Failure

I had a medical assessment yesterday as social services require one because Neil and I are kinship foster carers.

It involves answering questions about my general health and the doctor confirming any facts about my health and well being. I also have to undertake mobility, weight and height assessments.

As part of the lengthy form social services ask about our fertility and any losses. Of course Neil and I have already disclosed all of this information but have to go through the laborious task of repeating our personal information.

This is a tick box exercise in our circumstances as Alissa has been in our care for nearly 8 months already and we have been approved at panel. I was shocked when we received the approval letter from our panel and it was both positive and glowing about us.

So when the doctor got to the questions about previous pregnancies and fertility, I once again talked her through our losses. Her response was similar to most professionals and others, which was an assumption that we had lost due to chromosome abnormalities.

I had to talk her through the fact that we have had various losses. Most have been in rare percentages and all have been in the 10% of miscarriage where heartbeats have formed but babies have passed with no reason.

As a professional doctor she looked at my notes to confirm my statement and then responded by stating that I was right and that all fertility tests we have had, have in fact been returned with no issues or conditions.

With the information confirmed she wrote on the form. She spoke out loud as she wrote and said “well it’s clear you don’t have problems conceiving, you just fail to reach full term”.

She repeated this statement a few times in different ways but each time she said the words “I fail”. I was hesitant to challenge this statement as I guess I was upset and shocked at the time. The doctor was also very pleasant and obviously meant no harm or malice with her comments.

Later in the day her words kept ringing around my head. I fail! I became more upset as the day went on. I also wished I had maybe challenged the comment in a careful and diplomatic way.

I guess it was a rushed and unintentional comment. Yet I can’t help but feel that it was the wrong thing to say and that I have not failed. Kora and Ava are not a fail. They blessed me with a very quick natural conception. They gave us the knowledge that we could not only conceive but could have healthy babies.

They gave me the experience of labour and a natural delivery. They taught me love and loss in a way I had not experienced before. They taught us a grief like we had never felt. They taught us to survive and helped to grow us closer as a couple.

Every baby we have carried has taught us something new. Everyone of them has brought us hope. We have had heartbreak and learnt how to cope and carry on in other people’s world as ours will never be the same again. We have been blessed to be pregnant five times. We are fortunate.

I don’t feel the comment of failure is at all helpful especially when pregnant now with anxiety of bringing them home. We already fear that this won’t happen or that we will suffer another loss.

Fortunately Neil and I had our 16 week scan and check on Monday therefore we saw that both babies are healthy with strong heartbeats. The consultant told us that they look text book perfect and she can’t foresee any problems.

The scan allows us to feel relieved even if this only lasts a day or so. We know that we are one day closer and that at this moment in time we have two babies growing and developing perfectly.

We have four weeks till our next scan and to the all important 20 weeks where professionals believe we will carry both twins for the foreseeable (no disappearing twin). It will be as normal a long and anxious wait but we hope to be strong and not pay for a private scan.

The timing of this scan and the doctors comment has allowed me to reflect in a positive manner. I have never understood medical terminology such as non viable, failure, retained product or still born. It all sounds so impersonal and incorrect.

I strongly believe that the terminology bounded around is due to the fact pregnancy loss is such a taboo subject. If we don’t talk openly about our losses and how it affects us then how can we implement positive change and appropriate vocabulary.

I guess we all measure success and failure differently. I certainly wouldn’t ever measure a pregnancy loss as a failure though and it’s definitely not a comment I would say to a mother who has suffered loss regardless of how many weeks pregnant they were.

The pregnancy did not fail it ended early and the result of that end is empty arms, broken hearts and unused cots. It’s a raw reality and a grief that lasts the parents lifetime.