I recently read a description, of one of those moments. When your child is crying, and you know it is all your fault.

I have one of those memories, one of those moments. It's incredibly strong. I doubt I'll ever forget.

It was such a small thing, and I doubt my son shares the memory. I hope he doesn't. He'll have others of his own, no doubt. That he remembers, but I forget.

Like me and my mum. When I was a teenager, my sweet tooth was strong, just as it always had been, just as it still is. And I knew where my mum kept her secret chocolate stash. In a drawer, her drawer, that contained only her things, that I was not supposed to enter. I don't remember what else was in that drawer. I don't know how far I explored (I've always been nosy). But I know that now and then I would steal her chocolate. When the urge to binge was strong, and I had no money or couldn't be bothered to cycle the half mile to the corner shop.

I replaced it always, as soon as I was able. She was a hoarder, a nibbler, a saver, just as I am now. She didn't dip into her chocolate supplies as often as I did. I wasn't found out.

Until I was.

Maybe there were other things going on. Maybe I'd annoyed her already. I'm sure I was generally infuriating. That the parenting of me, as with all teenagers, was at times distressing and difficult. Not to mention my twin crimes of both theft and invasion of privacy. But anyway she found out, and confronted me. And slapped me across the face, six times. Left cheek, right cheek, fronthand, backhand, one, two, three, four, five, six. This was the only hand she laid on me, apart from the occasional slap on the back of my legs when I was little. It was shocking, arresting, I remember where I stood. In the hallway, my back to the front door, with the Forbidden Drawer in my sight.

And she has no memory of it.

And so to this other moment, my parental shame, the memory I hope is mine alone. Not shared.

It was bedtime, and my son was small. Two years old, I think. Maybe three. I was tired, grumpy, wanted to sit down and chill out. The bed needed making. Possibly I expected my partner to have done it and I was in a mood about that, I don't know. That's conjecture.

My son was mucking about. I'd asked him to take his clothes off, but instead he was jumping all over the bed I was trying to make, leaping on my back, being silly. I got stern, told him to take his clothes off. I let it be known that now was not playtime. He paid no attention. I lost my temper. I shouted at him to take his clothes off. I kept my back to him. I ignored him for some time.

Until I heard his little voice.

I took my clothes off, Mummy.

I looked round, and there he was. Shivering, crying, naked.

I took my clothes off, Mummy.

I heard something on Radio 4 one day which fascinated me. I was on my way to a midwife appointment and filed it away in my head, thinking the midwife would find it as interesting as I did. But there's a hole in the back of my head and the story fell out, until I found it on my shoulders just now.

The presenter was being taken round an old mill, where she was shown a small arch-shaped hole in the wall. She was asked what she thought it might be. "A doorway for elves?" she asked, astutely. The role played by elves in the industrial revolution is of course well known.

But no, it was a breast hole. Because the women who worked in these mills would return to work within days of giving birth, leaving their babies to be minded by grandparents, or informal community creches. But the quality of non-breast-milk was very poor, not to mention the minimal sanitation available for cleaning bottles and the like, so the mortality of non-breast-fed babies was high. It made sense for the capitalists to safeguard the lives of the future working generation, as well as the productivity of mothers who were not bogged down by bereavement, and were benefiting from the mild contraceptive effects of breastfeeding.

So, they provided a hole. So that hungry babies could be brought to the factory gate, there to take advantage of the exposed mammaries of their poor hugless mothers.

Suddenly the torture of breast-milk-expressing contraptions, used in the toilets at work whilst baby is gurgling happily on some nursery floor, seems slightly more bearable.

It is, just a bit. Here's why:

(1) Despite the fact that your insides are babyless, they are still Sticking Out. Which may or may not have something to do with the fact that you thought you could get away with eating Whatever The Hell You Liked for two months, because you were pregnant. You were pregnant. Now you are just fat. Which is rubbish.

(2) It makes you want to get drunk all the time. Which would be fine if alcohol weren't a depressant and didn't make you hungover, as well as even more fat. Which is bobbins.

(3) It makes you want to eat chocolate all the time. Which also makes you fat. And stops being a cheer-you-up treat when you eat several tons of the stuff every hour. Which is a big pile of poo. Not literally though. That would just be weird.

(4) If the alcohol, the fat tummy and the baby-losing thing weren't making you depressed enough already, you are also not allowed to do strenuous exercise. For several weeks. Which makes you even fatter and even more depressed.

(5) The blood. It keeps coming out. Which leads to various problems, such as:

(6) Clothes. You can only wear dark colours. Add to that fact the Enormously Large Tummy which can no longer be explained away by pregnancy, and all you are left with is dark blue maternity dungarees. Every day. Which is a bit pants.

(7) Tampons. You're not allowed to use them. They can cause infection, apparently. So what the fuck are you supposed to do if you want...

(8) A bath? Which you do, because you are bleeding everywhere, and...

(9) It smells. Like a particularly smelly and drawn-out period. This stinks.

(10) It hurts. I was in serious pain most days last week. Which was crap.

(11) It goes on forever. I think most people assume (I certainly did) that you collapse in a big pile of blood for a few hours, and then it's all over. But no. It takes days, sometimes weeks, for it all to come out. And modern scanning techniques mean you often know (as we did) it's going to happen before it actually happens. So first you get the waiting. Then the bleeding. Then more waiting. More scans. More bleeding. And so on. It's rather tiresome.

(12) You don't get anything proper to grieve over, so you feel you have to gloss over it all the time. Unfortunately, your hormones don't agree.

(13) Hormones. They make you angry, sad, confused and FUCKING GRUMPY, without warning and in no particular order and please will you all just FUCK OFF RIGHT NOW but not before I've cried all over your jumpers. [sniff]

(14) Babies and pregnancies and all related matters are fucking everywhere. You will not escape.

(15) It's a very common complaint. It doesn't even make you special. At least if I'd given birth to a half-horse-half-hippopotamous it would have given us something to talk about.

(16) Breasts. Still enormous, still sore, still smelly. My boobs and I are not on the best of terms right now.

(17) Painkillers. How many? How often? What type? Can I last a little longer without taking any? Have I pooed yet today? Will they make me constipated, or give me a headache, and have I remembered to put some in my handbag / by my bed / down my throat?

(18) It's a rubbish name. Should it be used in noun form (I have had a miscarriage) or verb (I am miscarrying)? Does it describe a state or an event? Is it still happening until it's all come out? Am I still miscarrying? And to miscarry sounds like you held the baby a bit wrong, and if you just hitched it up under your left armpit / over your right hip you'd be fine.

(19) People's faces. James said last week he didn't want to go into work cos he couldn't be arsed arranging his face. People are either too sympathetic or not sympathetic enough. I don't want people to act like nothing's happened, but I don't want them fawning all over me either. Sorry folks, you're best avoiding me for a bit. I don't have an Etiquette Guide for this one, and I'll change my mind from one moment to the next.

(20) Sick leave. The pain and the bleeding come and go. The tears come and go. Sometimes I'm fine. I feel crap for taking all this time off work. But I really don't want to go to work. But I still feel guilty.

(21) Sex. I'm not squeamish, generally. I'm not one of those who abstains once a month. But... aaargh. You can imagine.

So. There you go. It's official: miscarriages are rubbish.

The sign on the door says “Equipment Room” but it contains a bed of sorts, and a separate toilet with a tap that doesn’t work, and shelf upon shelf of medical supplies. We are intrigued. We read the labels while we wait for the nurse.

“Semen analysis pots”

“We don’t normally put people in here,” says the nurse. “But we’re a bit busy today. We’ve had a lot of emergencies. Sorry about the bed.”

The bed is hard and narrow, and is really an examination couch. But I don’t mind. I’m not planning on sleeping.

The nurse has come to insert the pessaries. She asks if James should leave the room. That’s silly; he’s seen it all before. He can stay. So I remove my knickers and part my legs, and James is there on his chair by the bed, and I am thinking, “But surely there should be a screen?”

“Non breath masks”

The pessaries will give me contractions, which will expel the remains of the gunk. A 96% success rate.

She explains the cardboard pots. There’s a way of propping them under the seat. And then I must ring the bell.

“You will be asked to use a bed pan every time you need the toilet so that the nurse can check for blood loss and tissue. Diarrhoea can sometimes be a side effect of the pessaries, but please do not be embarrassed.”

“Blood bottles”

I don’t like bothering them. I keep urinating. There is no blood. But still I must ring the bell.

I want cups of tea, constantly. I don’t like being a pain. I make James ask them instead. They’re very nice. They don’t seem to mind.

But still I don’t give them my Red Bush teabags.

“Urine bags”

What do they make of us? When they walk in, we are laughing. At the date (Friday 13th, and we have only just noticed), or the cannulas (the what?) that come in green, blue, grey and pink.

I adjust the bed, so I can sit up and read. It creaks and bounces each time I lean back. I prop pillows behind me, which slide down again. James' chair is hard and uncomfortable.

“Nasel cannula”

The nurse says someone has been discharged, and I can have her bed. I tell her not to worry. I am fine.

I don’t want to be a nuisance.

“Transwabs”

That spaced-out feeling of a heavy period. Even before the painkillers, I am floaty and distant.

I read some poetry my mum sent me. Walter de la Mare, and she has taped dried flowers into the back of the book.

The nurses are nice. The nurses are always nice, but these ones are also jolly.

What did she think, the one that came to fetch supplies and found me standing there, pen and paper in hand, copying down labels?

“Catheters”

There are many sizes of syringe, all the way up to 30ml, which are enormous. It worries me to imagine so much stuff going into someone’s vein. But it’s all right - they’re for pulling, not pushing. Suck, not blow.

“Specimen pots”

What can we steal?

Nothing much is happening. Should I help it along? Move around, as though I were in labour? Squat on the floor?

“CLINICAL WASTE FOR INCINERATION EXCLUDING AEROSOLS AND GLASSWEAR”

What kind of glass can you wear, I wonder. Contact lenses? Spectacles?

I eat high-cocoa chocolate from my Thornton’s easter egg.

“Mouthpieces”

This makes me think of wind instruments, which makes me think of medical supplies.

My phone rings. Our friend Debs, ringing about a gig tomorrow night. I explain I’m in hospital. She assumes our night out will be cancelled. Oh no, I say. We’re still going.

“Sani-cloth sterets”

I want to know the connection between periods, contractions, labour. Why doesn’t it feel muscular, if a cramp is a contraction? If orgasms cure period pains (they do), is it because their other purpose is to squeeze sperm up your tubes? Is an orgasm a contraction in the opposite direction? Do they cancel each other out?

“Stockings”

Do nurses often find couples shagging in hospital rooms? Yes, says James. On Friday nights when they’ve been waiting, drunk, bored, for hours on end. But no, says James, not us.

I didn’t mean us. That would be weird.

“Vac needles”

Large sloppy poos on small cardboard pots are no fun. I ring the bell. When the nurse catches sight of the present I have left her, she flinches. She carries the steaming pile away, at arm’s length. The smell lingers.

"Please do not be embarrassed." But I am, I am.

“Needles: green, blue, orange and cream”

Words, words, everywhere. Labels, signs, notices, packaging, anatomical diagrams.

I have had a lot of painkillers now. The pain was bearable, but what the hell. Free drugs!

“Alcowipes” (for dirty alcoholics?)

A diagram on the wall:

“Perimetrium”

“Endometrium”

“Pubic bone”

“Anterior fornix”

“Clitoris”

“Recto-uterine pouch” (for keeping your recto-uterine money in)

“Labium majora”

“Cavity of cervix” (like an air lock, and I never knew it existed)

We play Scrabble. I am off my face on high-strength medication. I excuse my verbal incompetence in advance. It will not be my fault. He doesn’t make allowances though. That would be no fun.

Still I win, with 377 points. James sulks, so we play Backgammon to cheer him up. The idea of cheering him up, cheers him up.

“Blue nitrile gloves” in red, blue and green boxes.

Another phone call, from my friend Sarah. She is having a hysterectomy today. In the same hospital, the same department, only yards away.

“Hello, I’m in pain!”

“So am I!”

It’s time to go home. But I haven’t been here long. Have I? And I didn’t bleed; just a million wees and one ginormous turd. And the contractions are really strong now - just like being in labour.

But where’s the blood?

“Nebulisers”

They say they will get my pain under control, before they let me go. They give me more pills. Bargain.

Yet another phone call, this time from the babysitter, who is standing outside our house, with our son, and wondering where we are. A misunderstanding. An urgent phone call to the next door neighbour. Speaking normally, despite the codeine and the everything happening and not happening.

“Plug, stopper and bung” (a firm of dodgy solicitors)

I tell James he must make sure I don’t get in the driving seat, as I am too off my face to remember not to drive the car.

“Tuberculocidal” (like homicidal)

We go home.

It was a fun day out.