When I remember myself growing up, what strikes me now is how naive I was. I often imagined that the perfect family would just fall into place when I was ready.
I assumed that once I was finished definitely not having a family, I would have a family. It would be that simple. But I discovered, as many women have before me, that getting pregnant and bringing home a baby are not always the same thing.
The excitement my husband Ben and I both felt when I first got pregnant was unmatched. From the moment you realise you’re expecting a baby the planning begins. Even for the most level-headed practical types, everything starts to revolve around your due date, this incredible life altering experience.
Until it was gone. One Saturday morning 16 years ago, from nowhere, I was struck down with painful cramps. Ben was playing golf and I was about to meet a friend in Dundrum for brunch. Brunch became a visit to Holles Street, where I lay on the bed to have a very nice nurse turn quiet and, after an agonising silence, gently say those dreaded words: “I’m just going to get a second opinion on this”. It was confirmed: no heartbeat. I was distraught, experiencing a sadness I had never even imagined before. The hope, the excitement, the due date that everything was revolving around no longer mattered. My lovely husband and I cried for days, each one lifting the other out of it.
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I was then a reporter on Ireland AM (where I am now a presenter), and so I went to see my executive producer on Monday and told her what had happened. It was then I realised that there’s nothing in place. There is no statutory miscarriage leave; no official acknowledgment or process – not just for my employer but for any employer. There is no guidance on what needed to happen next. I’d need a sick cert apparently and thankfully my boss was very compassionate, telling me to take the week off and look after myself. I’m also painfully conscious that not everyone has that kind of boss to confide in. Kindness shouldn’t be the system. One woman shouldn’t get time and understanding because she happens to have a compassionate employer, while another has to to explain herself to an unsympathetic or uncomprehending manager.
In the days that followed I realised that because there’s no process in place, there’s also no discussion of the life-altering experience you’ve just been through. Colleagues don’t know what’s happening. They’ll be afraid to ask, and you’ll also be afraid to mention it in case it’s awkward or you upset someone else who might have experienced it.
I was in limbo: on sick leave, but not sick. I was grieving. I was bleeding. I was emotional. I was not the busy reporter I had been the week before, someone who negotiated exclusives for big name interviews. I was unmoored – at home, while my husband was back at work. It was bleak: one week to grieve. And back I went, the loss not recognised or discussed. Maybe that part was on me. Maybe I should’ve been quicker to share it. But because there’s nothing official in place, it feels taboo. Like many things in Irish society for far too long, miscarriage is still swept under the carpet.
My second miscarriage followed about six months later.
It was in a giddy room in a bridal suite in Italy, a place filled with hairdryers and make up brushes and bubbles, that the cramps hit. I was there as a bridesmaid at my cousin’s wedding. I ran to the bathroom in my crisp white hotel robe and discovered I was bleeding. Again. My cousin couldn’t have been kinder, telling me to rest and not to give her or my bridesmaid duties a second thought. But there was no way this was going to take from her day. I reverted to professional mode: best food forward. We could do this. And we did. The pain was horrendous that day, but it wasn’t really the cramps. Those I could deal with. It was what they might mean. This wasn’t a one in five situation as I’d been told in Holles Street. This was two out of two. What was wrong with me? Did this signal the future and a life without ever becoming a mother?
I returned from that weekend in Italy and, because I had taken a week off for that “mysterious sick leave” a few months earlier, I felt I really couldn’t do that again. So it was back to work on the Monday. My family on both sides were wonderful but in the workplace it wasn’t mentioned. That makes me sad now when I think about it.
It wasn’t the end for me. I went on to have three brilliant boys – Rhys is now 9; Euan is 13 and James is 15. I still can’t believe it when I hear myself say I’m the mum to three boys.
But all these years later, there is still no statutory entitlement to leave for pregnancy loss before 23 weeks. I’ve added my voice to the campaign for change because this is about more than days off work. It’s about recognition. It’s about having a process in place that acknowledges and helps lift some of the silence that still surrounds miscarriage. And it’s about looking after employees in the long term.
I think back to that version of myself returning to work on a Monday morning because I felt I couldn’t take another week off. I wasn’t sick. I had lost a pregnancy. There’s a huge difference. We have official processes for everything in modern day workplaces: annual leave, maternity leave, sick leave. Many places now have menopause policies. But this enormous thing that happened to me didn’t have a box.
It’s time our laws recognised it.
Anna Daly is a broadcaster
