We don’t talk about miscarriage often enough…

I’ll be honest — it’s been a while since I thought about my miscarriage. It feels strange to come to that realization given how it used to plague my every thought and wreaked havoc on my subsequent successful pregnancy, but life got busy and I more or less buried it the way I have done with so many hard life experiences. This week, though, it crept back into my psyche when my period was a couple of days late and a new pregnancy was in the realm of possibilities (confirmed not pregnant now, BTW).

Though I wanted to, I never unpacked my miscarriage. I had many thoughts and feelings that I wanted to share, but the shame of having gone through one got the best of me. I’m prideful that way. My body had failed at something it was born to do, something so many easily and effortlessly do. At the time, many of my friends were having their second and third children and I had lost my first one. It was five years ago just last month, actually.

When Shawn and I decided to try to have a baby, I was worried. I had tried that before. For years I went through unexplained infertility with my ex — even Chlomid didn’t help me and it helped “everyone.” Though I was thankful to leave that relationship having not further complicated it with a child, I had resolved that if I was ever going to be a mother, it was going to take medical intervention. When I told Shawn this, he simply said “we’ll see what happens.” Four months later, I was pregnant.

I vividly remember making it to my confirmation ultrasound appointment. It had been a LONG month of anticipation and because I had told my family and friends, I couldn’t wait to have that symbolic picture of a little blob to celebrate with. Shawn was with me, holding my hand, as my doctor probed to get a good picture. I remember the moment she found it — the relief I felt was unlike any other. I was really pregnant! I had done it! Except, things were too quiet. I can’t tell you how long the silence went on, but she finally said “when did you say your last period was?” After I told her, she simply replied “hmm, well maybe you’re not as far along as we think. I just can’t seem to get a picture of the heartbeat. Let’s get a better picture on the big machine.” I dressed and moved into the ultrasound room and I remember telling Shawn that I was getting nervous as we waited. “It’s going to be ok,” he said, “you’re probably just earlier than we think, like she said.” The ultrasound tech came in and after a short probe, walked toward the door and told us “I’ll send your doctor in, I don’t see a heartbeat” and left the room. Just like that. And that’s the day I learned the term “missed miscarriage.”

I have never succumbed to emotional pain the way I did in that moment. I crumbled. I sobbed. I don’t cry in public — it’s a rule I’ve had for myself since I was a teen, but I cried in that empty room like I’ve never cried in my life. My doctor explained how missed miscarriages work — sometimes our bodies don’t recognize that a fetus has stopped developing and therefore don’t naturally miscarry. Our baby had stopped developing at 6.5 weeks gestation and because we were now two weeks past that point with no signs that my body was going to do the work, she recommended a pill that would jumpstart contractions and the miscarriage process. She gave me the first dose and sent me home.

In large part, I think I have disassociated from the remainder of that day. I remember racking my brain for what I had done wrong- I exercised too hard, I had some beers before I knew I was pregnant, somehow it was my fault, my doing. Maybe this was punishment for all the wrong things I had done in my life. I remember crying until my eyes were nearly swollen shut, spending most of my time in the fetal position on our couch while experiencing the worst cramps of my life, and getting up periodically to run to the bathroom and expel a lot of blood. A day and a half later, I was back at work, having to acknowledge to those who knew that I was no longer pregnant. How I wished I hadn’t told anyone, ultimately resolving to never tell anyone again if there was ever a next time.

I went back for an ultrasound about ten days later to ensure that no fetal matter remained in my uterus and as misfortune would have it, it did. I was given round two of the same pill and sent home to go through the process all over again. Another day of hell, a second day of contractions and miscarriage in two weeks. Ten days later, at my next follow-up ultrasound, there was still a small amount of fetal matter remaining and this time, my doctor recommended a D&C (if you’re unfamiliar, this stands for dilation & curettage and is a surgery performed under general anesthesia). I had that procedure just a few days later at which point, my miscarriage ordeal was finally over.

It’s been hard for me to put the aftermath of miscarriage into words. I just existed on autopilot for a little while. Externally, the world was moving on around me and I appeared to move with it but internally, I was still in the fetal position on my couch, fully committed to the thought that I would never feel better. As many times as I’ve tried to find a metaphor that would help others understand, this is the best I’ve come up with:

Imagine your whole adult life, you’ve driven past this beautiful neighborhood and gawked at the houses within it, always dreaming of moving in there. The years go by and you watch friend after friend move into their dream homes full with cute babies, all the while waiting for your turn to do the same. Your day finally comes — years worth of waiting and hoping, ups and downs, everything finally led you there- and it’s time to close on YOUR house. You get the keys, you giddily begin to imagine all the ways your life is going to change, and then the house burns down before your eyes. Before you ever got to set foot inside.

Now imagine how a subsequent pregnancy would go. That’s the thing no one talks about — how miscarriage robs you of the joy pregnancy should bring. Little more than a year after my miscarriage, we started trying again and this time, I was pregnant within 6 weeks. I found it impossible to be excited, resistant to getting attached to the baby I now shared my body with. Fear and anxiety were twin flames burning me from the inside out. This time, Shawn and I agreed to tell no one. Not until at least the 12 week mark when things were supposedly “safe.”

And then, like a cruel joke, at exactly 6.5 weeks pregnant, I woke up bleeding one morning. The old, unhealed trauma wound was ripped open, raw and intense. I remember crawling back into bed and curling up to Shawn to weep. I felt him physically tense and knew he was worried but as the stoic optimist he has always been, he said “I’m going to call into work. You call the doctor and get an appointment to get checked out and we’ll go as soon as they can get us in.” “It’s happening again,” I told him, “I just know it’s happening again.”

I very clearly remember walking into the ultrasound room feeling defeated, expecting to be told again that there was no heartbeat, ready to go through the whole agonizing process again (in fact, on the car ride over, I told Shawn I was going straight to a D&C this time, no pills. I simply couldn’t do that again). I’m not even sure I was looking at the screen when the tech said “I see a heartbeat!” I was flooded with relief and terrorized by fear in the same moment. How long would I make it this time? Could I see this pregnancy through?

I carried Logan through 40 weeks to exactly his due date. There wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t get anxious about losing him, not at the 12 week mark when his ultrasound and genetic testing came back perfect, not at the 20 week mark when his anatomy scan looked great, not when I got to 30 weeks and we were well within the minimum viable age for preterm birth. When we got past the point of miscarriage being a rational fear, I started fearing stillbirth. I was so scared, in fact, that on two occasions in the last month of my pregnancy, I was in my doctor’s office hooked to monitors because I felt he hadn’t moved enough or at all for too long a period. For 40 weeks I didn’t feel joy until they put him on my chest on his birth day. Miscarriage robbed me of pregnancy physically the first time, and mentally/emotionally the second.

It’s much easier now to look back and think I was irrational at times; that I robbed myself of the experience in some ways and unnecessarily punished myself in others. It’s much easier to know that miscarriage happens a lot — somewhere around 30% of first pregnancies end in one, actually, according to my doctor. It’s much easier for me to empathize with someone going through miscarriage now while also holding a hope I know they won’t have for some time. It’s also easier to recognize that I am very fortunate — not everyone only experiences miscarriage once. It touches some women many times over. I suppose that’s what I’ve learned about miscarriage, and other traumas for that matter. Things get easier with time and time heals most wounds, though it doesn’t erase them entirely. If it did, I wouldn’t be unpacking my own miscarriage five years after it happened.