The second time I miscarried was harder than the first. Lucas and I had sat long into the night after that first loss, cuddling in front of the open fire on the living room floor, mourning our baby and making the life changing decision that becoming parents was what we truly wanted now. We would try again and this time we would get to hold our baby. After all, miscarriage was remarkably common, and we'd had our share of the bad luck now. We would do it right this time.
We visited the doctor, we both took the vitamins. We ate well and both of us gave up drinking even refusing half a glass of wine. Lucas had said we were in it together. It wasn't fair that I had to give everything up if he wouldn't make the effort too. We planned and prepared and we felt sure that this time we would succeed.
Only we didn't.
I'd fallen pregnant that first month of trying. It was so easy. It felt right, the missing piece of the puzzle we hadn't known we were searching for. I had laughed that I didn't even have morning sickness, so sure that I was in for a smooth easy pregnancy after a rocky false start. We'd had an early scan at seven weeks just to be sure, crying together over that little flicker of a heartbeat enclosed within a tiny nugget of cells and information. Our baby. Alive and thriving. We had told everyone, celebrated joyously. A few weeks later I'd been at work – right in the middle of teaching, when I'd been overcome with sudden, crippling cramps and had to abandon my students mid lecture. And then, just like that, it had been over. No more baby. Gone. Just like that.
After that second loss, fear had set in. This baby hadn't been some accident. Losing our child hadn't been just plain old bad luck. We couldn't call it a fluke any longer. Now, we had lost two of them. I had lost two of them, and we couldn't pass it off as an unlucky one off experience. It was so much harder than the first time. That little bean on the monitor had been our child. We had seen the life there and yet somehow, it was gone, just faded away out of reach and we could never get it back. We had conceived twice and we still didn't have a baby to hold. Still couldn't call ourselves parents. It was heartbreaking.
The third time had been just five months later. I had known from the beginning that something wasn't right. My sisters had tried to reassure me, after all, who wouldn't be nervous in my position? But I'd felt off from the very start, and my instincts turned out to be right. That time had ended the worst. I had collapsed in the middle of the Saturday market, screaming in agony, crying out to the passing strangers to help me, sure I was dying. An ectopic pregnancy, the doctors had told me when I'd regained my senses after the emergency surgery. The embryo had attached to the inside of my right fallopian tube and as it grew too large, ruptured it completely. I had lost my third child and halved our chances of being able to conceive in one brutal swipe.
Bewildered as to why my body was betraying me, I had booked in to see the best fertility doctors in the country. I'd passively submitted to every test they had going, hoping beyond hope that they would find something fixable. Both Lucas and I had blood tests, genetics cross matching to determine whether the fault was down to gene compatibility. Nothing was found. I was a mystery. And I was broken.
By this point, I couldn't think about anything besides becoming a mother, birthing my child, holding that little sweet smelling, soft skinned bundle in my arms. I wanted it so much I could barely breathe, yet every time I had to deliver the news to Lucas, to my sisters that another baby was gone, my heart broke. As time passed, I had found myself hating my body. Wondering what I had done to deserve this pain over and over again.
The fourth time I had kept my mouth shut. I never told a soul that I was carrying another precious baby. When I'd been sick, I had hidden it. When I'd felt tired, I'd resisted napping, or if I was desperate, slipped into my office and locked the door, curling up beneath my desk for a few moments of respite. I'd become consumed with the idea that if I didn't tell anyone, my baby would survive. When the bleeding had started, I'd pretended it wasn't happening. When Lucas had confronted me, his eyes brimming with hurt tears, devastated that I was no longer confiding in him, I had denied it. I could not accept another miscarriage. I wouldn't take this any longer. I was going to have my baby. This baby. Only I wasn't. I couldn't. I'd fucked it all up again. My child was gone and no amount of refusal to admit it was going to bring him back to me.
The cracks began to deepen. Lucas and Bonnie had watched me closer, and the more they'd watched, the less I'd shared. I knew they knew. But to put words to what was happening was too much for me to bear. In the beginning, we had cried together. Comforted each other, supported one another. But now, I knew that this was something that only I could fix. I was the one who wasn't strong enough to protect our babies. I was the one who kept fucking this up for everyone. I couldn't lean on them because they could never understand it was my fault. They wouldn't accept what I knew – that I was a failure. I had promised myself that I wouldn't ever open my heart to them again. Not until I'd conquered this challenge.
By the fifth miscarriage, the one I'd had just a few days ago, I was almost numb. I had lost hope. I no longer believed I could carry a child to term, though it was all I wanted in the world. Now I just waited for the cramps to begin, the bleeding to show. I couldn't give up, I couldn't see a life where I could be content without my baby, yet I could feel my body losing strength. The insomnia was frightful. I would pace the darkness of our home for hours every night, tears flowing uncontrollably. If Lucas tried to comfort me, I pushed him away. If Isabel or Bonnie tried to talk about it, I would shut down completely. I was losing myself, I could feel it. But I didn't know what to do about it. I was running through a nightmare, my baby being swiped from my arms, the demons stealing him from his bed, and I would chase them to the ends of the earth. But I could never seem to catch them.
Chapter Four
Oxford, in the mornings before the hustle and bustle of the tourists mingling about, the mums and kids on the school run and the students cluttering up the streets, was – in my opinion – the most peaceful place in the world. I loved to walk along the river as the sun was coming up, taking a meandering stroll down to the university where I worked as a professor. It struck me as amusing to realise quite how much I enjoyed seeing those first rays of sun smile weakly down on the world.
I hadn't always been an early bird, in fact, the friends I'd had during my time as a student in the very same uni would've been amazed if they had caught even a glimpse of me before brunch. I'd always liked the quiet of the night, the surreal element to walking home under the soft glow of moonlight. There was something special about night-time, and back then, I had been at my most productive in the wee hours. Assignments were written at three a.m, projects planned and executed under the dim lamp at my little scratched desk while the world slept around me. I would fall into a deep, restful sleep in the early hours, raising my head as the church bell chimed midday.
These days, not so much. It wasn't that I'd traded being a night owl for the role of early bird. More that I couldn't sleep no matter what time it was. I still saw three a.m most nights, but it wasn't in a frenzy of productivity. More a desperate exhaustion accompanied by a spinning mind I couldn't seem to quiet. If I slept at all, it was short, light and restless and I had become more than just acquaintances with dawn since the baby saga began.