sanitary towel, and a spare pair of knickers, and some leggings, and a blanket. There’s a way out of this bathroom, and a way back to my husband. On my own again, I mop myself down then look at my hollow-eyed reflection in the mirror.
There’s an unease there, behind my eyes. I rub at them. A thought flits through my mind but I can’t grab onto it. I’m jet-lagged and confused. I’ve been travelling for more than 24 hours. A collectivo from the small, Andean town in Peru’s Cordillera Blancas. An eight-hour bus. A long airport wait. A twelve-hour flight. Then the thought boomerangs back, hitting me between the eyes and flooding me with the truth. I’m not pregnant. I need to be pregnant to miscarry.
With shaking hands I open my phone and look at my fertility app. My husband and I had been trying this month, as we do every month. Had I confused trying with actually being pregnant? Had I confused untimely blood with a miscarriage? I count the days on the bright pink calendar then hold the cold screen of the phone to my forehead and shut my eyes.
It’s not a miscarriage it’s my fucking period.
The air hostess knocks at the door again. “Yes?”, I say. I can’t look her in the eyes anymore.
“I’ve got some knickers and leggings and a spare blanket sweetheart.” She passes clean, folded clothes through the door. “I’ll be waiting on the other side. Take all the time you need.” I pull on the knickers, the warm leggings. I rinse out the trousers full of lies, throw away the mendacious knickers in the bin that says no cigarettes. I am like the boy who cried wolf. The girl who makes up miscarriages. What was I thinking?
Outside she’s there, full of concern. She takes my arm as if I’m a very delicate, elderly person. We shuffle down the aisle of the aircraft. I keep my eyes demurely down, the blanket around my shoulders until I reach my husband. “I’ll leave the two of you alone,” said the kind, honest, air hostess. I nod solemnly. I am going to hell for this.
“Darling?” My husband looks worried. I sit down carefully beside him, lean in towards his ear, and whisper through gritted teeth.
“Ah’ve gern ernd ermergernd er merzkerrerge.”
“What?”
“Lerk serd” I hiss. He immediately adopts a sad face.
“They’re watching us.”
“What?”
I lean in closer. “I thought I was miscarrying. Don’t worry, I’m not, I’m not even pregnant — I’m so sorry. Ert’s jerst mah ferkerng perierd.” I’m crying again, and now he’s crying. He wraps his arms around me and I shift in my seat to be able to hug him properly. We cry, just as we’ve cried for every six before. And, just as with the others before, I feel like something is breaking between us on a soul level. Like each loss shatters something spiritual.
I’ve never been able to explain this adequately, but the loss feels like Tchaikovsky’s dying swan, the shard of mirror in Kai’s heart in the Snow Queen, the fairy that falls down dead in Peter Pan. The loss of something innocent and magic. Beside us, the window seat man stares determinedly at his movie.
Eventually my husband pulls away. “You’ve not actually had a miscarriage though.”
“No…shhh.”
“You’ve just bled everywhere and created a web of lies.”
“Shhh.” I darted a glance at our neighbour. “This conversation sounds really weird to anyone who’s listening.”
There’s a tap on my shoulder. It’s the air hostess again. “I’ve got you a cup of tea honey. There’s milk and sugar there. Just sip on that.” I take the tea with guilty hands.
My husband leans in again. “Why did you think you were having a miscarriage?”
“I don’t know. I just saw the blood and it was when I wasn’t expecting it, and I was tired and confused and more often than not it is a miscarriage.”
“But it’s not a miscarriage…”
“Stop saying miscarriage!” I look around at the other passengers.
Now he’s laughing. “We don’t need to cry anymore.”
“No.”
“It’s all ok.”
“Yes.”
“Shall we watch Curb Your Enthusiasm? Take our minds off it?”
“Yes.”
It’s the episode where Larry David’s shoes go missing at the bowling alley. We’re giggling away when there’s another tap on my shoulder. A male air host stands there with two bottles of water and a kind expression on his face. We both immediately adopt grave expressions and take the water.
When he’s out of earshot I whisper to my husband again. “I feel so bad.”
He thinks for a moment. “It’s ok. You didn’t intentionally make it up. You thought you were. And you’ve got good reasons for that.”
I nodded. Then the bad feeling came back again. “But I’m getting all this sympathy from the plane staff.”
He paused again. “Well, we have had six miscarriages. If anyone deserves sympathy…”
“But what if I’m jinxing it? I…”
“No.” He dropped his head into his hands and rested it there. He breathed heavily, as if breathing out his bad feelings, then he found my hand and rubbed it methodically, as he does when he is worried. I realised in that moment how much he suffers too. “We’ve talked about this. There is no jinxing, there is no magic.”
As the plane began to descend towards Heathrow, I thought of the real magic. That we had been through six miscarriages together (now seven, at the time of writing) in just three years of marriage.
That the constant elation and the loss had not yet taken its toll. That the sense of inadequacy — as husband and wife, as son and daughter, as member of society, had not yet taken its toll. That the instability, the torn-up plans and newly hatched plans had not yet taken their toll. That the brave face, the lie we feel forced to plaster on so as not to make anyone else uncomfortable had not yet taken its toll.
That moments of joy could still be found while grieving. That we were still beside each other, holding hands, in the face of it. It is a black comedy indeed, but I’m so grateful to find moments of genuine laughter within it.
