Fuck: There's no heart beat.

I'm sorry but there's not heart beat.

Walking around on a day like today, when the sky is heavy and low and grey and the rain won't let out, when It doesn't stop, at all and it just keeps going. Sometimes it's pours and other times it just "spits" the sort of rain the fluffs the hair and drenches you, yet somehow you're also kinda dry.

On those days when the weather is like this and the rain is spraying onto your ankles with every step you take and one sock is half way down your foot trying to get away from you, trying to sneak off quietly as you take each step. On those days, I can just about stop myself from screaming.

I imagine each moment the sock stops and holds its breath and waits there, as you suspiciously look down at your foot. "is it going to come right off" but you don’t pull it up, not yet, so you take another step and another and the sock sneaks a teeny bit more further away quickly until you pause again.

On those days when your trainers are rubbing because they are years old and the back has worn down to show a bit of plastic and it's wearing away at your ankles, on those days usually I feel hard done by.
Why my socks? Why my trainers? Why am I not in my comfiest of clothes and better yet why am I not at home. In my PJs, dry?

But I’m privileged. To have the day wondering around Notting Hill looking for the donut time shop.
Some people would have to go back to work after the morning they'd had. Some people would not be able to seek out deep fried sugary rings and let all their emotions sink into each tooth rotting bite.

Most days that I can bunk off work, be it in the pouring rain, it’s a true sign of how much I do love my life. And I do so very much and I want that to be clear before I continue. I want you to know that I am grateful, I do love my life and I know I will be OK.

But...

The last 18 months after one thing and then another. All I want ls for life to be on cruise control, but instead I'm driving in 1st gear in an old banger who's clutch doesn't work anymore. I'm moving forward. But it's long and tedious and fucking painful. It's exhausting as the car chugs and stops and starts and gives me. Whip. Lash. With. Every. Chug. of. the engine.

Great I think. I've got a car. Thank you. Grateful for that. I'm even going forward in it. It sort of works. Hashtag blessed.

But truth be told. I just want a car that works and gets us there quickly and safely.

”It's all about the process” I say to my clients. Over and over.

“Its not the destination. Its the journey.”

Well fuck me, I talk a lot of fucking bollocks.
Because walking around on a grim day with rain splashing up my legs and a sock half way down my shoe and my hair fizzing like a new born duck, half tipsy off the 3 cocktails you can now finally drink, with a dead baby inside of me. For the third time.
I think to yourself.
This journey is fucking shit. And I don't wanna be on it anymore.

I'm so sorry. There's no heart beat.

I saw the doctor struggling to find what we were hoping for, was an 8 week old embryo. To be honest. 9. But the previous scan had set us back a week.

Those previous scans we had had, hadn't been what you see in the movies, or even on those YouTube channels titled "Our first scan: Our pregnancy journey"

Nope. Our scan at what we thought was 7 weeks, turned out to lead to a week of anxiety after the doctor rubbered up the long plastic wand and inserted it into my fanny to find my gestational sac and “please god let there be a fetal pole and if we are really really lucky. Please show us a heart beat.”

Gestational sac. Check.
Oooo fetal pole. Check.

“Hmmm 2.5mm,you would be 6 weeks” the doc says “not 7, but that is possible.”
And I think about my dates and its not. I know exactly when I ovulated.

But "the time it takes for the sperm to get to the egg and we don't know when it implanted so..."
”Ah OK then” I think. Let's go with it. 6 weeks could be right. I’m optimistic. He sounds like he is trying to be and I want to be for my sake to. For Js sake. It is best to be optimistic.

He keeps moving the wand around whilst J holds my hand nervously. He's smiling. There is an embryo. 2.5mm of a baby.

And yup. “OK there is a heart beat.”
The doctor says.
But he doesn't leave the gap afterwards too long. He doesn't want us filling that space with tears of joy and smiles and happiness like in those YouTube videos. He quickly let's us know. "it's quite slow"

OK then. He's a bit sleepy. I know Js thinking that's not a big deal.
And if I hadn't been in this seat over 6 or 7 times with the wand up me and sonographers trying to sound empathetic, optimistic and kind as well as cautious, safe, level headed, whilst they have your legs spread on the cold plastic surgical bed with a pillow under your bum… if I hadn't been on Mumsnet for the last 18 months reading forum upon forum of chat with Susiemumof3 talking about her early scan and “Is slow growth OK and is there any success stories about a slow heart beat, is 90 beats per minute too slow.” With KellyTTC5thtimelucky replying that “unfortunately she doesn't have a success story and that she's lost 4 babies”

Maybe, I would have been blissfully naive too.
Maybe I'd have said “OK then. A slow heart beat. It will probably fasten up right?”

But the doctor said, “let's see how we go, have you come back in in two weeks (perfectly normal thing to say)
”and if you believe in that sort of thing. Pray.”

And there it was. The not so perfectly normal thing to say.

Pray.

As we got into the car J exclaimed “we had a heart beat. Our very 1st heart beat” and he was positive. This was a good sign. “Our doctor seemed not to worry.” He said. “There's a heart beat and that's what we should take from it right now. A heart beat. Faint and slow but one all the same. That meant we had a living baby growing and that was more than we had ever got before. Further than we ever got before.”
Before, we had never had a heartbeat, before, knowing the pregnancy was "not viable I'm afraid" was as far as we had ever got.

But I'm devastated. I felt the doctors tone. He wasn't hopeful.
Not like you do read in some forums...
"it's not a good sign babe but don't give up hope. My friends neighbours niece’s baby had a slow heart beat and then at the next scan it had fastened up and now her DD is a bratty snotty 6 year old that loves Arianna Grande."

The next scan. We just have to get through to the next scan.

I wasn't waiting two weeks. I don't know who our doctor thinks I am but, patient, is not one of my best qualities.
I call the Early pregnancy unit the next day. I tell them I'm 6 weeks pregnant and having cramps. (I'm not having cramps)
They book me in for the following Wednesday. OK I just need to get through the next five days, I think. I just need to occupy myself for five days.

It's a long, slow, painful five days. But the day has arrived and I am hoping to come out with one of those stories. Where we laugh at diner parties in five years time about how mental I was for those five days and how I nearly lost my shit but then the second scan showed a normal heart beat and the rest of the pregnancy was perfectly joyous and beautiful and our youtube channel was really popular.

We've just gotta get through this scan.

My legs are spread open again, feet together in a frog position as she lubes up the condom on the plastic wand and she inserts it into my “retroverted uterus” I say. “So sometimes you have to have a prod around.”
It’s sixth or so time, so I’m as helpful as I can be.

I tell her that I think I'm miscarrying and that I don't think I'm having a viable pregnancy. I tell her about the slow heart beat and that I doubt she will have one today.
Silence.
I say, “I'm assuming the crown rump length hasn't grown since last week.”
”What was it last week” she asks?
”2.5mm I say.”
Silence.

I crook my neck to get a look at the screen. The NHS don't seem to show you the screen like they do privately. I guess privately you pay for the pleasure of seeing your uterus on full display in all its glory, but the NHS don't oblige you so you wait for the lady with the wand up your vagina to say something. Anything. Or, I crook my next to see if I can see what she's silently looking at.

”Well it's 6.5mm now.” The sonogrphaer states.
”Sorry?” I wasn’t expecting that.
”The crown rump length has grown.”
”But not a mm a day”I say with caution.
But she says. “That's not all babies. All embryos (she corrects herself) grow very differently. At different rates. Plus is very early to get the size exactly right.”
”So it's grown 4mm” I say. “In 6 days?”
”It would seem that way.”
”And the heartbeat?” I cross my fingers and toes.
”It's there.” She says, then quickly adds. “It is faint but it's still there.”
”OK” I say. OK. I breathe calmly.
”How slow is it?” Please be over 100 beats per minute.
”I can't tell” she says. She won’t use the dopler, “but there is growth and a heart beat so I can't say you're not having a viable pregnancy as currently you are.”
I breathe again.

I'm on my own this time because as well as the NHS not liking you see your uterus, they also don't like your partner being in the room with a chance to infect anyone (it is covid times of course) and so J is outside. In the cold. He's been there 2 hrs already because again. With the NHS you don't have the luxury of your appointment starting on time.

I'm told to wait outside for a nurse to call me.
I head to the loo to wipe the lube away from my fanny before waiting another Forty five minutes to get a report and a small picture of my "never been this big before” embryo.
6.5mm. Apparently she says. 6 weeks and 2 days. The same gestational age the doc gave me, last week.

But the CRL is 4mm bigger and so if I was 6 weeks and 2 days last week I put myself at 6 weeks and 5 or 6 days today.
On track I think. OK slow heart beat but he's still growing. He or she is still trying.

Now I just have one more week until I'm booked back in for a very expensive scan again.

I'm not usually the type that would be able to afford private fertility care. Not at two to three hundred a pop for a 15 minute consultation. But my mum left me money when she died and apart from our house, a bit of a new wardrobe and a bouji hotel get away, I think what more would mum want than for us to get the fertility help we need.

It feels insane. To spend so much money on private care when we have the NHS. And I feel bad. Having both. Being able to have both when some people don't have the luxury of either.
”But some people have the luxury of staying pregnant or not losing their mum” my husband reminds me and we agree. Let's not let this be any harder than it is. Let's make it a bit easier on ourselves.

And so. I wait one more week until the next private scan.

Until the next moment when J IS allowed to hold my had and watch the monitor as the wand goes up me for the umpteenth time and we hold our breaths together again.

I should have sensed that the doctor was nervous. Cautious. That he wasn't expecting good news. But this last week I had gotten more positive as the days had gone on. I was feeling sicker and sicker, I was having more naps each afternoon, I was weaker in the gym and honestly couldn't bring myself to eat a green vegetable. I was overjoyed.
I was pregnant. I had a viable pregnancy and so the morning of the scan when I woke up to a sharp belly button pain and then a flutter in my belly. An actual flutter, I jumped on “Mumsnet” and “What to expect when your expecting” and the more legitimate “Tommy's” to read that, “Yes. It was possible to feel a "flutter" at 8 weeks and it was probably the baby moving or passing wind. And that sharp belly button pain was totally the uterus expanding and getting bigger.” No horror stories. All positive reassurance that I was still pregnant and it was all going to be OK.

It was all going to be a funny, long drawn out story we would tell the midwife on the night my waters broke, in between contractions at how we thought we were having our 3rd miscarriage after a really long hard 18 months but look, here I was, bent over in a luke warm pool, cos even though I hate luke warm water this is what the cool earthy parents do on Youtube. I’d be riding high on gas and air but nothing else, no drugs, whilst we told the midwife that this was our rainbow baby. Our double rainbow baby and we were going to name him or her (cos of course we hadn't found out, we like surprises) after my mum.
It was going to be a glorious story after a really rough couple of years.

Until I couldn't see a crown rump length on the monitor and I couldn't see a yolk sac. Why the fuck do the let you see the monitor I thought.
”Give me a second.” The doc said. I have a retroverted uterus so sometimes you can't see. I thought. Let him poke me some more.
He's going to find it.
We are going to hear a...

”There's no hear beat I'm afraid.”

“There is or there isn’t” J asked. I think he heard right, but he really wanted to make sure. I really wanted him to make sure.

“You're right. It was really hard to find but there is the embryo. It's 5mm. Its not grown enough since our last meeting.” the doctor clarifies some more.

”It's shrunk.” I say. “Since the scan last week. It's shrunk.”

I hear J cry quietly as I squeeze his hand.

”Are you sure?” I ask. Because I felt a flutter this morning. And Mumsnet reassured me this was a positive sign.

”I'm really sorry but there isn't a heart beat.”

Silence.

He leaves the wand in me for a bit longer as he takes some measurements of our dead baby and saves them to his hard drive.

Danielle Tabor Smith
GA 6 weeks
CRL 5mm
Non viable pregnancy.

For the 3rd time, in 18 months.

A 6 week embryo, no more than that. Ever. For the 3rd fucking time. No longer a fluke. No longer just bad luck. Something is stopping me from growing a baby past 6 weeks. And now we have to go through the long rigmarole of more tests, more pain, more waiting. More bumpy car rides.

So we head out of the room and go walking in the rain looking for donuts. Because what else do you do.

I'm really sorry, but there isn't a heartbeat.