Good Friday falls every year on the Friday before Easter. It’s a sad day of mourning and loss as Christians commemorate the crucifixion of Christ.
I’m not exactly sure why it’s called Good; the internet has various theories about that. But what I do know is that my first Good Friday after Jai was born was certainly not a ‘good’ Good Friday at all.
The morning began as usual, with me giving Jai his bottle and breakfast. He’d started weaning onto solids the month before and was enjoying baby rice and home-cooked pureed vegetables. I had an extra spring in my step that morning with the news that we were pregnant again, and as it was a national holiday, Maanav was at home with us. It was a perfect spring morning. We couldn’t wait to announce it to the family when they all returned from their travels. My in-laws were away, and my mother and father had gone on a holiday for the Easter season too.
As it was just us at home, I was planning to make a special dinner for Maanav. That dinner never happened, though.
Somewhere around the middle of the morning, while pondering what to cook, I felt a foreboding ache; I doubled over in pain and felt a strong urge to go to the loo. I’d had similar pains only five months before. I was in disbelief that I was feeling them again. Those were labour pains. This shouldn’t be happening now.
As I sat on the toilet with a strong, dull ache in my lower abdomen and legs, my body convulsed, and the toilet bowl filled with blood and dark tissue, I screamed out Maanav’s name.
I bled until it felt as if I were poured out and nothing was left of me. When finally the cramps stopped, Maanav helped me to our bed, and I collapsed in exhaustion and probably shock at what had just happened. Maanav was on the phone with the NHS helpline in seconds. They said I needed a scan to confirm whether we had lost the baby or if it was going to be okay.
But as it was Good Friday that day and Easter was on Sunday, followed by a national holiday on Monday, there were no technicians available at the hospitals, not even in the Accident and Emergency department. They said I had to wait 4 days until everything reopened, and in the meantime, I was put on complete bed rest. On Tuesday, when everything reopened, I’d be able to have a scan to see if I had miscarried or if the baby was alright.
4 days! I felt suffocated with no answer. Is my baby alright? Is my baby even there, or have I just flushed it down the loo? Why does Mother Nature have to do this to me and make me wait 4 whole days to find out?
My husband was a superhero that weekend and took care of Jai and me. I can’t remember what we ate, but I’m pretty sure he didn’t cook because he had zero cooking skills. He’d take me to the best restaurants, but put him in the kitchen, bless him, he’d likely burn it down. He almost did once.
He’d been trying to reheat some boxes of pizza that had been delivered, and when I say reheat boxes of pizza, I mean just that; he put the actual cardboard boxes in the oven with the pizzas inside and cranked up the heat to full. When black smoke was escaping from around the oven door and lingering like a wispy cloud in the pristine white kitchen, he opened the oven in a panic, and the boxes burst into flames. It took the meaning of ‘flaming hot pizza’ to a whole new level. We laughed about it for days.
When Tuesday came around, I had the scan. Yes, my nest was empty. I think I’d known already in my heart that the baby was no more. I’d have been ignorant to be in that much pain and lose that much blood and still believe everything was okay. Having that confirmation that the baby had indeed gone, gone down the toilet, was too awful for me to bear.
When we told our parents, upon their return (we didn’t want to spoil their holidays by telling them earlier), my mother-in-law said miscarriages were so common that women probably had a few without even realising, and that we probably mistake them for a period. I tried to absorb what she was saying. I know she wanted to help me be strong, and I knew I’d feel better if I believed it, but I was in mourning, and I felt my grief was being invalidated.
Even though I had only known for a few days that I was pregnant, and even though the baby would have been the size of a grape, probably, the bond was as strong as if I’d held him or her in my arms. And the see-saw of brief pregnancy and post-miscarriage hormones didn’t help. It was like having postnatal depression all over again. I felt an immense sense of loss.
I wanted to tell my mother-in-law there’s a huge difference between a period and a miscarriage. I wanted to tell her how painful it was, physically and emotionally. But I kept my mouth shut. I grieved in my own way. I got a little bonsai tree, which I kept in my bedroom. I named it and tended to it to honour the soul who had so briefly connected with me. It made me feel better.
It’d be lovely to think that this miscarriage was just a blip on the road to having another child. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to assume that after this, I got pregnant again and Veer was born, the end.
This miscarriage was, however, just the beginning of, if I may quote Lemony Snicket, a series of unfortunate events, where the marriage vow ‘in sickness and in health’ was really put to the test.
(Originally published on os.me on December 7, 2022)