Two Bestfriends. One Miscarriage. Could This Friendship Survive?
What happens when two bestfriends fall pregnant at the same time, but only one goes on to have her baby? Today I share a piece by me and my bestfriend, Jane because this is what happened to us
Anna’s story:
When I met my boyfriend I had been alone for seven years. I lived in London, I dated, but there was no big love, no-one swept me off my feet – until this guy came along. It seemed as if I had been waiting for him my whole life, he said he felt the same way, and so when he suggested we try for a baby, I agreed. What could be more perfect?
But there was something that could make it more perfect, my bestfriend being pregnant at the same time.
I met Jane at journalism college when I was 19 and she was 22. Jane was, and has always been, the coolest person I'd ever known. We were instantly inseparable, bonding like sisters, and yes, in the years to come we might bicker like sisters too but never for long, only in moments. I have loved her since that day I met her in 1996.
After we left our journalism course, Jane moved to San Francisco. We stayed in touch, chatting on the phone, writing letters on that old blue Airmail paper, we visited each other and then later – much later – we Skyped. From either side of the ocean we saw each other through some major life changes: my marriage break-up, Jane’s multiple sclerosis (MS) diagnosis, my father's death, Jane's divorce. But there would be one tragedy that our friendship could not weather. In fact, it almost tore us apart.
Jane was thrilled for me when I told her we were trying for a baby. Jane already had two children, Emily, now 24, and Elliot, 22, from that first marriage. And now, she confided, she and her new partner, Tavis, were hoping to have a baby, too. She had been with Tavis for a few years by then, he was – and is – the most perfect partner for her and so I was thrilled for her right back.
I rang Jane a few weeks later to tell her I was pregnant, and six weeks later, so was she. I couldn't have been more excited. We'd go through pregnancy together albeit on different sides of the ocean, give birth weeks apart and, with luck, our babies would grow up to be friends, just like us.
As always, we chatted weekly, swapping complaints about morning sickness and indigestion, though poor Jane seemed to be suffering far more than me. I worried that the pregnancy might take a toll on her often frail body; I'd seen her bloom through her pregnancies before, but once those hormones left her body, the MS made her crash, leaving her that much weaker. But Jane has always been so brave, so strong, so super positive – I’ve always called her my sunshine – and I knew she and Tavis wanted this baby more than anything.
A few weeks later there was even better news – like me, Jane was expecting a girl. I remember the day she told me the name they had chosen: Daisy Rae. She sounded so sweet already. And Jane loved Gracie, the name awaiting my baby girl.
Then, disaster struck. Jane's mum, Pam, emailed me to tell me that Jane’s baby had died. She had gone for a routine check-up at 20 weeks, and Daisy was no longer alive and kicking inside her.
Doctors weren’t sure what had happened, they thought perhaps she had been strangled by the umbilical cord, and when I heard this I reached down and put a protective hand over my own growing bump. I was so devastated for Jane, but in that moment part of me felt selfishly terrified for my own baby. What if she died too?
I dialled Jane's number and left a rambling message to say how sorry I was. I hadn’t planned what to say, I just spoke to say something, anything, probably very clumsily, but even as I did I knew that no amount of emotion or emphasis in my voice could have come close to letting Jane know how I felt for her in that moment.
I think she texted back the next day and thanked me for the message, but I sensed a new distance between us. I called Pam again and asked how Jane was, as I would continue to do every few days over the months to come. Pam very carefully and kindly told me that Jane couldn't speak to me. That I, with my growing, healthy bump, was in fact the last person Jane wanted to hear from.
I remember the tears pricking my eyes, I knew it made sense, I knew it was a hard thing for Pam to tell me, and I knew it was selfish to think it might be any different, but I wanted – and needed – my bestfriend. That love of my life had left me a few weeks after I got pregnant and so I was going through this pregnancy alone, but these feelings were complicated because I also knew that there was a cowardly part of me that was afraid to speak to Jane, that didn't want to hear that a baby could just ‘go away‘. And yet I wanted to be there for Jane when she needed me most and in those moments, it was hard to accept that my best friend didn't want me anywhere near her.
The weeks went by and I kept in touch with Pam. I was careful not to mention my pregnancy on Facebook too much, I knew when I put a picture up that Jane might see it, so I did so only a handful of times over the nine months. I sometimes checked her profile to see if she'd deleted me. Pam told me that, instead, she had hidden me from view.
I felt helpless. All I could do was hope that Pam was telling Jane I was asking after her, but it did feel as if I was being punished for my pregnancy continuing. I could almost feel the resentment coming across the Atlantic in waves. Because I needed Jane too. This was my first baby, quite possibly the only one I'd ever have, and, after all, Jane already had two who were alive and well. I didn't want her to resent me or my baby.
Gracie was born in August 2012. Jane says she contacted me when she was born, but it's all a blur – I nearly lost Gracie at the last hurdle and she spent her first week of life in intensive care. Her delivery had nearly cost Gracie her life, and she also had Strep B when she was born. At just one day old she had to have a lumber puncture to see if she had meningitis and a week after she was born doctors wanted to sedate her to give her an MRI brain scan in case she had suffered from a lack of oxygen at birth. It was an awful time, and yet, my baby was alive.
A few weeks after I left hospital, Jane sent some gifts for Gracie and it felt like a breakthrough, I daren’t even hope my bestfriend was returning to me. I knew choosing those gifts must have been hard for her, but they were more than just a book, a stuffed toy, they were a glimmer of hope that we would recover from this.
But there was a long way to go. By then, with a new baby to show off, I couldn't hide my pride on Facebook, I couldn't censor the pictures I posted – I just had to wait for Jane to come round, and that breakthrough happened the following year when Jane met Gracie at her parents’ house in Rugby, Warwickshire. It was a wonderful reunion, though not without tears, we were both aware that Daisy Rae was not there with us, but Emily and Elliot were and it gave us so much pleasure to see our children playing together. I remember Emily and Elliot pushing Gracie on the swings.
Gracie has grown up with Jane and Tavis and Emily and Elliot in her life, despite that ocean that has been between us. Last year I took Gracie to New York where Emily lives now. Gracie calls Emily her sister and texts her sometimes. And it was so sweet a few months ago, when we all accidentally ended up on a FaceTime call together.
For Jane’s 50th last year, I bought us both gold daisy necklaces that we wear. She is always there, in our thoughts. Last night Jane and I were talking: ‘Daisy would have been thirteen this year,’ she said. The same as Gracie, and maybe in some ways, Gracie’s life, her milestones, every of them that I have shared with Jane, has been a comfort to us over the years. I’d like to think so.
Jane’s story:
When I got pregnant the person I was most excited about telling was my best friend, Annie. Not just because we shared every part of our lives with one another, but because she was already pregnant too, and despite the thousands of miles between us, we were going to experience our pregnancies together.
Tavis was – is – the love of my life, and though I had two children from my previous marriage, I'd always pictured myself with three. To share it with Annie only made it more exciting. In my imagination, our babies would be best friends: they'd spend summers together, live in the same town somehow and, one day, we'd hang out together with our grandchildren – one big, happy extended family like something out of a movie.
Annie and I had been best friends since the late nineties, it was tough on our friendship when I moved to San Francisco, but we were always in touch. In fact, I was with Annie on New Year's Day 2000, when I found out I was pregnant with my first baby. I did a pregnancy test at her house and we sat on her bathroom floor staring at each other in shock as two lines appeared. She knew before my husband did.
With my third pregnancy, Annie and I found out we were both having girls and we were thrilled. I remember telling Annie that I had felt her kick for the first time, she was a few weeks ahead of me and so she’d also been having those first few butterfly sensations herself, but then, without warning, it was all over for me. Daisy Rae died. A few days after I'd felt that first kick, I went for the five-month check-up and there she was lying inside me. She was still on the image, as if she might just be sleeping, but there was no heartbeat. In that moment in the sonographer’s office, my life came crashing down. My baby had just... gone. How could this have happened to us? We left the hospital in shock, trying to figure out what had happened, what had gone wrong. I would need to wait a week to have her body removed under anaesthetic in hospital, I had been offered the alternative, to be induced and deliver my baby myself, but I just couldn't bear to do that. I had to accept that I'd be leaving the hospital with nothing more than sorrow.
I was heartbroken. I'm not sure how I made it through that week, and in reality I have little memory of it. Both Tavis and I were utterly devastated, it was the end of our dream after all. There was a lot of crying, sleep and medication, but a few weeks later, I knew I had to try to make it out of the fog and rejoin the real world, yet it was filled with pregnant women and newborn babies, and I just couldn't bear to see them. And the worst thing was that my bestfriend was one of them. How could I still be friends with Annie? She was getting bigger and more beautiful by the day: I only needed to go on to Facebook to see that. And the truth was I felt it wasn't fair.
I was crying as I composed a text to Annie telling her that I couldn’t be in touch with her any more. Was I mourning the loss of my friend or that she had what I so desperately wanted? It all felt so complicated and of course, I was grieving, nothing was making sense, nothing felt right. Annie replied to say that she understood and stayed in touch with my mum.
At first Mum tried to persuade me to talk to Annie. She told me how much Annie cared about me and needed me, and Tavis said the same. But I just couldn't. The honest truth was I couldn't stand seeing her pictures on Facebook, I hid her profile so it wouldn't come up in my feed.
My happiness for Annie hadn't gone, but in the space where I'd once felt my baby kick, resentment towards her – and any pregnant woman – grew. I talked to a grief therapist about it, I wanted to feel differently, but all I could do was what I was doing and just hope that one day I might feel differently, that one day I might be able to reach out to my bestfriend. I just couldn’t see that in those weeks and months.
Sometimes I'd send Annie a text to say hi and send love, to reassure her that I hadn't left her completely because I knew that pregnancy was hard for her, I knew she was all alone. She always responded, but I could also tell from her tone that she didn't really know what to say, that maybe she felt she needed to apologise for still being pregnant when I wasn’t. I felt bad for putting her in that space because that wasn’t what I wanted her to have to feel. But there were other times that I felt she was angry at me for being selfish and not being there for her, and I didn’t know how to navigate those emotions either.
And then Gracie was born. I knew her due date of course, I had been counting down the days, knowing that my baby should have been right behind hers. But then more disaster, Mum called to say that Annie’s baby was in intensive care and it shook me.
I sent Annie a note, but didn't hear back, which was no surprise considering what was going on for her. But I knew that if Annie and I were to ever be friends again, I had to send a gift to acknowledge Gracie's birth and despite my grief, I desperately wanted to share in her joy, I needed to do this.
Emily was twelve then – about the same age Gracie is now – and I took her shopping for Gracie's gift. There was comfort in having at my side one of the babies that I hadn’t lost. We bought Goodnight Moon, which was Emily's favourite book as a baby, a soft white owl and some fridge magnets with Gracie written on them. That was my way of showing Annie I was sorry for not being there during her pregnancy or birth, that I was happy for her and wanted us to be friends again.
Little by little, Annie and I were in touch more often.
I knew she understood and eventually she told me how sad she was that Gracie and Daisy wouldn't grow up together. Her acknowledgment was all I needed.
Then, some really wonderful news, eight months after I lost Daisy, I got pregnant again. It looked for a moment as if Tavis and I would get our longed for baby, but again I miscarried, this time at 12 weeks. I knew I wouldn't try again, each pregnancy left my MS symptoms worse. I had to accept it was too much for my body.
It was just four months after losing this second baby that I met Gracie. She was 11 months old and absolutely perfect. We spent a magical day together at my parent's country cottage.
During the day, I looked at Gracie, and Daisy came rushing to my mind. The tears flowed. Annie and I looked at each other, but didn't say anything – there was nothing to say.
I fell in love with Gracie that day and was able to move on with Annie. This day was about me meeting this beautiful little girl with the whole world ahead of her, and with an incredible mum showing her the way.
Over the years we have spent time together despite the miles between us, I have Facetimed with Gracie when she needed me to help with her homework, or talked her through problems with friends, and it made me so happy last year when Gracie and Annie went to visit Emily in New York – both our babies together, just as we had pictured. Not quite the same as we had once imagined, but that’s ok. We’re still all together.
For a while Gracie and Annie represented loss to me, but that’s not how it is now, of course not. We are, in many ways, still that one big family we hoped for, though on different sides of the ocean. And these two bestfriends survived, as all bestfriends do.
• Thank you Janey for allowing me to share our story here – I love you.
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Thank you both for sharing your stories. Aren’t human hearts complicated? But what a gift true friendship can be.
I have never been (or wanted to be) a mother, but reading this has left me in tears. Thank you both for sharing such painful memories, and what a testament to your friendship that it didn't really go away, just took a necessary break for a while.