Until I had a missed miscarriage, I didn’t know it was possible to miss one. I can see with hindsight that things were missing; the nausea and exhaustion I experienced at the beginning of my pregnancy tailed off in week eight. I didn’t know a drop in symptoms could be a sign that the pregnancy was failing.
As long as I wasn’t seeing blood in my knickers, I reasoned that everything was OK. I went to my pregnancy scan, confidently, alone. The sonographer, who was jovial when I arrived, grew quieter as she moved the probe across my tummy.
There was no heartbeat. I learned the pregnancy had ceased weeks ago but my uterus was still holding on to it. It would, of course, have to end somehow.
I was referred to the early pregnancy service, where I was given a pamphlet of options to remove the pregnancy from my body (medication, surgery or wait for it to happen naturally). It’s a personal choice, they said. I wasn’t sure which option to choose because I didn’t want any of them.
What I wanted was to have a baby in seven months, and possibly a birth doula to support me through the process – like Gigi Hadid and Anne Hathaway and many other mothers now use. I read over my options time and again, as though one might suddenly become appealing. I also turned to social media (of course), where I discovered Arden Cartrette, otherwise known as the Miscarriage Doula .
The role of the miscarriage doula (Cartrette is a leader in the field) mirrors that of a birth doula, but works in .