I Am, I Am, I Am

by Maggie O'Farrell

nobody ever asks you what degree you got. It ceases to matter the moment you leave university. That the things in life which don’t go to plan are usually more important, more formative, in the long run, than the things that do.

I agree with this but in life everything you do is important. As life goes on one realises that a past failure or disappointment didn’t really matter but at the time of the happening it means a lot.

Because losing a baby, a foetus, an embryo, a

child, a life, even at a very early stage, is a shock like no other.

There is a school of thought out there that expects women to get over a miscarriage as if nothing has happened, to metabolise it quickly and get on with life.

To this, I say: why? Why should we carry on as if it’s nothing out of the ordinary? It is not ordinary to conceive a life and then to lose it;

There is so much that can happen in a lifetime, loss, death of loved ones, disappointments and you look around you at everything carrying on as normal and think, how can the world just continue on while your heart is breaking, but it does and sometimes it feels like you don’t belong anymore and could just drift away without anyone noticing. Miscarriage is an experience had by many many women. It is traumatic and emotionally draining. It is definitely not ordinary.

If someone says you can do something, if you can see they really believe it, it puts that possibility within your grasp.

This is a truly powerful sentence.