Free falling into Hope

Back in November 2021, my husband and I had planned. If I got pregnant, we would celebrate with a holiday in Dubai. It seemed like the perfect way to mark a fresh start, and honestly, I was hoping it would be our little victory trip.

 But things did not go as we hoped. I had a miscarriage in March 2022, and all those plans we had made felt like they came crashing down. But after some time, we decided to stick to our original idea and go ahead with the holiday during the summer, even though it was meant to be a celebration of something else. So, we packed our bags and headed to Dubai, me, my husband, and our 10-year-old daughter. It was nice to get away, to hit pause on everything we had been through. And then there was the skydiving. I cannot quite explain it, but something inside me said I had to do it. It was not about seeking a thrill or crossing something off my bucket list. 

Believe it or not, it was more like, what if I get pregnant again? That small, stubborn hope inside me was still there, even after everything. I thought, if I am going to be lucky, if this is going to happen, let me just jump and feel free, even if just for a moment. The holiday was great overall, but skydiving? That was something else. Standing on the edge of the plane, looking out at the endless sky, I felt this strange mix of fear and peace. And when I jumped, it was like I left all the heaviness behind for those few seconds just me, the air, and that feeling of letting go. 

Fast forward a few days, and we were back in India. I took a pregnancy test, my hands shaking so much I could barely hold it. Because there it was, a faint second line. I was pregnant again.

 To cut the long story short, or let us just say, to cut my agony short, I am happy to tell you that my first scan went well. At six weeks, everything seemed to be progressing as it should, and I was scheduled for my next scan at ten weeks. But between the sixth and tenth weeks, things got tough. I was constantly sick, coughing through the night, barely able to get any rest. I stayed in touch with my gynecologist throughout, trying different medications to ease the coughing, but nothing seemed to work. It was a strange, lingering illness, and while I hoped it was just a cold or something passing, I could not shake the nagging worry that something was not right. As I approached the ten-week mark, just a few days before my scheduled scan, my worst fear came true. One evening, out of nowhere, I started bleeding. My heart sank. I knew, deep down, that something was wrong. We rushed to the scan center, and my worst nightmare was confirmed, I was having a miscarriage. 

AGAIN

The fetus had stopped developing after seven weeks, even though I was almost ten weeks along. I called my gynecologist, who told me to come in the next day for the procedure. But I guess my body could not hold on any longer. Later that night, the bleeding got worse, and while I was in the bathroom, I collapsed. My husband had to gather me up and rush me to the hospital. All this while our 10-year-old was sleeping away the night, unaware of it all. I was admitted immediately.

That night in the hospital, lying in the emergency room, was physically the most painful night I EVER endured in my life. I cannot even begin to explain the intensity of it, the way my body was fighting through the miscarriage. It was nothing like what I had imagined. It was completely out of my control. And while my body was in agony, the mental pain followed close behind, weighing heavily on me. I was losing another pregnancy, and the heartbreak felt unbearable. Through all of this, I had not even broken the news to my daughter. I was not sure how I was going to do it, or if I could at all. Thankfully, I recovered physically quicker than I thought I would. We went home, and little by little, life went back to its routine. We did not dwell on what had happened. It was too painful. My husband and I decided to stop discussing it at home, and we just moved on. With the festive season coming up in the second half of the year, we threw ourselves into the celebrations, almost trying to forget the emotional toll of it all. But no matter how much we tried to move forward; I could not fully escape the feeling that this had turned into my worst nightmare.