The Depths of Pregnancy Loss
Reflecting on pregnancy after miscarriage and how to support your loved ones carrying the grief of it all.
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Being part of the Miscarriage Club is not something I ever imagined holding a membership card to. It is not a fun club to be in. It requires the payment of exorbitantly expensive dues that have no value whatsoever. No amount of scientific explanation can quell the grief that accompanies this type of loss when you’re in the thick of it.
Pregnancy after pregnancy loss is a weird space to navigate. I feel so grateful to have been able to make life; I feel frustrated that the life I’m carrying is the second one I made. I feel honored to be pregnant again; I feel guilty when I complain about how hard it is, even when it’s everything I wanted in my time of despair and we should all feel free to speak on our experiences as honestly as we can. I feel in awe that Joni will be here soon because of everything that happened before her; I feel angry that something terrible had to happen before she could exist. I wonder if the little spirit I miscarried is mad at me in the sky for accepting reality. I don’t know if she’s even a she. I think she’s probably laughing at me while I write this because she’s floating around in the celestial daisies doing just fine.
Every milestone I hit with Joni feels like a giant boulder is lifted off of my shoulders. I eventually stopped panicking that I would see blood every time I wiped after going to the bathroom. I physically feel lighter with each passing day even as I continue to gain weight. I write about this heavy thing now with as much lightness as I have ever had.
When I was processing my loss, I found comfort only in the words of strangers on the Internet. I didn’t speak about it with those I knew because I didn’t want to. It was exhausting to do so.
I try to write all of my pieces on this platform for anyone who might venture to my page, of course with an eye to matrescence in this newsletter.
But I write this piece specifically to the mother who is grieving.
A Loss Is a Loss At Any Stage
Early miscarriage is sticky because it’s often invalidated. “At least it was early” is an empty platitude and not something anyone should ever say to someone who miscarries.
A loss is a loss at any stage. The grief it carries does not care what week the loss occurred.
I miscarried at five weeks, which means my embryo failed to properly implant into my uterine wall. It was the earliest possible time to miscarry, but that didn’t make the grief of it all any less valid. Do I think now that a loss at a later week would be more difficult to manage? Surely, in different ways, but that’s my burden to carry and no one else’s to define. It also doesn’t erase the feelings of loss I had when I was grieving.
The medical field has deemed early miscarriage a “chemical pregnancy,” which is itself an invalidating term. Reading about a chemical pregnancy is dehumanizing because it is haphazardly posited as a pregnancy only of the hormones. This is misleading and physiologically false. A chemical pregnancy still results in a sperm meeting an egg forming a zygote and then an embryo. The only reason an early miscarriage is called a “chemical pregnancy” is because you cannot see the embryo on an ultrasound (because the embryo is the size of a poppyseed). Most medical providers don’t even allow a first trimester ultrasound until at least week 8; is the medical community saying that an 8-week embryo is also just a string of chemicals on a blood test?
The size of the embryo being “too small” to detect on current medical technology does not mean the embryo does not exist. I think “chemical pregnancy” is a painfully outdated term and its usage is rife with misinformation and invalidation.
I did not do well with my early miscarriage. I thought I would be giving birth on April 20, 2024. I thought I would be a mother this Mother’s Day. My body had other ideas. The heaviness of loss is laced with expectations of what could’ve been, and I think that is why loss is so difficult no matter when it happens.
Nine months have passed and I no longer feel sad. There is indeed light at the end of my tunnel. But your tunnel may be longer, or shorter, and no matter the distance to the portal, you shouldn’t ever feel rushed to get there.
The Dehumanization of Miscarriage Statistics
Normalizing miscarriage as common and de-stigmatizing the conversations around the subject are two entirely different discussions. I’m frustrated that conversations around miscarriage almost immediately divert to statistics. “Miscarriage is actually common.” I don’t think this is true. I think people mean “more common than you would think,” and regardless, I don’t see the point in knowing that more women are suffering than I once thought.
Statistics on miscarriage are inconsistent. Some sources say 10 to 20 in 100, others say 1 in 4. Either way, we’re talking 25% or less. Apparently, this is considered “very common” by various organizations and the majority of medical research on the topic.
“Common” itself is a vague term. Merriam-Webster defines it as “occurring frequently.” Is 25% frequent? What does frequent mean? (It means “habitually.” What does that say about someone who miscarries only once? Referring to miscarriage as “common” is inappropriate).
In some circumstances, I suppose 25% could be considered common or frequent as applied to this discussion, but I believe it is a paltry attempt to normalize miscarriage itself despite not knowing why 25% of us are even miscarrying, which then invalidates the body who bears the actual loss.
Like much of women’s healthcare, the cause of most miscarriages is unknown. Shock! No doctor could have examined me and told me why my body miscarried. There are just “known causes,” of which “might” have caused or contributed, and which is “usually” due to chromosomal deficiencies. None of this is comforting.
Pair these not-fact-facts with more invalidating terminology, you know, like the “incompetent cervix,” and it’s clear that members of the Miscarriage Club have absolutely no answers and only grief to wade through in the hopes that the next embryo might hold, if we’re even given the chance to make a new one.
Hearing a hypothetical proposition that a miscarriage might have happened because an embryo (or fetus) wouldn’t have likely survived to term is not helpful to healing, especially if miscarriages are recurrent (“Have three, then we’ll talk!” the doctors say.) Is there peace in knowing there’s some sort of divine butterfly effect at play with miscarriage? Sure, you could say that about anything involving loss - but I only have the wherewithal to bear that thought now. When we talk about de-stigmatizing miscarriage conversations, I think we need to talk about how the terms and statistics around the subject do nothing to help the grieving mother while she’s actually grieving. I think we need to give her space to grieve more than anything.
Supporting Your Loved Ones After Miscarriage
What does help the grieving mother? Support. We don’t want advice. We don’t want statistics. We don’t want the absence of answers. We don’t want platitudes. We simply want you to love on us.
We don’t have the energy to tell you what we want. We don’t want to hear that everything will be okay. We don’t want to be strong and admirable for overcoming something hard with grace. I was not graceful; I was a hot mess.
We just want you to recognize that what is happening is hard, and that you’re there for us to listen and to cover us in kindness and compassion. We want to know that when we call on you, you will actually be there.
The morning that my husband and I found out we were pregnant before I miscarried, we already had plans to see a group of casual friends for dinner. There were 10 of us in total. I didn’t order a drink, so everyone assumed I must be pregnant (I mean, I was, but we’ll save a discussion about the inappropriateness in forcing someone’s announcement because of someone else’s lack of self-awareness another day). Obviously, we couldn’t hold it in. We told our parents and siblings earlier, but no one else. Now eight more people knew, and none of them were our other loved ones. One week later, we had to un-tell everyone.
Well, my husband untold everyone. Out of those eight people, only two reached out to me. TWO. I will never forget the weight of that silence. The most frustrating part was that I couldn’t talk about it with my actual best friends because it hurt too much and they didn’t even know I was pregnant. Who wants to talk about the grief they’re holding when they don’t even have the words for it yet? It was too hard. I just wanted to burrow in a hole.
If it’s too hard for you to even send a heart emoji when something tragic has happened (the barest of minimums), but you’re comfortable saying, “Oh my God, did you hear?” to someone else, then why the fuck are you even in my life? Bye!
I no longer give credence to the excuse “I didn’t know what to say” for any situation in which someone is going through something difficult. If you call yourself a friend, you reach out. You send a heart emoji. You say “I’m thinking of you.” You say “I’m here if you need me” and you mean it.
For your loved ones who have miscarried, you obviously do not say “at least it was early.” You obviously do not say “everything happens for a reason.” You put yourself aside and you act with compassion. You act with empathy. And you definitely do not say nothing at all. It’s really not that hard.
I wrote 55 poems in the week I found out I was pregnant and then miscarried, and in the six weeks of gloom that followed. I cannot wait for them to be held in your hands one day in the hopes that they bring you as much healing as they brought me. But for now, I will leave you with this one I wrote on my 31st birthday:
"Cherry Blossoms" You would have been born Under the cherry blossoms in early Spring and I would have called you Daisy Picked fresh from the garden Your father planted for me where You grew with your face to the Sunlight that has not returned Since you retreated back into the ground And into the sky to wait for me In warmer air when the Earth Falls away from all of us and we can Make a garden out of the atmosphere To plant flowers for everyone still there
I hope that if you have experienced a pregnancy loss (or a miscarriage or whichever term feels most fitting to you), that you know that you are not alone in your feelings of devastation and sadness. That you are free to feel whatever shape grief takes in your body and your soul. That you are not in a race to overcome something tough. That if you are actually doing okay, you don’t need to feel forced to feel worse. That there is nothing wrong with you for however you process a pregnancy loss; with apathy or with sadness. That there is no basis for any of this to make any sense. That you are so loved and so are all of your unborn babies in the sky.
And most of all, that there is hope and light and relief waiting for you when you’re ready to chase it.
Xo,
Violet Carol
You are a mother this Mother’s Day 🌼🌸🧡