I have just experienced a tragedy, the end of my pregnancy. It’s been 3 years since we try to have a baby, 18 months since we started a MAP course. I was finally pregnant and everything suddenly stopped.
I see the monitoring screen again, in the blue hospital room. A black screen, to the right of the examination chair on which I am lying, my feet on the stirrups. I am used to it. My husband and I have been trying to have a baby for three years, including a year and a half on the assisted reproduction path. The stirrups and I know each other by heart: we have seen each other since the first exams to understand what does not work, followed by artificial insemination attempts, then IVF, the next step, when the baby is not working. still not happen. So I put my legs up again and again: How big is the endometrium this month? Did the injections supposed to stimulate ovulation work well? How many eggs in the tubes? Each time, wedged in the stirrups, my eyes riveted on monitoring, I cash in on the doctors’ explanations and sometimes, the good news.
Like this morning when my gynecologist told me “It’s okay, all the signals are green. We are attempting a third embryo transfer next week. ” On D-Day, I followed on the screen the gesture of a doctor who came to deposit the embryo in my uterus. My husband took a picture of the monitoring, of this invisible point that we hoped to see hold, then grow… He hung on. Fifteen days after the transfer and despite two negative pregnancy tests, a blood test was clear: I was pregnant.
Two months have passed. In the blue room, it’s worried and impatient that I lie down again in the hospital chair to see my baby’s heart beating for the first time. My breasts have become heavy, my stomach regularly tightens with small cramps that I welcome with wonder. My husband holds my hand, smiles behind his mask. I turn my eyes to the monitor. But above, I only see the clear circle of the gestational sac. And in the center, a black spot. A hole. A hole. I hear the voice of the gynecologist. The fetus is no longer there.
Slowly, she explains to me that I wore it for a month and a half, then that its development stopped naturally, probably because of a genetic or biological defect that made all life impossible. I hear his voice, then mine. I scream. I scream no, it couldn’t have happened, not to us, not to me. I understand that the slight bleeding that has lasted for two weeks was a sign that everything was already over, but I refuse to accept this reality. I fight it by screaming, crying bitter tears, I do everything to repel this wave of misfortune which engulfs me entirely. It will take me ten minutes, hugging my husband, to catch my breath and admit that not only is this all true, but on top of that, we’re going to have to survive. “You have to be strong for it to work”.
There was nothing to suggest that this embryo would be what we call “a clear egg”, unfit to develop beyond a few weeks. IVF has nothing to do with it, we have nothing to do with it. I did not have a miscarriage but a “termination of pregnancy”. Four days after discovering this gaping hole on a screen, my heart is empty and my stomach twists. “You have to make room,” my husband told me, helping me take the two pills used to trigger the miscarriage. I am losing blood, huge tears and a dream. I am in mourning when I have not lost anyone, only the promise of a child who could not have lived anyway.
I do not regret having informed our loved ones about our IVF journey or about this brand new pregnancy. We were like, “If it works, he / she will be happy. If that doesn’t work, they’ll be there. ” We must talk about assisted reproduction, pregnancies that end, miscarriages … The figures are relentless: 10% of couples face infertility. One in four pregnancies does not reach term. In France, 200,000 women miscarry each year. Of course, this pain is intimate, but no one should have to live it in hiding, in silence and shame. My pregnancy has stopped and that does not make me a deficient, unfit or broken woman. I am not alone either, because all the others, those who were once future parents, then no longer were, are by my side.
A priori, I could get pregnant again, one day. When the hole in the screen has faded from my memory. That the void in my heart will have been filled by bouquets of flowers, prayers and dozens of messages from our loved ones, so tender with our pain.
So that day I will put my feet back on the stirrups.
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