The Lowest, Lowest Point of My Life

After three heart breaking miscarriages - pregnancy number 4 seemed to be going so well. We were elated. Finally, it seemed our dreams would come true and I would have a baby. I passed the dreaded three month point and sailed into the next months.

The miscarriages had varied; my first had been very traumatic at 8 weeks I started bleeding profusely we got to Hadi Clinic who referred me to Al Sabah. There was blood everywhere and by the time we got to Al Sabah I was feeling weak and faint. I couldn't stand. They put me in a wheelchair and left me in a waiting room full of patients. My husband had to wait outside. I was sobbing uncontrollably. I wheeled myself over to the doctor's closed door and beat on it until someone answered. The nurse took one look at me and had the porter wheel me into the doctor. My blood pressure had plummeted and they admitted me immediately. I was put in a ward full of women. Some trying to talk and be kind but all I could do was cry. There was no fetal heartbeat my baby was no more. My heart and womb pained me beyond belief. I was wracked with the pain all night and my soft wailing must have bothered all the other ladies but no one complained. First thing in the morning I had a D&C.

Miscarriages 2&3 were quite different; one of them I didn't even have a D&C for, the other I did. Both no where near as devastating as the first. Still very distressing though. 

So when pregnancy number 4 was going great guns I thought I'd cracked it. I was delighted, we prepared the nursery for our baby boy, I bought clothes and awaited our little prince. We had a name, Ali, after his grandfather. At six months and one week I had a little fluid in my panties at first I thought maybe it was a little pee pee. I'd heard as you get larger this could happen. I called my doctor at Al Salam she said it was nothing to worry about. I thought I'd chosen her well she seemed to have all the right credentials. I swapped doctors like football cards. I have files in almost every hospital here. A few days later I lost a little more fluid and thought it was oddly odourless for urine and I needed to see her again. Dr C did an ultrasound and said everything was fine. I felt reassured. A week later I was at work when there was a gush of fluid. I was terrified. I called Dr C and told her I was coming in. She performed an ultrasound and told me, quite matter of factly, that there was no amniotic fluid and the baby will not survive. My husband was in Bahrain. I lost it. A close friend came to be with me. I was put into a room shared with a woman who had just delivered her baby and had guests cooing over her newborn whilst I laid crying for my dying baby.  Dr C came in and said they would prep me to terminate the pregnancy I said but there's still a heartbeat to which she said the baby can't survive. I screamed at her to get the hell away from me, that she was incompetent and to arrange an ambulance because I was leaving. Meanwhile my friends were busy calling around and had arranged with a head of a gyno/obs department to take me to her wards in a government hospital. 

I prayed, cried, howled and hoped that my baby boy would make it. But it is impossible for the body to replenish the amniotic fluid so quickly. My baby had a heartbeat for two more days, and bless them at the hospital they were all so kind, Everyday they took me for a sonar probably knowing it was hopeless. On day 3 there was no heartbeat. I had not even contemplated how this would end and certainly didn't imagine I would have to give birth to my dead baby. But I did. My heart was shattered and I was broken. 

There are so many what ifs. What if the Dr had done a regular fern test on my visit to determine whether the fluid was amniotic fluid? What if I had not gone in the swimming pool that one time? What if I had stayed on bed rest? What if I'd had another Dr? But nothing brings back my baby. I thought about suing the hospital for negligence but this is Kuwait and I, unbelievably, didn't want to damage the Dr's career. I did see her out once in a mall. She half-smiled at me but seemed she wasn't really sure where she knew me from. I didn't smile and it took all my strength not to scream at her.

I will never get over this loss of my baby it still feels very raw when I talk about it. Fortunately, pregnancy number 5 was a winner. Although I bled throughout, was on bed rest for 8 months, had innumerous stays in hospital with threatened abortion, became the bed pan queen and exhibited my prowess and nether region to a young man who'd come into the wrong room, my little fighter was born two weeks early but healthy and beautiful. Sheikha my princess. Thank you Dr Sami from Hadi Clinic you were kind, encouraging, sympathetic, always available and my saviour. 

I tried hard to have a little brother or sister for her but after five more miscarriages, three failed IVF attempts and KD 17,000 lighter I truly understand that God knew my limit and my limit is one.  

And what a fine one she is.