This is My Story - Emily

In this series of personal stories we hear from parents who have suffered pregnancy or baby loss. We hold space for loss and grief, and we remember our babies gone too soon.

In sharing their stories, these parents are beginning to exorcise the triple demons of stigma, silence and ignorance that afflict so many conversations in the perinatal bereavement space.

Parents share their journeys and the lessons they have learned about grief, parenthood, friendship and living after the death of their baby. They tell us how they have changed, who they have become, and what truly matters now.

Baby girls Elva and Georgia

I am a single mum by choice, so I went through IVF to have my kids. With my first child, I got pregnant on the first transfer. While I had some normal pregnancy symptoms, overall it was a pretty unremarkable pregnancy for the most part. So, when I decided to have a second baby, I was expecting something similar.

However, after 5 failed embryo transfers and 2 pregnancies which ended in miscarriage, I was pretty pessimistic about my chances of having a second baby.

I had already spent thousands of dollars on egg retrieval, ICSI and embryo transfers and it was starting to feel like I was just flushing money down the drain. But I still had 2 embryos and I knew if I left them, I would always wonder ‘what if?’ 

So, after speaking with my fertility specialist, I decided to do one final transfer, put both embryos in, and if they didn’t work, call it quits.

But the transfer was successful. At the first scan at 7 weeks, we discovered that after all these unsuccessful transfers, both embryos had stuck. While I was terrified, I was also cautiously optimistic. My miscarriages had taught me not to be too excited just yet.

The scan showed that Twin 1 was notably smaller than she should have been at that gestation, so they scheduled me in for a scan the following week.

The next week Twin 1 was still smaller than expected but had grown in that week, so it was decided to regularly monitor their growth. This is something which they do with twins anyway.

We had a scan every week or two and while her growth was still behind, Twin 1 continued to grow and made it into second trimester. Scans indicated it was likely both twins were girls. Throughout this time, I was having a very difficult pregnancy and had developed significant complications. So, at one appointment with my doctor at my local hospital, we decided to move my care to the bigger regional hospital, especially since it was equipped with an NICU. It was likely that the twins would arrive early. 

During that appointment, the doctor asked if I’d like to see the girls on the bedside ultrasound, just to have a look.  We saw them both moving well with strong heartbeats. Two days later I had my first ultrasound appointment at the bigger hospital. I went by myself as I did to all my appointments. The ultrasound technician told me the doctor would pop in sometime during the scan.

They checked all the measurements for Twin 1 first, who I had named Elva. It took a long time because she wouldn’t stop moving. She was still smaller than they would have liked, but otherwise had all the bits they expected to see. 

Then the technician started the scan on Twin 2, who I had named Georgia. She was a good size and had all the bits required. We had had no concerns about her throughout the pregnancy. After a few minutes, she told me she was going to go find out when the doctor would be coming in. She returned with the doctor, who told me ‘We can’t find Twin 1’s heartbeat.’

I was not concerned, as she had been wriggling so much that they had had trouble measuring her. The doctor kept talking, but used euphemisms about death. Being autistic, and because I had just spent an hour watching Twin 1 wriggle all over, I didn’t understand what he was trying to say.

Eventually he said, ‘Twin 1 is dead.’ Then the technician whispered something in his ear and the doctor said ‘Oh.  Twin 2 is dead.’ And my world came crashing down.

The doctor and the technician continued to scan and take measurements while I just lay there and cried. After about an hour they said ‘See you in 3 weeks’. I asked them what I was supposed to do. Do they have to take the dead baby out? They said no, they will just keep an eye on her. The doctor said, ‘It’s good that Twin 2 died because singleton pregnancies are better anyway’. They didn’t give me any resources or tell me what to do or who to talk to. I wandered around in shock for a while before I called my mum to come get me.

The rest of my pregnancy was horrific. For months I carried Georgia.  She was big enough that she would not be reabsorbed, she would just get a bit squashed. I transferred to the Women’s Hospital, who were astronomically better at dealing with grief and dead babies.

I spent a lot of these 3 months of my pregnancy in hospital. The anxiety about possibly also losing Elva was overwhelming, and I am sure impacted my physical health.

Almost overnight, almost everyone just started treating me like I had a singleton pregnancy and getting excited for Elva’s arrival. But I was stuck. Every time everyone asked me how I was, I could just think about the fact that I was carrying around a dead baby 24/7. You can’t really be fine. But no one actually wants to know that. No one knows what to say so they just focused on Elva. I felt so alone. I looked at a few baby loss websites, but all their resources didn’t quite work when I still had one alive baby.

As my due date got closer, Elva’s movements reduced. Her traces were always borderline, and her growth was dropping. I begged my delivery team to get her out, but they disagreed and said there was a new hospital policy of not doing elective C-sections before 39 weeks. 

At 37 weeks they finally agreed, as my mental health had deteriorated significantly. However, due to several public holidays, they could not find a space to bring my C-section forward.

Eventually I had a massive asthma attack, my body shut down and I ended up in the ICU. This forced their hand into an emergency C-section, only 2 days before my scheduled date.

I had asked not to see Georgia when the girls were born, as she had been decomposing inside me for a few months. I wanted to remember her from the ultrasound scans of her instead. Unfortunately, this did not go to plan.

Due to the state that Georgia was in (and because I was very sick), we did not take any photos where she can be seen. We did not get to do any of the memory-making things, like taking hand and footprints.

In the 6 months since the girls were born, Elva has been growing really well and everyone always asks after her. And when they do, in my head I am screaming that there were 2 of them.  But no one acknowledges Georgia. 

When I returned to work, my colleagues didn’t know what to say, so no one spoke to me at all. I have been going through life pretending I am fine, while inside I was just screaming.

But then my Possum Portrait arrived. And it gave me back Georgia. It gave me a keepsake, a new image of her in my mind. I finally got to see my twins together and the screaming inside stopped. For the first time all year, I felt peace.

I have saved the scanned picture as my phone background, so that I can look at it all the time. As soon as the screaming in my head starts, I can look at my girls and find that peace again.  

I have also been able to show people what my girls look like, and this has allowed me and other people to talk about Georgia - something I desperately need to do. And I am grateful that Elva will also have this gift as she grows up.

I had almost felt like a fraud in my loss, since no one was acknowledging it and I had nothing beyond my ultrasound reports - which read: Twin 2 heartbeat: Absent - to show she existed.

But now I can point to her and tell myself and others that that is who I lost. That is Georgia. And I loved her so much.

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