London had been difficult—I’d been at that crossroads of, ‘Do I retire or not?’. But then when the bursa was removed I knew I would play again. My dream house in Albury, which had taken so long to complete, was finally ready to move into. Building my home was so important to me, both emotionally and physically, from now on it would be my base.
I was back in Canberra, and although I wasn’t playing because I was rehabilitating my hip and hamstring, we still practised twice a week. On days off I’d head back to Albury. Every spare day I got, I raced back to my new home because I was so in love with the place.
I’d had the exploratory surgery, my hamstring was recovering, I was living in my dream house, and then I found out I was pregnant. I was over the moon. My contract with Seattle had been suspended and I was intending to go back and finish my contract with Canberra, and having kids was something I’d always wanted.
I’ve always been private about my life, but it’s not like I’ve purposely tried to hide anything. As an adult I felt like I was constantly in the public eye, and I’d found it difficult to maintain a long-term relationship with a partner. I like my own space—and especially when it came to sport, I was pretty selfish in terms of that, unfortunately, so relationships came and went. I always thought that when I decided to settle down and actually be with someone all the time, it would just happen. I wasn’t in a permanent relationship when I found out I was having a baby, so at 32 I was setting about preparing to be a single mum.
I started buying baby clothes, thinking about where to set up the nursery in my new home as I rehabilitated, I couldn’t believe how excited I was about bringing a baby into the world. I would take my baby on tour with me both here and overseas, I knew it would be hard but I would be a working single mum.
About six weeks into the pregnancy, I made plans to drive the seven hours from Albury to my parents’ house down the South Coast. I stopped to visit my brother’s family on the way. After I’d arrived at his place I went to the bathroom, and I remember seeing blood on the toilet paper and thinking, ‘That’s weird’. As it was only a relatively small amount of blood, a light pink colour, I continued on to Mum and Dad’s. I was still worried, though, and after being at my parents’ place for four or five days I decided to go to the local hospital at Moruya to get my HCG levels checked, just to make sure everything was okay. Human chorionic gonadotropin or HCG is a hormone made during pregnancy that can be detected by a blood or urine test, and even though the hospital assured me that I still had good HCG levels, something just didn’t feel right, I was scared. There was something in me that made me think I was going to lose the baby. As always, I was expecting the worst—that’s just me, always expect the worst, and if it doesn’t happen then so much the better.
Mum drove back to Albury with me because she knew I was freaking out about it, but I was more worried about how she was handling it. I was hurting for her, so I tried to be strong through it, and I think I was. I made an appointment with a radiographer once we arrived back, just to check on everything, and when the radiographer carried out the ultrasound she straight away looked at me and said, ‘Yeah, you’re losing it’. The baby’s heartbeat had gone right down. When she told me that I was going to lose the baby I was completely devastated. I’d already imagined holding him or her, taking my baby with me as I travelled and played, and now all of that was disappearing. My foetus was dying inside me, and there was nothing I could do about it.
Within four hours I started bleeding really heavily and cramping, that was within just four hours of seeing the radiographer. It was a really terrible, bizarre experience, and then when the foetus did pass, I picked it up and it was like a blood clot. I can’t describe how horrible that was, how it made me feel, it’s so hard trying to describe the realisation and horror of holding your own dead foetus, and thinking about all that could have been. Every year, around that time, I think about the whole experience, it’s always in the back of my mind and I have my own way of dealing with it. That experience really took the wind out of me. With the benefit of hindsight, I don’t think I was completely ready for a child, but I was still totally devastated by the loss. Miscarriage is a reality for a lot of women, but it’s hardly ever talked about. It was painful, miscarriages are uncomfortable, both physically and mentally.
After the miscarriage, I was diagnosed with very aggressive endometriosis, where the tissue that lines the uterus (the endometrium), starts growing on nearby areas like the ovaries and fallopian tubes. I’d always had heavy painful periods from my very first. I didn’t speak to anyone about it, I didn’t get it checked, I just thought that’s how it was for all women. In true Jackson form we never actually talked about it. Mum gave me a book about becoming a woman when I was 12 or 13, I think it was the same book her mum had given her, and that was the total extent of our conversation about it—I really didn’t know anything other than when I got my period I was able to have children. I’d been a ‘late bloomer’. I didn’t get my period until I was about 15 or 16 when I was at the AIS, I didn’t have to wear a bra until I was on the national team, I just developed later with everything. I’d always had heavy periods lasting a week or more, and it was always really crampy, which would start the week before my period. It certainly became worse as I got older, and when I’d go to the bathroom it was like knives going through me, that’s still the worst of it.
At the time I was diagnosed I’d never heard of endometriosis, which the doctor referred to as disease. I had to go back to a surgeon, and was told my chances of becoming pregnant again were reduced because of the endometriosis. Some people think being pregnant can cure endometriosis and heavy periods, but it doesn’t. I had a laparoscopy, and then within a month the tissue had begun growing back and my periods started getting bad again. After that, there was a part of me that thought I would never be able to get pregnant, I was getting older, I didn’t know what the future held. So, I took more painkillers and continued on.
Not long after the miscarriage, the new coach of the Australian team, Brendan Joyce, came to my house and said they wanted me back.