I Had a Miscarriage. No One Tells You What to Expect.
Miscarriage. Getting one. Going through one. We shy away from talking about it; we give platitudes to mothers who lost their babies early. We’re uncomfortable talking about the loss, we’re uncomfortable facing it head-on.
I Was Six Weeks Pregnant.
I was excited, my husband and I had been trying for a few months. I was visiting friends and family abroad the week I began experiencing symptoms. I was hopeful. My husband was taking pictures and video of the whole experience, coming to terms in his own way with pending fatherhood. We both joked about my gassiness and our “little parasite” together.
It was supposed to be a great pregnancy. My first ever. There were no overt indications that I’d have complications. No one has a good explanation to offer me now that it’s happened.
“It’s not your fault,” the doctor told me. “There may not have been anything there in the first place,” she added, wiping her hands after the ultrasound that sealed my fate.
But suddenly, all of the plans, all of our hopes, came crashing down around our ears.
No One Talks About the Pain. Or How Long It Lasts.
It started out somewhat mild. An ache in my lower back, perceived as discomfort or maybe bruising from a massage. I’d lean forward and feel a light pang, like someone pressing down too hard on my side.
It took a few days. The discomfort persisted, but it was mild enough to be dismissed. I’m always in pain, and being pregnant seemed to cause me some minor health issues so I thought nothing of it.
Then, one Saturday night, the pain transformed. It went from a persistent discomfort in my side to a more pointed pain in my lower back and eventually my lower stomach. I woke up from a nap with a dull, somewhat familiar ache, reminiscent of my menstrual cycle.
I was lethargic, a little confused. I went to relieve myself, only to realize that I was bleeding. And it wasn’t just the occasional drop that friends who had kids told me was common.
The pain persisted as I waited to make it to the labor and delivery department of the hospital in the middle of the night. I’d pace whatever room attendants put me in until a doctor would see me, moaning and gasping from the sudden onslaught of sensation that would hit me every few minutes. Sometimes, I’d lean forward, the pressure on my lower stomach almost a comfort. By then, I was still hoping it was nothing. That my instinct of a miscarriage was wrong.
The pain continued long after I left the hospital hours after first arriving, still bleeding, still cramping, but now very exhausted from the whole experience.
The pain was my constant companion the next day, a wave of sensation hitting me from my stomach to my back, my upper thighs all the way to my crotch. My husband would touch me and worry and the heat coming off of my skin. I made it through the day with a heating pad.
The pain was there three days after my miscarriage. Four days. It hurt. It exhausted me. It affected my mental health. It was the constant reminder that I’d just experienced something I never wanted to experience.
Having a miscarriage doesn’t happen in just a day. For some women, tissue elimination and the uterus contracting itself back to its original size can take up to four weeks and require surgical intervention for removal.
Basically, we’re giving birth. Just not to a living, breathing child we’ll be able to hold and watch grow. And then we’re reminded that we didn’t give birth to a living, breathing child for weeks as our bodies do what a pregnant body needs to do to recover from birth.
Platitudes Don’t Make a Difference.
Don’t try to give comforting words. Don’t try to tell a woman who miscarried that “it happens all the time.” Don’t try to offer advice on how to make sure it doesn’t happen again, because many miscarriages are a fluke of nature, or the body eliminating an unviable foetus whether the mother wants that to happen or not.
I think that women who experience a miscarriage want to think of it as little as possible. It’s painful, there’s a quiet stigma around it. Even I find myself battling some of the shame that hits. I have this feeling of insufficiency, that this miscarriage as a shortcoming on my part. I’m hiding from the world, even as I know I need to inhabit it as fully as I can in order to truly heal.
I was given the platitudes and the message of hope. That first pregnancies end like this fairly often. That I’m not alone. But when I joined support groups, very little resonated with me.
The Loss Hits Everyone Differently.
We all grieve differently. As soon as I got home from the hospital, I joined some miscarriage support groups. I observed a variety of responses, the most common one being naming these lost babies, holding onto old positive pregnancy tests, and seeking out reminders that these women were indeed once pregnant.
I want to do none of those things. I barely conceive of my pregnancy loss as the loss of a child.
“You were already a mother,” a friend told me after I shared the news. I disagree, though other women need to feel that way (and there’s nothing wrong with that).
My thought? “I was almost a mother.” And I’m okay with that.
Hopefully, one day, somehow, I will be a mother. But it hasn’t happened yet.
Grief Sneaks Up On You.
As a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP, it’s a thing if you’ve not heard of it before), I probe my thoughts and feelings quite a bit on a daily basis. And as I worked through the emotions of my miscarriage, I learned a few things about my grieving process.
I was sad, yes. But that wasn’t what made me cry.
I was hurting, yes. And I was crying because of the pain, but not the emotional hurt.
I was (am) mourning, yes. But again—the tears don’t well up at the acknowledgement that I’m mourning.
I experienced a loss. And that’s what made me cry. That’s what I needed to mourn. The hopes and dreams and due dates and plans. The visits, the excitement, the sharing the news early with friends who’ve followed my journey into relationships and marriage, who knew that we were trying, or who’d seen and heard me complain of my discomfort before a test confirmed my pregnancy.
The sensation of loss is hard to describe, but it’s an emptiness where it used to be full. It’s my breasts no longer being sensitive, my stomach no longer feeling like it wants to push itself out in spite of me. It’s the motivation to be healthier than I am, the desire to eliminate my vices because something greater than myself is happening. It’s the quiet excitement of putting my hand on my belly and thinking about what’s to come next. It’s the loss of the nervous excitement at seeing my body change in ways that I’ve dreamed of for a very long time.
I’ve lost something from this miscarriage. And that—that is the hardest part of this whole experience.
Closing Thoughts.
“Sorry for your loss” are some of the only words you can offer a woman who’s miscarried. Asking her if she wants to talk about it; if you’re ready to face the deep-seated and often unprocessed emotions of the experience, can be another form of support.
Bring her food. Clean her house. Keep her company. Hand her a tissue if the tears start falling again.
Miscarriage is an uncomfortable subject. Most women avoid discussing it too deeply, or rehash all the things that went wrong. Try opening some space for her to talk about it, but also—inhabit that space with her so that she doesn’t feel so alone.
