Miscarriage Before A Wedding

“It’ll be you two next”, “I bet you’ll start trying after the wedding”, “It won’t be long until we hear the patter patter of tiny [insert new marital surname here] feet”. Flippant comments, all said without malice and yet so painful to hear. Out of our close group of friends, we’re one of five couples who are tying the knot next year. Our wedding will be the last of the year but everyone thinks we’ll be the first of the five to announce a pregnancy. All of our friends and family know that we definitely want children in the future. They know that we’re both broody, so their comments are only natural and yet at the moment, they hurt so much.

My fiancé and I were together for 6 years before we got engaged. We’d often speak about starting a family together; discussing baby names; daydreaming about sleepless nights and family days out; imagining whether our kids would have my hair colour, whether they’d share his love of sport, etc.

After the engagement we found a venue, set a date and gave ourselves 18 months to plan everything. “That’s plenty of time, we could have a baby in 18 months. We could have two!” joked my fiancé. He had spent the previous 2 years saying that he felt ready.

I’d always been very much in the ‘marriage before babies’ camp. Not for religious reasons, or because I’m particularly traditional, but because it’s what I always thought I wanted. I thought we should take some time to enjoy married life first. I also thought that I wouldn’t want to leave a baby whilst honeymooning, or enjoy a honeymoon as much with a baby in tow. I also joked that by this point, I’d already bought my very beautiful dress and didn’t want to risk it not fitting. My fiancé was happy to wait but pointed out that we’d been ‘practically married’ for years, been on exotic holidays together already, and that he’d marry me even if I got huge and walked up the aisle in my pjs. True love, that.

The conversations and daydreaming continued and increasingly, I found myself really, really wanting to start a family sooner rather than later. Maybe it was the fact that I was the wrong side of my 20s and my 30th was fast approaching but why wait until after the wedding? We were happy, financially stable, had good jobs and felt ready. We decided we would start trying and see what happened, giving ourselves a deadline so that I wouldn’t be heavily pregnant, or in labour at the time of the wedding. Giving birth at the altar would probably be frowned upon. We shared the view that if I got pregnant before the wedding then great, but if it didn’t happen we would just try again afterwards. No pressure, we’d just wait and see.

Peeing on a stick two months later and seeing the words ‘pregnant’ appear was one of the most exciting/overwhelming/daunting experiences ever. We were over the moon and did a little dance in the living room. We didn’t want to tell anyone until after our first scan so we spent several weeks in our own little bubble, sharing this incredibly exciting secret.

Don’t get me wrong, we knew that things may not go to plan but we couldn’t help ourselves wondering whether we’d have an extra special flower girl or pageboy at our wedding. Whether we’d need a tiny dress or a mini bow tie. Whether my mum or his mum would hold our baby during ceremony. Whether 14 weeks would be enough time for me to fit into my dress. Whether he or she would cry during THAT moment. We thought and talked about it a lot so when the bleeding started at 8 weeks, we were both floored.

We went to hospital and a scan revealed that I appeared to only be 5 weeks pregnant. Either I was less far along that we thought, or the baby had stopped growing and my body was just starting to realise (a missed miscarriage). The kind midwife said it was too soon to say either way and that I needed to come back in 14 days for a re-scan. She told me to rest up and wait and see, but I already knew. My fiancé remained hopeful, but I just knew. The 14 days of waiting were agony but the results of the second scan came as no surprise to me.

Afterwards I felt empty. I felt numb. I felt alone. I felt angry that my body had let me down. I felt guilty that I’d failed my fiancé. I felt cross with myself for constantly crying. I felt crushed that I would never get to see my baby. I found myself worrying that I wasn’t at work. I felt frustrated that my fiancé only ever saw me upset and that I couldn’t seem to stop.

Logically, I knew that since the pregnancy had stopped progressing at 5 weeks, our baby was really just a tiny ball of cells. I was cross with myself for getting so attached to it so quickly. Why was I so sad?! I’d only known about it for four and a bit weeks. It hadn’t even had the chance to form into a baby. Despite this, we both had so many hopes and dreams and expectations. Although teeny tiny, it was our baby, our child, our future. That’s why we were both so gutted.

After the initial shock and tears (of which there were many – thanks hormones) I actually found myself resenting the wedding as something which was standing in the way of our family – the miscarriage happened 10 months before, too close to start trying again, too late to cancel without losing a LOT of money. Of course, I then felt guilty for feeling this way. Who resents their own wedding?! What a terrible wife-to-be!

One of my bridesmaids had announced that she was twelve weeks pregnant when I was five weeks. Her baby is due seven weeks before our one should have been due. Since our miscarriage, a second bridesmaid has announced that she’s also pregnant. Another friend has announced the same. It seems as if there are pregnant people and babies everywhere. I never noticed it before but now I certainly do. Why them? Why not us? Why do I feel jealous? Why can’t I just be 100% happy for them without thinking of us? I must be a terrible, terrible friend.

We’ve decided to have an adult only wedding. It’s proved a controversial decision amongst friends but we know it’ll be hard enough to get through the day knowing that our baby should have been there, without seeing and hearing lots of other similarly aged babies. We both love children and I will spoil my friends’ babies something rotten but it’s still tough and our wedding day is the one day we can call the shots.

I don’t feel that I can tell my friends about our news. If I did, perhaps they’d understand our decision a little more, but I just don’t feel able to. I’m not ashamed about what happened. I’m not embarrassed. I truly believe that there shouldn’t be any stigma attached to miscarriage. It’s incredibly common and could happen to anyone but what pregnant woman really wants to hear about baby loss? Who wants to think that it could go wrong for them too? I don’t want to taint their pregnancies, or other friends’ future pregnancies by making them feel they can’t share their happiness. I don’t want to make them feel guilty about talking about their milestones. They should absolutely feel able to discuss these things with me and I am happy for them, I genuinely am. I’m just sad for me and my fiancé too.

Since our friends and family don’t know what happened, I guess we only have ourselves to blame when they say that we’ll “be next”. Yet it bugs me that people think it’s OK to make assumptions and pass well-meaning comments on other people’s fertility and life choices. Why do people think that it’s OK to do so? “Oh you don’t want to leave it too late, you’ll regret it”, said an elderly Aunty the other week. “I really would like to be a grandma soon you know, you can’t keep putting it off” said my future mother in law. Even my dad piped up yesterday with, “you really should start thinking about babies soon, you know”.

I just feel like screaming, “we tried, I failed, I couldn’t do it!!” each time someone comments. I know that it will get worse after the wedding, but at least then we can start trying again. At the moment pregnancy just feels so far away, out of reach and out of our control.

So where does that leave us and the wedding? In terms of us, we are very much a united front. He’s been a rock and I know he’ll make a fantastic husband and an even better daddy if we are lucky enough to become parents in the future. I’m truly grateful to have him and feel very blessed every day.

In terms of the wedding, we are going to go ahead rather than rescheduling. We did consider rearranging but we still desperately want to get married and we still want the wedding which we have planned. We’ll have to postpone baby making by a year (which will feel the longest year ever) but we will make sure that we enjoy some quality time and adventures together.

We are sticking to our adult only decision, even though some guests have voiced their disapproval. We are taking each day at a time and are trying to enjoy the planning process. Now that I can drink again, my fiancé has arranged a wine tasting night so that we can pick our wedding wine together. I’m looking forward to that. I’ve also realised that I’ll have time to have a hen do now so I’ve started looking into options. Having decided to try for a baby pre-wedding, the day won’t be the same as we imagined. Despite this, we are determined to still enjoy it.

My fiancé has told me that I need to stop feeling guilty about everything . He’s adamant that nothing I did, or didn’t do would have changed the outcome. I’m starting to believe him now and I feel a little bit better.

I’m sure I’ll continue to have wobbles and I’m sure I will blub if my dad mentions future grandchildren during his speech. However, as sad as our miscarriage has been, it has certainly made my fiancé and I stronger than ever and I know that we’ve got a great foundation for marriage. I’m excited for our future.

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The author of this feature would prefer to remain anonymous but is one of our lovely blog readers who has asked to contribute to ‘From The Heart’  – a series where we hand the blog back over to our readers on a Sunday to write about all matters of love and life. If you would like to contribute a From The Heart piece of your own, we would dearly love to hear from you. It doesn’t matter what it’s about and it doesn’t have to be related to weddings at all – we’re looking for honest, authentic, personal, sad, happy, family, relationship, marriage, health, light-hearted, serious, baby, trying for baby, children, career, simple, complicated – real life issues.  We just need you to write from your heart. Keep it upbeat and witty, or share your thoughts anonymously on a more challenging or emotional subject. Please drop me a line at [email protected]. I look forward to hearing from you, Annabel x