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TW: miscarriage
Dear diary,
I am sitting in the Pumpkin Cafe at Leicester Railway station as I begin to write this. I imagine it’ll actually arrive in your inboxes tonight, specifically after 8pm. I’ll tell you why this timing is important later. This cafe could be the setting of a horror movie. There’s an old bearded man wearing a leather bucket hat shuffling between tables checking for abandoned hot drinks. The claret red gloss of the radiators is chipped to reveal a cream history. And the soundtrack is Smooth FM, Marvin Gaye to be precise, mixed expertly to the hum of a dying refrigerator. It’s quite a place. I like it. I reckon I could start a novel here.
I’m off to London to do a live show on ITV 1 tonight from just gone midnight until 3am (!). It’s actually for a shopping channel called SOTV who borrow the airspace on ITV in the wee small hours. There’s a lot of this in the shopping TV world as the insomniacs amongst us already know. I’m there to talk about Tupperware. Anyway, if you’re up, see you there.
I have a suitcase full of groceries and a beach bag of delicate perishables. If anyone should steal the former they’d put their shoulder joint out from the weight. The latter would be a disappointing thief’s haul; lots of packets of dill, basil, parsley (flat leaf obvs) coriander and spinach plus some fresh eggs. They could make a banging omelette, but I don’t think that’s what most wrong-uns are after from their pinching.
I used to do a fair amount of live guest presenting on QVC. It’s a funny world, shopping TV. There are a lot of egos. The full time staff presenters and the guest presenters are not at all alike. There’s a hierarchy whereby you get ready in different areas and receive different perks like guaranteed parking, access to management and insights into the sales in real time if you’re a PAYE employee. It’s staffers versus freelance. When I first started on QVC I didn’t understand this. I thought we were all in it together. I certainly didn’t know that the presenters are celebrities within the shopping TV world. Oh the stories I could tell you! But I won’t because it would be one sided. I am nothing but fair.
Anyway, I have a funny relationship with QVC in particular because of something that happened there. Well a few things that happened there. Not their fault - in fact they were just the geographical location of The Things. I’ve always attached great meaning and memory to places, so for me Chiswick (the home of QVC) is forever tricky. A bit like my home town of Leicester is also a place of opposing pushes and pulls. Let me tell you more.
Back in 2013 I found myself pregnant. The baby was planned and I was so, so pleased. I already had two sons and had always wanted three children, so this would be my last rodeo. It hadn’t been easy to get pregnant this time so this baby was much longed for.
But right from the start I felt different. If I hadn’t been pregnant before I don’t think I’d have noticed. The changes were subtle but definite. I felt tired. Normal for early pregnancy for sure. But I felt kind of grubby and tired. My skin felt unclean. A little itchy. Maybe not itchy. I just felt unkempt. And then my interest in food wasn’t quite right. In the past my body had been very clever at telling me exactly what I needed. First pregnancy: fruit, veg, especially tomatoes and tomato juice. Also strawberries and spicy chicken. Curries. All the good stuff. With my second pregnancy it was beef and pretty much beef only I wanted. I ate a lot of burgers, steak, lasagne… beef sandwiches with horseradish. All the beef. And olives. Salt was my friend. Both times I’d had no desire to drink wine at all. None.
This pregnancy I carried on fancying a glass of wine. So much so that on a night out I went to order a glass and caught myself, thinking ‘what?’ Now look, I know some folks drink booze when pregnant. It’s nothing to do with me. I don’t though. A year hanging out on maternity wards as a student midwife means I can’t equate alcohol and pregnancy with anything other than fetal alcohol syndrome. Sorry.
I also craved grim food. Things that I wouldn’t normally eat. Think nasty tubs of corner shop sour cream and chive dip alongside heat treated guac, both scooped with cardboard nachos. Yuck. Not my thing at all. I didn’t feel like myself. The only way I can properly describe it is ‘poisoned’. My body felt like it was being slowly poisoned.
My ex husband was on a stag do in Amsterdam. An old colleague from London had come up on the Saturday morning to hang out with me and the boys. I was due to drive to London on Sunday morning to do a 24 hour QVC show - it’s a thing they do. You launch the show at midnight and then do mini shows throughout the day. It’s gruelling but very successful from a sales perspective. I’d drop the boys to my mum, carry on to London and prep the food for the show. Monday evening I’d travel home by which point my (then) husband would be back from his jolly. Easy.
I slept really badly on Saturday night. I had a fever and did that duvet dance of throwing it off and grabbing it back on repeat. Sunday morning I woke to that familiar cramping of period pain. I knew before I checked. I also knew that I didn’t have an option of not doing the show. This is the downside of being freelance. You have to turn up. You can’t be ill. You must be reliable. It’s just how it is. And so that’s what I did. I very matter of factly told my pal I was miscarrying. She didn’t know what to say. Tried to hug me but autopilot had kicked in. I shrugged her off and called my mother. Asked her to pick the boys up early. I had an inkling the pain would get worse and knew the next 24 hours wouldn’t be great. But hey ho, the show just go on.
I miscarried all the way from Leicester to London as I drove. I miscarried in the prep kitchen as I weighed sugar and flour. I miscarried as the Kitchen Manager showed me photos of her just born baby godson. I miscarried as I checked into the hotel I’d barely sleep in. I miscarried live on air as I smiled and talked about how great the product I was selling was. (It was). I miscarried as I cleared the set down between shows. I miscarried as I cleaned up the hotel room bed where I’d carefully laid a towel I’d brought with me from home. I miscarried as I texted my husband once he was back from his trip to let him know our baby had died but that I was okay. I miscarried all the way back up the M1 as I went to pick my boys up. I miscarried as I texted my husband to ask him why he hadn’t called me. I miscarried as I received his reply that said he was
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