From the heart: I hate it when people call it a miscarriage
Comedian Lou Conran, 42, had to terminate her sick baby’s life. So why did she feel unable to talk about it?
Imade a cashier in Boots cry the other day. I didn’t mean to. If anyone should have been crying, by rights it was me. You see back in November last year, I got pregnant. It wasn’t supposed to happen because when I was 38, medical types told me my dusty womb was barren.
It took a few years to get my head round the fact I’d be childless, so at 41, to say this was a shock, was to say the least. I’d always wanted children but here I was pregnant by a man I didn’t really know. I couldn’t bring myself to remain with someone just because I was pregnant. After a few weeks I decided to call it a day.
I remained unimpressed about my pregnancy for months. At the 12-week scan I was nervous. But the test results all came back fine.
I put my lack of enthusiasm down to the fact that I felt absolutely awful. Working doing my comedy shows, I had constant sickness. But, when I started to feel a bit more human, I decided I was going to get excited about having a baby. I bought a cot and a sterilising kit and started clearing out the spare room for where my baby would sleep.
At the next scan, I was excited. For the first time in five months. My friend came with me, but then my life changed forever. ‘I’m going to stop the scan here. I’m seeing irregularities that I wouldn’t normally expect to see at this stage,’ the sonographer said.
Devastating news
The baby’s limbs were shorter than expected and there was a possibility that the baby had skeletal dysplasia. She sent us to another hospital for a second opinion. And they confirmed it. The bones weren’t growing properly, the main issue being with the ribcage. It wasn’t until I asked what sex the baby was that it hit me. The sonographer confirmed it was a girl and suddenly it, she, became a real person. Knowing her chest and ribcage were crushing her lungs was devastating. I was booked in to see a foetal consultant the following week and the days in between were the longest of my life. My parents came up. Mum cried. My dad, who never expresses emotion, said nothing apart from, ‘It’s all very sad.’ It was like the Dalai Lama had popped round.
The baby’s dad and I went to the consultant. I had another scan. ‘Your baby won’t survive outside of the womb. She could live a day but her lungs just won’t cope,’ she said.
Game over. I had to terminate my baby’s life. The main question for me
‘The nurse spoke to her like she was a little person, like she existed, which was so comforting’
‘You’d be surprised how many people have been through this’
was, would I have to give birth to her? And my worst fears were confirmed.
I started the process that afternoon. You get given a tablet that prepares the womb. You go home. You wait two days, then you’re booked into hospital where they induce you, and the worst day of your life begins. They call this ‘medical management’. I call it barbaric.
A traumatic birth
The dad didn’t want to be there. I didn’t want him there. So my friend came instead. She was amazing, as were the nurses. It was around 3pm, and they put hormone tablets into my cervix. It might be a bit worse than period pain, they said. Well, it was. I was given diamorphine around 6.30pm and I managed to float off with the fairies, until it wore off and the pain was unbearable.
I’d been instructed to give birth over a bedpan in the toilet. My friend held my hand and my baby was born pretty much straight away, around 9.50pm. But I couldn’t birth the placenta.
The baby was detached and taken away. The nurse spoke to her like she was a little person, like she existed, like she was my daughter, which was so comforting. Then it all got a bit bonkers. The bed was surrounded by people – a doctor tried to manually remove the placenta, which was the single most painful thing during the whole scenario. That didn’t work, and I was rushed down to theatre.
The day after, I was checked over. I knew at some point the nurse would ask if I wanted to see her. I hadn’t been sure I would want to, but I knew if I didn’t meet her I would regret it for the rest of my life. I was just dreading it because I didn’t know what to expect.
The nurse bought her in, in a Moses basket. Her tiny nose was perfect and her little mouth was just like her dad’s. I stroked her cheek, and she was cold to the touch but she felt so soft. All I could do was say sorry to her. I was sorry for not ever getting to meet her properly, for not being able to do the things other mums did with their daughters.
The hospital took photos of her and gave them to me in a card with her name on it. I can’t show those pictures to anyone because they wouldn’t see the baby I saw. They wouldn’t see my daughter’s beautiful face. They would see her illness.
I didn’t mean to make the cashier in Boots cry. I just went to buy a waterproof mascara for the funeral. I wasn’t prepared for her to ask what it was for. ‘The waterproof mascara, wedding or funeral?’ she said. ‘Oh… funeral,’ I replied. ‘Was it anyone close?’ she asked. For a second I didn’t know what to say. I’d not had to tell anyone I didn’t know yet and so I just said, ‘My daughter.’ It’s weird hugging a stranger because you have made them cry with your situation.
She was cremated alongside all the other babies in my area that didn’t make it that month. There were about 25. Stillborn, unwell, medically managed babies. This many each month. And who knows about it? No one.
I know it’s not a topic that’s a barrel of laughs but seriously, you would be surprised how many people have been through this. I want to talk about it, because it helps.
Coping as a family
I hate it when people call it a miscarriage. The word is used like an umbrella term for when people don’t know what else to say. It wasn’t a miscarriage. I had to terminate my baby’s life because she was unwell.
All the caskets were placed at the front of the chapel and there was a 30-minute service. The grief in that room was claustrophobic but weirdly comforting. There we all were, all of us affected by a personal tragedy in front of us.
My mum was devastated. My dad, the Dalai Lama, stayed strong. United in our grief, we did what we do as a family – we went straight for a curry and, my dad tried to lighten the atmosphere by ordering the hottest curry, enticingly called The Suicide. If you can’t show pain, why not eat, eh?