Miscarriage. Stillbirth. Please, Don't Shy Away.
Women love to talk about and dissect almost any topic you throw at them. I love that about my gender. We are open and interested and willing to spread our collective knowledge around to help each other.
Yet, there are still a few topics that even we shy away from discussing: Miscarriage and, harder yet, stillbirth.
Lawsy. My heart is pounding and my eyes are wet, but I suggest we tackle the beast and prove to ourselves that this painful vulnerability is worthy of our words.
Who among you knows of a woman who has suffered a miscarriage? If I asked for a show of hands, many of you would offer yours. Maybe you're the woman you know. I know I am.
My story is simple. A year or so before I married I was told by a doc that it would be statistically impossible for me to conceive. Most likely, I would never carry a baby. The news was devastating.
Cut to a week post-honeymoon, sitting in my doctor's office, positive I had picked up a tropical stomach bug, yet being told my pregnancy test came back positive! (I see you counting...)
I was angry and upset; in my jumble of confused emotions, I thought they were teasing me.
Um, yeah, no, you're PREGNANT!
Simply writing the words causes the raw emotion of that pinpointed moment, the unbelievability, the SURPRISE!, the giddy Scoobey-Doo head fake, to come barreling back as a tsunami of gratitude.
I was pregnant! We were having a baby!
We were scared and excited and truly dumbfounded for a few weeks.
Boy was born and we were blessed beyond measure.
Docs can be wrong. For me, my faith told me that if God wanted me to have a child, there was no diagnosis that would stand in the way.
With Boy's birth, we thought we were done. We had our miracle. We were OK with the idea that one was the magic number.
14 years later we were surprised with another pregnancy. WHAT?!
This time, when I was told, I actually came close to passing out at the nurse's station. The pregnancy test that was standard when you're a young woman seeing your gynecologist, the positive results of such a routine don't-think-about-it-just-pee-in-the-cup test, surprised us all in that little room.
I remember blinking hard, my brain trying to process the impossible words spoken, then the room going dark. The nurses sprang into action. Once I could think again...could talk again...I cried and they laughed in joy (and probably in response to my response) .
I WAS PREGNANT... AGAIN!
I can't begin to articulate what I felt. TWO KIDS! A mom of two kiddos. Omgosh, that's gonna be me!
Then, on Thanksgiving day, 14 weeks into the pregnancy, I started spotting. I immediately stopped baking pies and called my doctor. I was told to get off my feet and to keep an eye on things. I had experienced some bleeding and cramping during my first pregnancy, so it wasn't completely worrisome.
I sent my family off to the family feast, reminded them to bring me a plate and laid in bed praying for my sweet baby girl. It was too early to know for sure, but in my heart I felt certain I was carrying a girl, just as I had felt certain Boy was a boy.
As the day progressed, my spotting became more pronounced to actual bleeding. I checked back in with my doctor and from what I relayed, he believed I was miscarrying. He advised me to continue to rest.
Rest? My baby was in peril and I was supposed to rest? For the first time since becoming a mother, there was nothing I could do, but wait. It's a twisted kind of agony to know that the life within you is passing from this world to the next and there is nothing you can do but wait.
I knew the moment my pregnancy ended, and even now, at this very moment, the deep emotion has the power to bend me to almost breaking. My baby girl was gone.
Only days before, we had announced to our family and friends that we were expecting (much to everyone's surprise!) and now we'd have to tell them that I had miscarried, except in language that was less blunt and less painful for them.
But not for me.
For months I grieved silently. I wanted to talk about it, to talk about what I experienced, but I didn't want to make those around me uncomfortable. Life was moving on, but I wasn't, until two amazing things happened. One: a dear friend suggested we name the baby, acknowledging that she was a part of our lives and always would be. Two: another friend suggested a ceremony of letting go, with drums and chants and tearing of cloth (if need be). She suggested we could write down our pain, then burn it in a fire pit and watch as the healing smoke rise to Heaven.
We didn't do either one of these things, but I was so grateful to both of those friends for taking the risk to talk to me about the miscarriage. As I had found out after my miscarriage, everyone was loving and concerned, but no one dared mention it again. I'm sure they didn't want to hurt me by reminding me of my pain,or maybe they didn't know what to say, but I never stopped thinking about it.
Miscarriage is devastating. A death. Who wants to talk about death over coffee and cake? I'll tell you who: every woman who has suffered through one.
As miracles go, we thought we were done with pregnancies. Matter of fact, we had two more, and then two more miscarriages.
Look at these stats:
- An increase in maternal age affects the chances of miscarriage
- Women under the age of 35 yrs old have about a 15% chance of miscarriage
- Women who are 35-45 yrs old have a 20-35% chance of miscarriage
- Women over the age of 45 can have up to a 50% chance of miscarriage
- A woman who has had a previous miscarriage has a 25% chance of having another (only a slightly elevated risk than for someone who has not had a previous miscarriage)
That's a lot of women. A lot of suffering. A lot of love waiting to be expressed.
My prayer, my hope, is simple: Let us not shy away from each other when the subject is miscarriage or stillbirth. Let us embrace our love, our gift, of talking about and sharing our pain, even in the face of extreme discomfort. Hell, especially in the face of that which scares the holy hell out of us and makes our heart ache.
Talking of stillbirth seems even harder to me. I don't know anyone who has experienced it, so I defer to those who have.
Please watch this video I found posted at Sugar and Dots discussing miscarriage and stillbirth. It is heart-wrenching and beautiful.
Someone once said to me: Miracles come from death. Watch, and you'll bear witness.
She was right. My miracles arrived as two friends who pushed past their fear and gave me more than they intended. Their lesson became my action; reach out to those who suffer this silent loss.
Are these tough topics to discuss? A million times, yes. But, we are women; we are warriors. We bring life forward and shape the future.
Whatever you do, please, don't shy away.
About a month ago I went to the graveside service for a friend whose baby was stillborn. She was 39 weeks and I can only imagine her heartache. Having that experience happen to someone I know has definitely changed me and how I interact with women who have lost a baby.
A mother's pain felt by all mothers. It's terrifying to imagine ourselves in that position, but I'm thankful that the experience has changed the way you approach the subject. Thank you for coming here and sharing this with us.
Thanks for sharing. This is truly one of those subjects you don't truly understand till you've been there, but it does help to make others aware of it so they can be as sensitive as possible when they know someone experiencing this. My first loss I never told anyone till years later. My second one was later in the pregnancy, after everyone knew, and I think what made the situation doubly hard was the QUIET of everyone around me. I was grieving alone because others just did not know how to react to my loss. Posts like this will help others know what to say and to do help, so thank you.
I think I'm going to cry through every comment, especially those like yours. Thank you for sharing your experience. The quiet of those around me was so unexpected, but as with a death of any kind, folks don't want to say the wrong thing, so I I never blamed them. I could understand. But my suffering just went on, and I felt so alone.
Thanks for sharing. I've also had them. It might be caused by eating gluten. Have you been checked out to see if you might not tolerate gluten in your diet?
I am past the age of having babies (well, almost!), but I have not checked. I have never heard of this particular cause.
I miscarried our first child. Since my mom, grandmas and aunts all miscarried I just assume it was a genetic issue. It was so sad and hard, especially with my momma 800 miles away. I blamed my self. There was so much silence with an occasional rude comment, not intentional, but painful none the less. But I know to this day God had a plan. He blessed us with two healthy babies who mean the world to us. From profound sadness comes great joy!
Debbie, I had no idea and I'm so sorry that your experience was that of so many. It's true that having a baby after such a loss, makes it sweeter. Thanks for being so open and sharing your story.
Thank you so much for sharing what I know is a difficult story to tell.
It would be great if women felt more comfortable speaking about miscarriages and stillbirths and could create a network of support with other women.
That is my prayer. Let us be the start. Thank you for joining this important conversation.
Thank you for sharing your story at Bacon Time. I knew a women who had a still birth, and she was aware it was going to happen. The doctors convinced her to go full term, since she would be able to donate babies organs to some child in need. Then once the baby came they told her none of the organs were useful, so she went full term for nothing. I felt so bad for her. All that time folks asking to rub her belly, what she was having, and she would have to sigh and explain her sad story once again. I didn't know what to say to her at the time. I am thankful for your post, and in the future I will put myself out there more for women in the same situation.
Mindie, I am so thankful that you opened you heart for others, even if you didn't know what to say to your friend. It's important that we take each experience and grow from that...and you totally did. It's a heartbreaking story and I wish your friend peace.
I haven't experienced this personally, but am surprised at how many of my friends have, long before we were friends. My mom experienced the death of her 3 day old son, what would have been my older brother. Although I wonder sometimes if I'd be here if things had been different. He's not talked about much, but my grandmother brought him up to me a few weeks ago.
I think most women who have experienced a miscarriage or stillbirth are open to discussing their experience, but shy away from bringing it up because of the pain and uncomfortableness it causes others. We are ever the comforters, aren't we? I hope you could talk to your grandmother about her and her daughter's pain.
After my second child and my husband's fourth, I found myself pregnant agian, and I was NOT overjoyed, I know that for some the pain is from not being able to have children, but I had two teens and two babies on my hands, we were not well off financially, to say the least, and I had my hands FULL(!). When I miscarried, the guilt was overwhelming, if I had been wiser I would have known that pregnancies that begin less than 6 months after birth often end in miscarriage, but I felt, no KNEW, that it was my fault, for not being happy about it, somehow my feelings killed my baby. I carried that for over a decade before I untangled the emotions from the logic and forgave myself those feelings.
I also felt guilt, like it was my fault some how. I hear over and over again that so many women believe this needless pain. I'm sorry you carried that burden for so many years, but happy that you've come to a place of truth.
Thank you for writing this beautiful post. I lost a little one after my tubal reversal surgery. It was an early miscarriage, around 7 weeks. I still keep the pregnancy tests, even though it's been four years. I can't bring myself to throw them away - it's all I have to show for that little one.
And because I have six children, with number seven on the way, people think it's not such a big deal for me. After all, I have so many already, right? And it was an early loss... But it matters to me. I still think about that little one. I still remember vividly reaching into the toilet, trying to find my baby, wanting something to hold. It's so heartbreaking.
I think my husband forgets sometimes. And I understand. It wasn't real for him. But it was real for me - and there was no one to talk to about it.
It matters. Each one matters, no matter how small or how early.
I also remember the need to "see" or find my baby. It's a protective mommy response, I think.
I'm so sorry for your pain and your loss. I also thank you for sharing your story's details, especially for those who can't.
We lost a baby between Reese and Tegan. And I just knew it was a boy, though I was just barely pregnant. We named him Salas, and I drew a picture for his memorial. We cried and then felt healing. I had so many dreams about him that he is still real to me. Thank you for sharing your story. ((hugs))
I'm so sorry. Thank you for coming and sharing yours, as well.