I held my wife as she sobbed at our lost baby. I had to be brave, but inside I crumbled
As Zara Tindall reveals her husband’s silent agony after her miscarriages, a fellow father admits...
MY PREGNANT wife Sarah and I felt fizzy and excited as we strode into hospital for her three-month scan. After two years of marriage, and two years of trying for our first child, our dream of becoming parents was nearing reality.
I remember gripping Sarah’s hand as that first grainy image of our baby appeared on the screen.
But then the technician suddenly stopped talking and hurried out, saying she needed to fetch a doctor.
Sarah looked up at me, confused and petrified. I squeezed her hand again, this time to reassure her.
It struck me that our baby hadn’t moved at all on the screen. My heart lunged into my stomach as we waited, but I kept my fears to myself. Sarah had to come first.
A grim-faced doctor appeared. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
There were medical terms and theories as to why our baby had died, but all I could focus on was Sarah, who was sobbing uncontrollably. I desperately wanted to make her pain stop. In that moment, her physical distress was all I cared about.
It was clear from the start — as a nurse rushed in to offer Sarah water, a soothing cold flannel, some tea — that my emotions were to be relegated to second place.
No one asked me if I needed anything and, at first, that was fine with me.
From the ecstatic moment when we realised Sarah was pregnant, I knew I would be taking a secondary role. Yes, I’d be a father, but the really dramatic changes would be taking place in Sarah’s body.
As I comforted my distraught wife, I was consciously shutting down my own need to be reassured and cared for. But behind the stoic facade, my heart was breaking.
ALTHOUGH a father’s grief after miscarriage is rarely spoken of, it is just as keenly felt as the mother’s. That’s why when princess Anne’s daughter Zara Tindall talked recently about the grief her husband Mike endured over their two miscarriages, her words were deeply welcome.
‘For guys, it’s that helpless feeling, which must be incredibly horrible,’ she said.
Zara’s words jolted me back to the days when our loss was raw and new. Helplessness is what I remember most; wanting — but failing, of course — to take away the pain my wife was enduring.
I pushed my own sadness aside so I could be there for her. But the more I did so, the more I felt I was on the outside looking in. And that’s a lonely place.
One in six pregnancies end in miscarriage. But eight years ago, we had no idea how frequently things could go wrong. It all came as such a shock in our previously charmed lives.
We had dated briefly at university. Sarah was always the ‘one who got away’, so when we were reintroduced by a friend in 2008, we quickly reconnected.
After our wedding — in the Cotswolds in 2009 — we immediately started trying for a baby.
Eighteen months later, with no luck, we had just booked an appointment with our doctor to discuss fertility treatment when Sarah told me her period was late. I dashed to the chemist for a pregnancy test. It was positive. We knew we weren’t supposed to tell anyone until the three-month scan, but we were just so jubilant. We told our family, our friends; I even told the waiters in the cafe I used to go to for lunch.
We started choosing names. Did she prefer George or Henry for a boy? Sarah loved Beatrice and Flora for a girl, but I wasn’t sure.
Then came the fateful scan at 12 weeks. Back home, Sarah climbed into bed and cried all day and night. I cuddled her, feeling adrift and useless.
Calling my mother-in-law to tell her we’d lost the baby was incredibly hard. Not only had she lost a grandchild, but she was frightened for her daughter.
Then we faced telling everyone else. Worst of all was when someone who didn’t yet know patted Sarah’s empty tummy.
Sarah poured her heart out to female friends, who showered us with flowers and homemade meals left on the doorstep. But I didn’t talk to anyone, least of all my wife. I didn’t feel it was my place. And I don’t remember anyone asking how I was.
Sarah kept asking me what she’d done wrong, what her body had done to our baby. Of course, it wasn’t her fault. But I didn’t know what to say.
I felt lonely, unable to share my own turmoil with Sarah for fear of making things even harder for her. Worse, three days later I had to go back to work and pretend everything was fine.
I had a few conversations with my best friend, but he hadn’t been through anything like this. Men aren’t good at being vulnerable when tragedy strikes; we feel we must be strong, even when we’re aching with sadness.
I have noticed in the last few years that men are starting to discuss their mental health more, which can only be a good thing. But my father kept problems to himself while appearing jolly and positive to the world, and I guess I inherited his attitude.
He sadly died of cancer just a year before the miscarriage, so I couldn’t seek his advice, either.
My mother was, and is, always there for me, but I didn’t want to burden her.
SO AS time went on, I processed my pain differently to Sarah. I’m a computer programmer and tend to think logically about problems, so I spent days researching causes of miscarriage and the possibility of it happening again. I became absorbed in statistics, perhaps trying to numb myself emotionally.
Sarah probably didn’t want to hear my theories on Darwinism, but I shared them anyway. She preferred to tearfully read blog posts written by other women who’d suffered similar problems.
The only way we got through those first painful weeks was by focusing on the fact that we had been able to conceive. So getting pregnant again became our priority. I’m not religious, but I sent up a silent prayer to my dad, begging the universe for help.
Four months later, we were looking at another positive pregnancy test. But I couldn’t enjoy Sarah’s pregnancy at all, terrified that something would go wrong.
At the three-month scan, even when we heard the heartbeat and were told everything looked perfect, I found it hard to take in — or believe.
I asked for a recording of the heartbeat and a handful of screen grabs, and I checked them every day until the next scan.
My worry persisted up until the due date. The happiness and relief we felt when we were finally able to hold our newborn son, William, were indescribable.
When we brought him home three days later, his giggles wiped away the negativity of the past two years. And we were thrilled to find out we were expecting again on William’s first birthday.
But the three- month scan revealed there was no heartbeat. The pregnancy wasn’t viable.
Only the sheer joy of having William at home got us through
this second blow. But I found this loss far harder than the first, as the emotions I’d buried back then surfaced with renewed ferocity. I felt out of control. Powerless.
We were lucky enough to have our beautiful daughter Matilda in September 2013, but decided to stop at two. We couldn’t handle another loss.
Over this painful journey, Sarah and I have learned to communicate more honestly. Now, I’d tell other men going through miscarriage not to hide their feelings or try to control the situation. Don’t claim you understand exactly what your wife is going through — it is different for a woman — but tell her how much you loved that baby.
I am grateful every day for my two healthy children — William is now seven and Matilda five — but I will never forget what we lost to get them.
SARAH SAYS:
LOOKING back, I was very focused on my own grief after both my miscarriages. I thought it only right that everyone around me — friends, family, the medical community — focused on me. I didn’t really think about the fact that all Russ’s hopes and dreams had died, too.
I know now that he was juggling all that jagged pain while trying to remain positive and strong for me. But in the depths of my grief, I had no spare energy to spend comforting him.
We did a lot of crying together but he was the one always comforting me, trying to make my day easier, while he had to get back to work and pretend nothing had happened.
He has since told me how lonely that experience was, and my heart aches to think I didn’t recognise that at the time.
Sometimes I misunderstood his positivity and felt he’d pushed our lost baby to the side too quickly.
But he was right that we should focus on the future. Welcoming William, and then Matilda, into our lives after two losses was the biggest blessing I could imagine.