Losing an unborn baby is no small matter
WHEN my husband and I first decided to try to have a baby, I looked forward to the exciting time. I was not prepared when that first pregnancy ended in miscarriage.
How could I have known what it would be like? Pregnancy was a frequent topic in my high school health class, but the teacher made it sound as if unprotected sex created instant babies.
In my undergraduate physiology courses, my professors described in detail the intricate steps leading up to the fertilisation of an egg and then the development of a foetus, but they didn’t emphasise how common it was for those steps to go awry.
When a friend had a miscarriage, I gave her a big hug and said I was sorry, but we didn’t really talk about the details. I didn’t know how to ask. So, like most people, I knew basically nothing about miscarriage until it happened to me.
This silence means that many couples are blindsided by miscarriage. We don’t know what to expect, what it means for the future, or why losing something so small makes us feel so sad.
I ended up having five early pregnancy losses and two healthy babies. I think knowing a few things about miscarriage would have made the path a little easier:
You are not alone. Miscarriage is the most common pregnancy complication, ending as many as 30% of all pregnancies. The reality is that you are likely to have close friends and family members who have experienced miscarriage, but they may have kept it to themselves.
It’s not your fault. Most miscarriages are caused by chance chromosomal abnormalities, and there was nothing the mother could have done differently to prevent it.
It can be helpful to share your sad news. When I had my first and second miscarriages, both very early in pregnancy, I didn’t tell anyone except for a handful of close friends and family members. After our third miscarriage, tired of feeling alone with the grief, I wrote a blog post about it.
Messages
My inbox was flooded with messages, all telling me I wasn’t alone and thanking me for telling my story. Four years later, I have healed.
There are many ways to lose a pregnancy. My first two pregnancy losses happened so early that I wasn’t even sure if I could call them miscarriages. We found out about the third at our 10-week ultrasound, when my OB couldn’t find a heartbeat. I felt foolish and betrayed by my own body.
Before my own experience, I thought miscarriage was a dramatic event, with an obvious gush of blood. It often is, and sometimes it is very painful, like childbirth. Other times, it can be little more than a heavy period. Regardless, they can all be emotionally painful.
Miscarriage can bring messy feelings. First, there is grief that feels disproportionate to the size of the loss. It can linger, taking you off guard on anniversaries of the miscarriage or due date. I also felt hatred towards my own body for failing to do this one thing I’d always assumed it could do.
You can’t control or predict the final outcome. Studies show you have a very good chance of having a healthy pregnancy after miscarriage. But nobody can tell you for sure what will happen, and for me, that was the hardest part. Coming to terms with my situation meant having patience and optimism.
For better and for worse, miscarriage will change you. It made me more anxious and fearful that something would go wrong in future pregnancies. I am not alone in this; a 2011 study found that depression and anxiety associated with miscarriage or stillbirth often persisted through a subsequent pregnancy. But my experience with repeated miscarriages also made me more grateful when things went well, and it expanded my capacity for empathy for all of the different ways that people can struggle to become parents. I realise now that it is part of who I am, as a person and as a parent. – The Washington Post