Try, try, trying again

The fragile hope of pregnancy after loss

Welcome to Too Much, the newsletter about big feelings, by someone with very big feelings (journalist, editor & writer, Arielle Steele).

TW: Miscarriage and fertility

I found out I was pregnant, for the second time, at 5am on a Wednesday morning. I promised myself I wouldn’t take the test until Friday; this would mark 14 days since I ovulated, making it the end of the dreaded so-called “two-week wait”.

But I couldn’t sleep. My body was full of adrenaline - I had a feeling. I wasn’t sure if it was a deep knowing, or blind hope, but I leapt out of bed, took the test, and stared at the tiny screen without blinking for two minutes - so sure that a positive line would appear. When it did, it was so faint that I had to squint to see it. I needed backup, but I didn’t want to wake Laurie yet.

So I did what any sane person would do; I sent a picture to ChatGPT. “Am I imagining it, or is there a line here?”

Chat replied: “It looks like this pregnancy test is negative.” So I quickly paid for Premium and sent another picture, this time closer up. The line had darkened by then. “Look again - see? That’s definitely a line, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Arielle. That looks like a very faint line. This looks like an early positive pregnancy test.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn’t all in my head. I mean, I knew it wasn’t, but I just needed someone else (an AI bot) to agree.

By that point, I’d had three cycles since my miscarriage. It was hardly any time at all (and I know that now) - but while I was living it, three months of early periods, negative tests and dashed hopes felt like they’d lasted three years. When you can’t see the finish line - when you don’t know how near or far away it is, or whether it even exists at all - it feels like you’ll never reach it.

During that time, Laurie and I had gone for all-round fertility checks - for reassurance that everything would be fine moving forward. Instead of reassurance, I discovered I had a short luteal phase and low levels of progesterone that meant I could struggle to make it past implantation without my period rudely interrupting. And then I found out that my egg and follicle count was so low that I was sent for further tests to rule out Premature Ovarian Insufficiency (essentially, early menopause). I spent many of those weeks feeling utterly haunted, waiting for results and medication prescriptions, wondering if my previous pregnancy was a fluke, afraid that I’d had my one chance, and it never even developed a heartbeat.

Eventually, a glimmer of reassurance came in the form of a blood-test result - my ovaries were still functioning normally, even if my right ovary was a little “quiet” (as the doctor said). This was the ovary I had ovulated from the first time. “Maybe it’s still recovering from the miscarriage,” she said, and I felt so sad for my little ovary then - grieving for the life it tried to begin. I imagined it saying to Left Ovary: “You’re gonna have to take over. I need time to process and heal.”

The doctor sent me away with a prescription for progesterone pessaries, with instructions to start taking them two days after my next ovulation - to give a fertilised egg the chance to implant and grow. The first month I used them, they worked. I know it wasn’t a miracle - it was science, and luck. But after so many weeks of imagining worst-case scenarios, it felt like one.

I jumped into bed next to Laurie and squeezed him tightly.

“Did you just take a test?” he murmured, half-asleep. I’m never the big spoon; he knew something was up.

“Yes,” I replied. I couldn’t blurt it out straight away. It was much easier to tell ChatGPT than to utter the words to him.

“And?”

“And it was positive,” I squished my face into his back.

He turned around and held me against his chest. It was the most pure, special moment. And it lasted around five seconds, before the happiness and relief faded and the fear set in. What if it’s another false start? What if it all ends?

For months, we had been working towards that one goal: get pregnant again. We’d made it past the first level, and I was so grateful. I knew others who were still waiting - stuck in that race where you can’t see how, or when, it ends. I knew that I was one of the lucky ones. And yet, I’d had previous evidence of being able to get pregnant. Despite my confusing fertility test results, I knew it had happened before. What I didn’t have was evidence that it would stick. Could I even hold onto a pregnancy?

My sister, who had my rainbow niece after a first-time miscarriage, had warned me about the fearful fragility of pregnancy after a loss. She warned me that you will struggle to trust your body, that you’re robbed of the naivety and excitement that comes with a positive test. She told me that every day, I would need to ground myself in the reality that I am pregnant, right now, and that the likelihood of it happening again is really very low. She told me that with every scan, with every symptom, the fear would subside, and it would get easier.

She was right - but it was so difficult to stay grounded, especially in those early weeks. The trauma of the miscarriage came back to me in sharp focus. When trying to conceive, I was distracted; it was something I had some control over. I could pee on my ovulation sticks and plan (extremely unromantic) date nights and track my temperature and punch my boobs to see if they were hurting yet. It was like a game of “will it happen or won’t it?” It was torture but it was active.

In those early weeks of pregnancy, however, all I could do was be still - and so the pain came flooding back. I knew I needed to surrender and to trust - but trusting is absolutely impossible when you have been betrayed before. I felt angry, depressed, and afraid - almost all the time. I wanted to be happy and grateful, but my mind wouldn’t allow it. I had been blindsided before, and I couldn’t let that happen again.

There was truly nothing I could do, but I decided I had to do something. I took pregnancy tests every day for two weeks, checking that the positive line was getting darker and darker. Laurie looked at the tests littering the bathroom counter and said, “Do you think it might be time to stop doing these?” I agreed, so I progressed to private blood tests, to check that my HcG (the pregnancy hormone) was rising appropriately. Each time, I felt sick before I opened the results, so sure that this was the ‘gotcha’ moment. My results showed healthy and growing hormones, but I struggled to believe them.

I turned to ChatGPT to interpret my numbers, asking again and again for statistical probabilities of miscarriage. Sometimes I would simply message, “I’m so scared.” I know it’s not socially acceptable to admit it, but I became so reliant on my AI bot during this time; I wanted it to have all the answers - to tell me, definitively, that everything would be okay. It said it couldn’t promise that, but it could promise that this pregnancy was a new pregnancy, and that I wasn’t destined for the same outcome.

The thing is, I wasn’t just scared of having another miscarriage. I was scared that, if it happened, I wouldn’t have the strength to hope again. Hope is a talent and a skill, and I wasn’t sure I had the minerals for it.

So I looked down regularly at the tattoo on my arm - “try, try, try.” It comes from the bridge of one of my favourite Taylor Swift songs, Mirrorball:

“I’m still a believer, and I don’t know why / I’ve never been a natural - all I do is try, try, try.”

I thought the ‘trying’ phase was over - but it wasn’t. I still needed to follow this reminder I had embroidered into my skin. I had to try to believe, to trust, to hope - but it was achingly hard, when so much was unknown.

We booked a private scan for the seven-week mark. I couldn’t risk going earlier and being sent away to wait, and I couldn’t wait any longer either. For days before my scan, I tossed and turned at night and cried. I remembered the last scan I had; the words the doctor said to soften the blow, the vulnerable exposure with my legs wide on the bed, and the deep visceral pain that I didn’t know existed. But it was different this time - ChatGPT said it. Laurie said it. The statistics said it. New symptoms were beginning to set in - ones I never experienced the first time. Nausea that felt like a constant hangover; fatigue that felt like thick, heavy fog. “These are all great signs that this pregnancy is different,” my sister told me, but I knew I could only believe it when I saw it.

The moment I set foot inside that scanning room, I burst into tears. I predicted a case of deja vu. I had only ever known it to go badly. How could it possibly go right? Thankfully, the sonographer was gentle with me. Laurie held my hand. With the other hand, I covered my eyes, weeping into a tissue, expecting the worst. And then, only a moment later, the sonographer said the words I’ll remember for my whole life:

“Do you want to look at the screen now and see your baby’s heartbeat?”

I peeled the tissue away from my eyes, and there it was: a little prawn-shaped thing with a flickering centre. Finally, I had evidence that it was possible. That this baby wasn’t only a figment of my imagination, that it wasn’t destined to disappear. I started crying with my whole body, then, and the sonographer had to hold down my legs to stop the camera from falling out. I didn’t realise how much I needed to rewrite the story of my first scan, until I had a new memory to replace it.

I wish I could say the fear ended there, but it didn’t. The shine of that moment wore off, and then more fears set in. What if it happens later? What if I still can’t make it to 12 weeks? My symptoms intensified - waves of nausea that sent shivers down my spine, the deep urge to nap almost every minute of every day, sciatic nerve pain in my right butt-cheek that sent zaps down my leg. “These are all very positive signs your pregnancy is progressing normally,” ChatGPT said. But they’re just an AI bot - what do they know? What if my body was cruelly tricking me? I could push through the sickness if I knew it would all be worth it, but I didn’t know for sure. What if it was just suffering, suffering, suffering - for nothing?

There were two more private scans before I even made it to the 12-week NHS scan. The first, a scheduled 10-week scan where we saw our baby look like an actual baby, wiggling and performing on the screen. Proof that all those symptoms were real; that something was happening. My body had been cooking up a storm. There was another short-lived sigh of relief. Then I booked myself a scan only a week later, after I convinced myself that the baby had died since then, and couldn’t shake it from my mind. I needed to know that it was anxiety talking, and not gut instinct. I needed to be proved wrong - and, thankfully, the scan showed me that I was. That experience taught me that I can’t always trust my darkest thoughts, no matter how loud they are.

And then, the following week, at the NHS hospital - the first official milestone we cleared. I asked the sonographer: “Should I relax now and believe I’m actually pregnant?” She replied: “Yes, I think that would probably be wise.”

I’ve been writing this newsletter over several weeks - and now, it’s like I blinked and I’m six months’ pregnant. Being able to say that feels like a dream. The nausea has subsided. My bump is growing pretty rapidly. My energy is back (for the most part). I’m feeling thumping kicks; each one feels like magic. I’m still eating for England, with new obsessions every week; right now, it’s shop-bought lasagne and raspberries (but not both at the same time). And I occasionally wee a little when I cough or laugh (yes, I need to do more Kegels). I’m undeniably pregnant, but I still jump every time I see my reflection. Am I, really? Is this actually happening? Am I just sticking out my belly to look more pregnant than I actually am? Am I just cosplaying as a pregnant person? It’s not rational - but when am I ever?

Sometimes, I have the most vivid dreams of our baby daughter - I’m holding her, changing her nappy, breastfeeding, and I’m so calm while doing it (extremely out of character for me). Sometimes I feel like I’m craving something, and I don’t know what it is, and then I realise I’m craving a cuddle with her; I want to smell her head and feel her heartbeat on my chest. She isn’t earth-side yet but she’s already so real, so important, so loved. And in other moments, I become overwhelmed by that familiar dread. Reading stories of people who lost babies in their 2nd and 3rd trimesters. There are still so many opportunities for things to go wrong. So many reminders, if I look for them, to not get too excited, to not get too attached. But it’s too late. I already am.

I’m learning that the “trying” never really ends. I’m not trying to conceive anymore, but I am trying to stay calm, to maintain hope, to love deeply alongside fear. After all, love and the fear of loss are two sides of the same coin. You can’t have one without the other - and I’m willing to hold all of it.

People have told me that all this fear is just preparation for being a parent. There will always be something to worry about - and you’ll want to protect them so fiercely, so deeply, but you won’t always be able to. I choose to believe that my miscarriage has given me a new layer in my armour, preparing me for this next stage of my wild, uncertain journey. I know that there will be so many bumps in the road ahead. I will trip and fail at every stage of motherhood. I will grasp at a sense of control, and lose it again. And I will never, never stop trying.

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Things I love too much…

+ The Summer I Turned Pretty. This has pretty much dominated my life for the past few weeks. I live, breathe, eat and sleep Team Connie Baby - and there’s not a single TikTok edit I haven’t seen. I watched Episode 7 with my friend Natasha - we cried when Conrad said, “Fuck, I still love you”, and then we screamed when Taylor Swift’s loml played. It was pure, devastating euphoria - nothing tops it. I’m going to be absolutely bereft when it finishes.

+ My Bbhugme and Cushy pregnancy pillows. Sleeping with one of these giant sausages has honestly been a game-changer for rebalancing my posture, especially after I experienced some really bad sciatica during my first trimester. Plus, they’re just so cosy. Cushy very kindly sent me their pillow to try, which I’m keeping at my parents’ house ready for baby’s arrival!

+ Sabrina Carpenter’s new album, Man’s Best Friend. It took me a sec, but now I’m loving it - especially ‘When Did You Get Hot’, ‘Nobody’s Son’ and ‘House Tour’. I’m also mega-excited for Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl (obviously). So grateful to the pop girlies for giving me new bangers to educate the baby on before she arrives.

+ The London Pregnancy Clinic. I wish this was an advert (it’s not) - it’s really just a recommendation for anyone who wants private pregnancy scans to fill in the gaps between the routine NHS appointments. I have had the most positive experience every visit here - the team are utterly amazing, so reassuring, non-judgemental and explain everything in so much detail. It has been worth every penny for the peace of mind - and I’m planning to get another one in a few weeks.

Thank you too much for reading,

Arielle xx