How did we get so grown up?

"They grow up so fast" - you hear it from the mums around the playground regularly. But if there's one thing more puzzling to me than my daughter's gathering maturity, it's my own.

It really does seem that yesterday I was worrying about leaving school and heading off for university. Would I be able to work the washing machine? Would I remember where I lived? What happened if I lost my keys? How would I eat?

And somehow, here I am, 41 years old. And I'm not worrying about exams and how to find my first job. Looking back, those things were fun things to worry about, although they didn't seem it at the time. The things my friends and I worry about today are divorce, redundancy, miscarriage, cancer, addiction, caring for children with disabilities, caring for sick parents. Horrible big dark things that change your life and not in the way you want.

These things have been building, but when I hit 40 they seemed to multiply. Everyone I know has faced or is facing something terribly, terribly difficult. If I think about it too much, it takes my breath away and I wonder how I will get through the day.

2020 has so far been a pretty shocking year. Those moments when it feels like someone has just pulled the rug from under you have come thick and fast - moments that used to be few and far between.

Now that I am 41 I know that in what seems like a matter of minutes I will be in my 50s and my tiny dependent baby girl will be spreading her wings and flying away to experience life outside my protection.

Women's responsibilities

There's a quote or proverb, which is pretty unpleasant:

"A son's a son 'til he takes a wife, a daughter's a daughter all of her life."

It suggests that often women will stay closer to their parents in adulthood. Men do of course take on caring responsibilities, and can be just as fantastic about it. My Dad is an only child and when his parents needed help he made sure they got it, with little help from anyone else. But often when there is a brother and sister, she is the one who takes on most of the caring load.

I play the violin in a small community orchestra populated by nearly all women, mostly of my age and upwards. Attendance is very erratic. One of the few men commented on it. He wasn't complaining - he noted that this group of women have so many responsibilities to other people, that they rarely find time to do this single thing for themselves. It's a situation that you don't generally see replicated in groups of men. They too have caring responsibilities, but when the chips are down it's far more likely to be the mothers, daughters and wives than fathers, sons and husbands.

If the orchestra was made up of men, I'd bet it wouldn't have the same attendance issues as we do. Men are, by and large, better at putting themselves first, and there are undoubtedly times when we'd all benefit from following their example. Women's way isn't always the right way (naughty feminist).

I haven't written this blog for a long time. Largely because the weight of all this pain is wearing me down. And I'm sure there are many people in my age group who feel the same.

I think, maybe, these things were all there but they were masked by to very important things: 

1. The selfishness of youth - in my 20s, I was just so busy having a nice time. I barely spared a thought for anyone else. Is this the right job for me? Do I want to live here? Shall I go travelling? 
2. Our parents protecting us: My parents never burdened me with the problems of my ageing grandparents and they largely shielded me from horrible things happening to people they knew. When they did tell me of tragic illness and sudden deaths these people seemed so remote from me and my life. I couldn't really comprehend it.  

I could breeze into my grandparents' lives for cups of tea and meals out, have a bit of a chat and breeze out again, safe in the knowledge I'd done my granddaughterly duty. Few of my friends now have any grandparents left, so it's our turn to help our parents if they need us to. 

We're all grown up. And I still don't know how it happened.

Turning 40

I turned 40. I’m still getting over it. I expect that by the time I have got over it I will be well past it. Possibly closer to the next big milestone.

The year I turned 40, life hit me in the face. I had two miscarriages, a collapsing roof to deal with, and then I very nearly lost my Dad. Oh and my daughter started school. I don’t lump that in with the other things, but it was a major life event and having a child in school is another being a proper grown up milestone. No matter that, at 40, I am one of (if not the) older mothers in the tiddler section of the school. It was the year that I had to face life and think about death

So a couple of months ago I finally became middle aged. And I can’t get my head around it. It’s only a number, but it’s a big number, it marks a new life stage and, even if I live to 100, I’ve now used a large chunk of my time.

My friend invited me to her husband’s 40^th birthday party, shortly before I reached the milestone. I puzzled over the invite. “But I’m sure we already did this, a couple of years ago.” Slowly, it dawned. That was 10 years ago you idiot - that was his 30th. So there goes a decade. It’s true you know – time really does speed up as you get older. Except for Monday mornings. 

Chocolate and mortality in Bruges

Turning 40 came as a bit of a shock. I’d just about come to terms with being in my thirties. I was comfortable with that. I felt like I got good at it. I accomplished a few things as well. When I turned 30 I was married with no children. Since then I have gained a PhD, a divorce (surprisingly not related to the PhD) a good job, a five-year-old child and a new partner. I have also moved house four times (maybe not an achievement, since one of the times was moving back with my parents) and grown out my fringe (we’d been together a long time). I have still failed to publish a novel, but I have a blog which was going pretty well until my annus horribilis kicked in (more on that shortly). Put like that, maybe I don’t sound so bad. I mean, at least I’m doing stuff with my time.

Turning 40 was the bright spot in an otherwise bleak year for me. Two miscarriages, a collapsing roof (very expensive and stressful to sort out), redundancies at work and my Dad spent 12 weeks in hospital dicing with death (he got better).  

My 40^th birthday was spent wandering happily around beautiful Bruges hand in hand with my beloved, drinking beer that is stronger than I can possibly handle. It was idyllic. The icing on the cake (metaphorical at the time, although I got one a few weeks later) was my mum’s heartfelt message that my Dad had suddenly taken a huge turn for the better.

My new favourite place in the world: Bruges. Photo by Jacob Surland via Flickr Creative Commons

Fear begins at 40

I moved into my 40^th year on this planet feeling bruised from a relentless few months. Trying to spend and treasure every possible moment with my loved ones. And feeling terrified about the future, because when the past 12 months can do that to you, then you can’t help wondering what the next 12 will bring. My dad came face to face with his own mortality this year, and we faced it too. There were many times when my family and I were certain we were losing him. Once, my daughter, who always starts difficult conversations from the back of the car, asked me: “Will I ever see Grandad again?” And I had to keep driving and say brightly “of course you will, sweetheart” hoping that it was true, not least because I knew he, the one who was waiting outside the door when she was born, was missing her even more than she was missing him.

And I look back on my year of horror and realise that so much of that is what being 40 is. I’m grown up now, so while my little girl is allowed to fall apart, I am not. Disasters, like collapsing roofs, will happen and I will just have to deal with them, not necessarily alone. Miscarriages – if you’re going to try and have a baby at this time of life, then they’re more common too. And whilst once I needed my parents' support (and still often do), now sometimes they need mine.

I've noticed I type my date of birth now self-consciously – it seems such a long time ago. I don’t want to admit to my younger colleagues that I remember the eighties, that I grew up in a world without memes and mobile phones.

Many of my friends got to 40 ahead of me, and they seem to be coping OK with it. Is it just me? 

What not to say to someone who's had a miscarriage

It can be hard to know what to say to someone who has just had a miscarriage. It's a difficult time and it's not your fault if you don't know what it's like. So I'm making it a bit easier for you. Here's what not to say.

1. At least you already have a child.

Maybe this makes it easier in the long run, but in the immediate aftermath of a miscarriage it's not helpful, because it's not about having a child, it's about having this child, the one that's been lost.

2. Next time you'll have a healthy pregnancy.

A doctor said this to me, but I don't care how medically qualified you are - it's bullshit. Maybe I won't be able to get pregnant again. And if I do the chance of that one miscarrying are exactly the same as they were for this one. So maybe I'll have a healthy pregnancy, or maybe I won't. Either way, it's not a dead cert so don't treat me like an idiot and promise what you can't deliver (pun alert).

3. It was very early.

Obviously I know that, and maybe it makes it easier, maybe it doesn't, but you saying it is not helpful. Because from the second I became pregnant my body and my brain was preparing to have that baby, and now it's not going to happen, so I have to adjust to that. Just because it was early doesn't stop it being a big deal.

4. At least you can get pregnant. 

There's not a lot of point in getting pregnant if you don't end up with a baby. You get all the hassle - putting on weight, nausea, avoidance of lovely food and wine - without the lovely outcome.

5. It wasn't meant to be. 

If you'd spent hours cooking me a lovely dinner, and I came round to your house and we had a nice chat and a glass of wine and were both getting really hungry and you went to dish up the feast you'd been labouring at all day, only to find that the cat had just eaten the lot, and then I said to you 'It wasn't meant to be', what would you do? Obviously my maybe-baby wasn't viable - but you're not saying that because that sounds a bit clinical and insensitive (correct). Just don't assume I share your crackpot notions of fate.

6. You will have a healthy baby, I know you will. 

No you bloody don't. Shut up and see #2.

7. Are you going to try again? 

None of your business. I haven't got over this yet, so why are you asking me? Trying again means opening myself up to the possibility of another loss, so don't make me think about that right now.

Empty Swings by Viola Ng via Flickr Creative Commons

If you don't know what to say, that's OK. And it's OK to not really understand. I couldn't really understand, until it happened to me. And I didn't know what to say. "Sorry" is good. It doesn't need any more than that.

Saying nothing

Everyone's different, but to me, saying nothing is worse than saying the wrong thing. Saying nothing suggests that you don't care, while saying the wrong thing is annoying, but at least I know you mean well. 

So next time you hear someone has had a miscarriage, say you're sorry that their baby died, sorry they had to go through it, just sorry. Ask them if they're OK (but don't expect that they will be), ask them if there's anything you can do, and if you've had one yourself and want to share your experience, then do.

Taking the mystery out of miscarriage

Last year I became one of many women who has experienced a pregnancy that ended in miscarriage. It was quite horrible. Then I did it all over again, just to be sure. 

The physical discomfort was nothing on the feeling of devastation that this wonderful thing that I had thought was growing inside me, that would have a name, and a mother and a father and a big sister, was ebbing away to nothing.

Around one in four pregnancies ends in miscarriage (Miscarriage Association). Based on a very unscientific poll of my friends, around half of my friends with children have had a miscarriage at some point. It’s very common. If you’re a woman in your 30s or 40s you will definitely know several people who have been through it. But you might not know they have, because we don't like to talk about it.

Early pregnancy

The second I found out I was pregnant I began to make plans about how we would fit a new little person into our lives. We mapped out the rest of our year with thoughts of pregnancy and infancy, preparing to be a four not a three. And I worried constantly about how I would cope with a second child.

I try to be pragmatic about it. My pregnancies miscarried because they weren't viable. The embryo or whatever it was, could never have been a person, and in that sense it wasn’t a loss. 

That’s a lot of crap really. It’s true, and maybe it helps. But the moment you become pregnant your body and brain starts preparing to have a baby. It may not even be a foetus yet, just a microscopic collection of cells, but your body starts to make room for it. I was eating and exercising more or less as I had been before, but I was getting bigger. Maybe I could still fit into most of my normal clothes, but they weren’t comfortable anymore. 

Pregnancy is hard. Some days I felt totally fine. But at other times it felt that the thing that was trying to grow inside me was taking every piece of my energy, and I could hardly pick my feet up. There had only been very few weeks of this. But afterwards it still hurt that it was all for nothing.

Photo by tipstimes.com/pregnancy via Flickr Creative Commons

Sharing the news

There’s a lot of secrecy around the early days and weeks of pregnancy. There are reasons not to tell too many people too soon. You don’t want people congratulating you too quickly, when it can so easily go wrong. Maybe you don’t even believe it’s real until you get a bit bigger, see it wriggling around on a scan, hear a heartbeat. Or perhaps if you inform everyone of your good news, you don’t want to have to re-inform them that it’s gone wrong, so soon.

A positive pregnancy test is just a coloured line - it's a long way from a baby and I wouldn't advocate shouting far and wide as soon as you see the second line. It's nice to keep it between the two of you for a while. But being a bit more open about early pregnancy and the possibilities for it to go wrong might not take the sting out of miscarriage, might help take away some of the mystery. And if we knew how often it happened, maybe we'd be a little better prepared when it happens to us.

I told quite a few people I was pregnant. After it went wrong, I was glad I'd told them. My family could step in and help me in practical ways when it went wrong, without the need for much explanation. My friends talked to me, and told me about how it happened to them, and helped me feel less alone and despondent about it. Others just gave me a hug, which told me all I needed to know.

The end of a pregnancy

Miscarriage was just a word before this. I knew it meant a pregnancy that went wrong, but that was about it.

I learnt that, for me at least, miscarriage is a process not an event. I’d expected it to be over within hours at the most, but the first took 11 days in the end. That’s 11 days from hope and happiness to a horrible cycle of fear, anxiety, distress, pain, sadness. My second miscarriage took longer, and included surgery. 

I had no idea what to expect. Was I going to have contractions, like in childbirth? Would I be bent double in pain? Would I see the remains of a baby? Would I wake up in the night in a pool of blood?

I asked the doctors what to expect, and how long it would take, but they said they couldn’t really tell me. And when you're scared, distressed and confused it's hard to know what questions to ask. I found some graphic descriptions of miscarriages on the internet, but didn’t know what would apply to me.

Considering so many of us experience miscarriage, you’d think there would be quite a lot of information about it. The people close to me, who had been through it before, helped me the most. So I’m glad I felt I could tell them.

Rude Nasty Girl's miscarriage tips

I hope this doesn't happen to you, but if it does, here are my four top tips:

• Don’t drink too much! If you think you're having a miscarriage you'll probably get an ultrasound scan. You’re told to go with a full bladder, but you’ll probably be kept waiting and it can be quite painful. Also, as what they’re looking for may be much smaller than a usual scan they may press very hard, which is extremely painful on a full bladder, so don’t overdo it.
• Take a pen and notepad: You might not be very with it and take in what’s going on, so write down things like your next appointment, or anything important they tell you that you want to remember. You might find it’s all a blur afterwards.
• Take drugs. You can’t stop the emotional pain but you can tackle the physical pain. Keep painkillers by you, make sure you’re stocked up and knock them back whenever it starts to hurt. You don’t need two types of pain in your life.
• Take time: I didn’t do this. I didn’t give myself enough time. I wish the doctors had told me not to go to work, but they didn’t. And when you’re full of pregnancy hormones and grief, you’re not necessarily in the best place to know how best to deal with it. I was desperate for it to stop hurting and it seemed like the fastest way to get there was to carry on as normal. Wrong.

More about miscarriage

When I was going through this I couldn't really find the kind of information I wanted to. There's no shortage of information pregnancy and babies but it's a different story with miscarriage, which is shocking given that one in four pregnancies ends this way. These are some of the few useful places to go:

Tommy's, the baby charity funds research into miscarriage, which includes my local clinic, and encouraging women to share their experiences 

The Miscarriage Association provides help and information on miscarriage

Clear and comprehensive information about miscarriage from the Royal Women's Hospital, Victoria that could help women everywhere.