Tori Amos: My battle to be a mum
The singer suffered three miscarriages
Thursday, 28 September 2006
She’s one of the most successful female singer-songwriters of all time, but Tori Amos has revealed that her hardest challenge was trying to become a mother.
When Tori and her husband Mark Hawley decided to start a family, she admits she thought she’d accomplish this goal as easily as so many others. She fell pregnant at 32, but after their initial joy she suffered the pain of miscarriage.
‘Going through this horror I was humbled by what it was to be a woman,’ she says. ‘I could be a female icon and successful breadwinner, but my body couldn’t carry a child.’
I was getting more confident
At 34 Tori suffered her second miscarriage. Months later, while on tour, she discovered she was pregnant again. Tori recalls that this time she thought the pregnancy was going well. ‘I really believed the little one and I were out of the woods,’ she says.
‘I’d been taking my vitamins, I was getting more confident and felt we were blossoming.’ But again, during a harrowing few hours in a hotel room, Tori lost this baby, too.
It’s estimated that around one in four pregnancies ends in miscarriage, usually before the 14th week. ‘Despite these high numbers, it can be difficult to determine the cause of a particular loss,’ says Ruth Bender-Atik, director of The Miscarriage Association. ‘Many couples are left asking: “Why?” and find it hard to accept that no one can give a definite answer.’
Natashya was born in 2000
Although, thankfully, most women who miscarry only do so once, around one per cent may suffer recurrent loss. ‘After the third miscarriage, questions had to be asked,’ says Tori. ‘I could obviously conceive, but something wasn’t right. I had the usual tests, but doctors couldn’t find a reason for my miscarriages.’
Luckily, she was introduced to a doctor who found she had a rare protein deficiency. During pregnancy a woman’s blood volume and clotting capability increases. It’s thought this change takes place to prevent excessive bleeding at delivery. But as their blood thickens, pregnant women who are deficient in the anti-clotting proteins C and S become more likely to develop a blood clot and the body responds to what it sees as a health hazard by trying to protect the mother – in Tori’s case, causing her to miscarry. She started taking aspirin to thin her blood and, at last, her fourth pregnancy resulted in the birth of daughter Natashya in 2000.
‘Miscarriage happens to more women than people realise,’ says 43-year-old Tori. ‘And, tragically, a lot of women suffer in silence. We feel that carrying a child should be the most natural thing in the world and if we can’t, we’re failures.’
My problem was chemical
Tori knows the guilt women feel when they miscarry. ‘You ask yourself: “Did I do something to cause this? Could I have done anything to prevent it?” That can be so traumatising. You have to realise that sometimes, even if you follow all the right advice, you can miscarry. I could make changes to my lifestyle, eat a healthy diet and take all the right supplements, but that wouldn’t help with my protein deficiency.’
Tori adds: ‘My problem was chemical, but in many cases no medical reason can be found. You shouldn’t blame yourself. Miscarriage is such an internal experience: no one can understand it except the woman who lost the life she was carrying. When I suffered the miscarriages, very few people knew what to say, so they almost acted as if it hadn’t happened.’
Tori feels strongly that it can help to talk to other women who’ve had miscarriages. That way she hopes they won’t become isolated or feel it only happens to them. ‘You have to allow yourself to grieve and after that, if you can, give pregnancy another go – above all, don’t feel defeated.’
According to The Miscarriage Association, the main causes of miscarriage are thought to be:
Genetic
About half of all early miscarriages occur because of chance chromosome abnormalities.
Hormonal
Women with hormonal irregularities may find it harder to conceive and,
when they do, are more likely to miscarry.
Immunological
Problems within the blood vessels that supply the placenta can lead to miscarriage.
Infection
Minor infections, such as colds, aren’t harmful, but a very high temperature and some specific illnesses or infections may cause miscarriage. Infection or scarring in the Fallopian tubes can increase the risk of ectopic pregnancy.
Anatomical
More rarely, a later miscarriage can be caused by weakness of the cervix (neck of the womb), by an irregular-shaped uterus or by large fibroids.
Other
Endometriosis or previous pelvic surgery may increase the risk of ectopic pregnancy.
For more information on miscarriage, call 0192 420 0799 or, if you live in Scotland, 0131 334 8883. You can also visit The Miscarriage Association website at
www.miscarriageassociation.org.uk
Ali Agnew
Comments
Be the first to add a comment